Biography
Regina Barrios and Alessandro Cerutti are the founders of Caravana Americana, a trade show connecting Latin American brands to buyers across the region, and Lago, a retail chain in Mexico offering brands access to consumers in the local market. The pair have welcomed brands and retailers from major markets like Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador and Venezuela as well as emerging markets in Central America, in a hybrid format that combines a B2B showroom with B2C platforms for the consuming public. The regional focus provides designers with access to a much larger wholesale market than most trade shows in their home countries. Since Caravana Americana’s inception in 2016, the biannual fair, which showcases fashion and homewares, has seen interest grow from buyers beyond the region in Europe, North America and Australasia.
In Barrios and Cerutti’s May 2022 edition of the trade show, buyers from Mexican department store chain Liverpool were among 150 retailers looking to diversify their offering with more sustainably sourced and artisanal fashion, which are two areas that Barrios has been focused on since the beginning. “I’m obsessed with quality and rescuing techniques and pushing this special fusion design culture we have here,” said, Barrios, who is director of the trade show and creative director of both the retailer and her own jewellery brand Ishi. Barrios studied industrial engineering at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City before receiving a Master’s degree in sociology from Boston University in the US. Cerutti studied at IULM University in Milan, Italy and at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Spain.