TEHUANA: Threads of Gold is a monumental art book that documents and celebrates one of Mexico’s most powerful cultural expressions: the traditional textiles, ceremonial attire, and goldsmithing of the Zapotec women of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca.

Published to accompany the Tehuana exhibition at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, the book functions both as an art object and a cultural archive. Through stunning photography, essays by leading scholars, and the direct testimonies of women, men, and muxes from the Isthmus, it captures the extraordinary garments, embroidery traditions, ceremonial dresses, jewelry, and textile craftsmanship preserved in the LE-M Ehun Museoa collection—known among textile scholars and collectors for preserving rare examples of this ceremonial dress, increasingly difficult to find in public museums.

Threads of Gold explores how Tehuana dress became far more than just regional clothing; it fused pre-Hispanic weaving traditions with Spanish influences in tailoring, lacework, and imported fabrics to become a symbol of feminine power, indigenous pride, social identity, and Mexican cultural heritage. This seemingly simple garment exemplifies a visual language that is, at once, identity and memory, which is why figures such as Frida Kahlo famously adopted Tehuana dress as a statement of identity. At its core, this book tells the story of a people through thread, fabric, metal, ritual, and voice.

About The Author

Arantzatzu Laresgoiti Servitje studied Philosophy at Universidad Panamericana and has training in gemology. She has dedicated more than thirty years to the study, preservation, and collecting of traditional dress from the indigenous cultures of southeastern Mexico. Adriana Konzevik Cabib is a Mexican historian, editor, and cultural manager with more than thirty-five years of experience in cultural heritage and academic publishing, who has served as Director of the National Fund for Culture and the Arts (FONCA). Her work includes publications on Mexican visual and photographic heritage. Antonio Saborit is the director of the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.