We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Michaela Ullmann a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Michaela thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Supporting Mayan Artisans by bringing their beautiful Textiles to the World

At IXMUYAL (Maya for Woman in the Sky or Heavenly Woman), all products are handmade by indigenous Mayan women in Guatemala.

Both Vanessa and I studied anthropology and we both have always been in love with Mayan textiles. When the Covid pandemic hit, many of our Mayan friends in Guatemala struggled to make a living as tourism was basically dead. It was around the same time that Vanessa and I had gotten very upset about many non-Guatemalan businesses claiming to support the indigenous women behind their products made in Guatemala, while when we looked into it closer, it turned out that they just took advantage of them to present their businesses as supporting a good cause. We decided to start our own small business but to be ethical, valuing the artisans input, craftmanship, and truly giving back to them while also operating in a sustainable way to present an alternative to fast fashion.

We work with vintage Mayan textiles and also have our designs woven for us by local artisans. Each of our products is created on a backstrap loom using techniques that Maya women have used for generations. Each of our designs is one-of-a-kind. Small imperfections can occur with vintage and handmade textiles, and we celebrate these imperfections for what they are: signs that our products are hecho a mano – handmade by Guatemalan artisans.

Each IXMUYAL product comes to life by the collaboration of a small group of people in Guatemala who source and design each piece, and weave and sew the final products. All items are 100% made in Guatemala.

With the purchase of our IXMUYAL pieces, our customers support local indigenous people in Guatemala and help them build a better future for themselves and their children. Everyone involved in creating our IXMUYAL pieces is being paid fair living wages, and the proceeds from our sales go back into new orders and thus continue to support the artesians behind them.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Our designs range from our bestselling kitchen towels and cosmetic bags to table runners, napkins, blouses, pillowcases, and more. All our designs are made 100% in Guatemala and from pre-loved, handwoven traditional Guatemalan textiles. We pride ourselves to be as sustainable as possible by using pre-loved fabrics inside and outside of our designs. The only new material we currently use are zippers (let us know if you know about any companies that make bio-degradable zippers or zippers made from recycled materials!). We also use only minimal packaging as well as bio-degradable mailers.
We are extremely proud to have established Ixmuyal. Going into it, we didn’t know anything about business or marketing but we learned over the years. We are also extremely proud that the artisans we work with don’t work for us but with us. There are many cultural sensitivities that require our respect. We would never ask an artisan to create a design that goes against their cultural sensitivity or religious belief. We value their opinions and are so happy that we can help them create better futures for themselves and their children.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

Vanessa and I are both from Germany. We both studied Cultural Anthropology with an emphasis on the Classic Maya. After university, we lost track of each other. Around 2018, we reconnected. I was living in Los Angeles in the meantime, and Vanessa had moved to Guatemala City. During my sabbatical, I spent a month in Guatemala in 2018 and we instantly reconnected over our love for the Maya culture and the texiles in Guatemala. We played with the idea of starting a small business with which we could immerse ourselves with these beautiful textiles while at the same time bringing them to the world and supporting the ever so talented Mayan weavers. Little did we know at that time that a few years later we would find ourselves in a pandemic lockdown. We learned about the struggles of the Mayan artisans who were left without an income with tourism breaking away, and found ourselves with the extra time needed to hatch a plan for a small business bringing the beautiful craftmanship of Mayan weavers to the world in an ethical and sustainable way.

Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?

There was so much to learn about marketing and sales – and there still is. We really did not know what we were doing when we started out. We began with creating a webpage on Shopify and I tried to teach myself SEO and other things but Shopify never brought us a single customer. Most of our sales at the beginning were to friends, friends of friends, etc. But clearly this wasn’t sustainable. We then created an Instagram account to reach folks beyond our circle of friends, and I researched a few local shops that I thought would be great fits for selling our products. I was very lucky to find a few small brick and mortar business that were willing to support us. Through these collaborations, I also received a lot of feedback on what works/doesn’t work for customers etc. When we realized that Shopify didn’t bring in any customers, we switched to Etsy. And this is where we still are. It’s been really a steep learning curve but we are now at a point where we bring in regular sales via Etsy, but also via our Instagram marketing, as well as dedicated local small markets and a few small boutiques we are in. We are very proud of our journey and the support we have received over the years.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ixmuyal.com
• Instagram: @Ixmuyal
• Facebook: Ixmuyal