The Quechua Drop
$95
Long drop earrings with woven Andean textile tassels in red, gold, and black, hanging from a small hammered brass disc.
Materials
Andean textile threads (red, gold, black), small brass disc
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Why Liz Chose It
“Rosa's tassels still seem to sway with the Andean wind. I bought the pair straight off her own ears — some things you simply can't leave a mountain without.”
— Elizabeth Groch, Founder
The Story of This Piece
The Quechua Drop earrings are a bridge between ancient Andean textile tradition and modern jewelry design. The tassels are woven using the same techniques that produced the finest textiles of the Inca Empire — techniques that predate European contact by centuries and are still practiced in the highland villages around Cusco.
Each earring features threads hand-dyed with natural pigments: the red from cochineal insects, the gold from a local flowering plant, the black from mineral-rich mud found in specific riverbeds. The colors are not arbitrary — in Quechua tradition, red represents the earth and blood of ancestors, gold represents the sun and prosperity, and black represents the cosmos and the unknown.
The small hammered brass disc at the top of each earring is shaped by hand, giving each pair a subtle asymmetry that makes them feel alive. When worn, the tassels move with a gentle sway that catches light and attention in equal measure.
The Artisan
Rosa Quispe
Age 31 · Chinchero village near Cusco, Peru
Rosa Quispe grew up in Chinchero, a small village perched at 12,000 feet in the Andes, where weaving is not a hobby but a way of life. She learned to spin yarn before she learned to read, sitting beside her mother and aunts as they worked their backstrap looms in the thin mountain air.
At 22, Rosa began experimenting with incorporating her weaving skills into jewelry — an innovation that initially puzzled her family but quickly proved its worth when tourists began seeking her out by name. She developed a technique for creating the miniature tassels used in The Quechua Drop that is uniquely hers, combining traditional Quechua patterns with a modern sensibility.
Rosa is now 31 and runs a small cooperative of six women weavers in Chinchero. She is the first person in her family to have a bank account, and she uses her earnings to fund her younger siblings' education. She speaks Quechua, Spanish, and a growing amount of English — learned from YouTube videos she watches on her phone after her children fall asleep.