“Working in a third-world country will be a logistical nightmare.”
“No one will want such bright patterns on shoes.”
“Why aren’t your sales higher already?”
These are a few of the sorts of things people said to me as I started PATOS, a line of modern sneakers made with traditional Peruvian textiles that I’ve spent the last two years bringing to market. The idea for the business came to me during my freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania. I was visiting extended family in Argentina and met an artisan named Rafael at a flea market there.
