Hairan Zuchelli is a Designer, Consultant, Textile Artist, and researcher of ethnic garments. With her work she helps productions create life experiences possible through manufacturing, precision engineering, technical innovation, and fiber artistry. As a dress historian she researches African Diaspora in colonial Latin America and Creole US and takes particular interest in maintaining the memory, heritage, and visual culture representation of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).
Brazilian born and residing in the United States, the artist is a Neo-tropicalist and is the creator of the project Baronesa Brasileira (Brazilian Baroness) where she talks about Brazilian BIPOC history in an accessible and decolonial way through the analysis and study of its various art.
She started her love for history when she went to law school at age 16 and found out about the lawsuits some enslaved women were able to file against their captors. She spent the last years conducting research in the archives of Brazil, Portugal, Spain, and Italy examining notarial, naval, and legal documents of the period. Being so young, she went back to school to study Fashion Design and Pedagogy, and now, back in the education field, she got certified by Cornell University in Diversity and Inclusion and assists productions on stage and screen to tell minorities stories more accurately. She is currently working on her book of the project Brazilian Baroness.
Law, teaching, and Arts are her true loves and above all, samba. Like any malandra, she is another baroness and academic of samba culture, where she has learned some of the trades that started her career. That’s Hairan Zuchelli, mixed-race, of humble origin, one more daughter of a Maria like many.
Where to find me:
Hairan’s talk is titled “From “Chintzy” to “Madrastique”!”:
Silk Roads textiles in Latin America: Chintz and Madras.
Costumers of Color 