Providing continuity to the project of editorial collaboration between Fomento Cultural Banamex, A.C. and the magazine Arqueología Mexicana, and pooling efforts to support knowledge and diffusion of Mexican folk art, this second special edition is presented on the subject of Textiles of Yesterday and Today. Its content is of singular richness and importance in the context of human creation.
In a diversity of forms and expressions, art has arisen from knowledge, procedures, and techniques dating back to the pre-Hispanic era of Mexico. Through time, it has been enriched, developed and transformed in its evolution through the vice-regal period, 19th century Independence, and modernity. Nevertheless, it continues to preserve a large part of its essence and the purpose for which it was created, in other words, its tradition.
It is Mexican folk art that remains connected to symbols, beliefs, and customs that have sustained it, rooting it in the life of the community producing it and that has continued to be connected to it on a collective and individual level. Thus, the use of tools, fibers, pigments or dyes, designs and ways of doing things have persisted in the textile tradition, for each of these is linked to a particular ethnic group and even serves to single it out, identifying it through its apparel.
The aim of the Program of Support for Folk Art created in 1996 by Fomento Cultural Banamex, A.C. is to recover, study, preserve, and spread awareness of the rich patrimony of Mexico through the creation of these crafts. Textiles are an important part of this legacy, which entails promoting appreciation of the living folk artists who produced it.
At the same time, it is an integral project fostering the training of new generations of craftspeople, who are taught directly by the Great Masters and who learn refined techniques and knowledge in their regional cultural context, placing value on what is their own, dignifying it and learning a skill that provides them with a worthy means of making a living.
This program has also included improving workshops and work implements of the craftspeople themselves, the presentation of the exhibition Great Masters of Folk Art in major museums in Mexico and abroad, the publication of a book of the same name with the most representative types of crafts and specialties in Mexico, support for the sale of pieces, opening up markets, and in general, a positive impact on more than 250 craft workshops in the rural, semi-rural, and urban sphere.
This publication attempts to augment interest in the development of popular Mexican dress, contextualizing it in the universe of textile techniques of surprising complexity in its creation, and in the diversity of attire confected in different regions by expert hands crafting huipiles, rebozos, ponchos, and countless other garments. This wide range of everyday or gala wear is employed not only to cover the body, but also to adorn it, imbuing it with a unique aesthetic.
We are proud to present this special issue as a way of paying tribute to those who have devoted themselves to researching Mexican textiles, their manufacture, and to preserving an art form of immense historical, sociological, and cultural value.

Cándida Fernández de Calderón
Director of Fomento Cultural Banamex, A.C.