Sandra Russo is the Founder and CEO of Sandilou Textile, a textile company located in Haiti. She was raised by her artist-mother, Edith Lataillade and grew up in the constant company of female artists.

Attending Saturday art school, Sandra was fortunate to learn from famous Haitian artists like Tiga and Patrick Vilaire. Born and raised in Haiti where art is a way of life, she considered it quite logical to enter into that already familiar field so she later attended college in Miami where she majored in art (sculpture and photography).

Sandra and her husband, Fred Russo, started Sandilou in 2012. The name Sandilou was selected because it represented one of the things in the Caribbean that is considered essential, namely family - be it biological or “heart family” as Sandra calls it. One such “heart family”, Sandra’s “uncle”, a St. Lucian practicing medicine in Jamaica, would continuously get the names of Sandra and her sister Lilou totally mixed up. To solve that problem, he finally decided to call them both Sandilou. That name therefore is a constant reminder to her of the bonds between family and close family friends.

The interest in painting on fabric was born when Sandra and her husband did a prêt-à-porter with Haitian textile. The result was too plain, and the need for prints became evident to her. Soon after, they moved to the Caribbean island of Grenada, spending 10 adventure-filled years in the Spice Isle. While there, Sandra began painting scarves and they sold well, so upon returning to Haiti, she pursued her new passion in a place where the production process was easier and she was able to be close to her family.

Today, Sandilou is still a small textile company with 10 employees, but they are able to artfully transform fabric with paint, dyes and appliques to produce beautiful fashion pieces - slow fashion, fashion accessories and soft furnishings. A team of artists hand paint free-style, on blank fabrics with dyes and paint and silkscreen. Actual human hands, as opposed to machines are used as much as possible, so the company’s appliques are done by a group of women in the south of Haiti in the towns of Abricots and Paradis des Indiens. Sandilou’s designs vary depending on the artist and current trends but Sandra and her team always use nature as their main source of inspiration, combined with their Caribbean culture, its rhythm, colors and joie de vivre.

Production usually consists of slow fashion and seasonless, “we are not a fashion house with collections. We produce easy-wear, just like the Caribbean - we are happy and easy, we’re a lifestyle that’s a visual feast, effortless, with little stress and in no hurry to change what is comfortable,” Sandra explained. She believes the Caribbean lifestyle is one where “… we still enjoy moments with nature, friends, family (close and extended) and have fun at carnival, where time has another rhythm and light makes everything beautiful,” and this is all reflected in the textile her company produces.