From Headwear to Handbags, Magnetic Midnight's New Launch

There’s a time in the day when both magnetic poles align between the sun and an observer standing on the Earth’s surface. This moment is said to be the optimum time for viewing auroras. One designer sought to create pieces for those to wear during that precise moment. The item? An ornate, made-to-order, handmade headpiece by Paris-born, Colombian designer, Lucia Echavarria. “Magnetic Midnight creations differ from conventional accessories, shining best and attracting all observers, like the auroras, during the late magnetic midnight hours,” says her press release.

These distinct Magnetic Midnight headpieces, each a modern reflection of love for traditional, Colombian craftsmanship, have quickly become an it-girl favorite. Whether worn while dancing under the palm trees into the wee hours or simply sitting around with old and new friends in old and new cities, her bijoux de tête possess an innate and inevitable power of attraction.

This season, Echavarria is expanding her line of avant-garde, headpieces to handbags, inspired by the Iraca palm leaf weaving technique she discovered on a trip to Usiacurí, a town in the Colombian department of Atlántico, in 2015. Lucia felt that the delicate material of the palm leaf and the lace-like technique, which inspired her second collection of headpieces, could permeate beautifully into handbags, and so she set out to fuse the essence of this traditional Usiacurí technique into her own designs.

Each bag in her new collection uses the humble Iraca palm to weave intricate patterns, creating webs of flowers, spirals, and stripes. The bags are vibrant and colorful, and in some cases, dipped in gold to enhance their beauty. The mere workmanship and intricacies of the traditional craft are etched into every silhouette in a beautiful and modern way, creating a line of collectible evening bags that are more than just that. They’re truly objets d’art.