OUR ORIGINS
Haku Handmade was founded in 2016 by Alejandra Calvache. After a trip to a city in the Ecuadorian Andes, she realized there were very skilled leather artisans that were just lacking a little guidance to improve their designs to increase their sales. Therefore, she decided to create a line of leather accessories, born of the artisans’ extensive crafting knowledge and of her desire to create high quality and innovative products that would help them “revive” this industry and preserve their jobs. They succeeded and by 2021 Haku Handmade incorporated new communities with other crafting skills and natural materials to follow their mission:
To create sustainable contemporary accessories that celebrate and preserve heritage craftsmanship while empowering artisans with fair living wages.
BEHIND THE NAME
Haku means “let’s go” in Kichwa language, the mother tongue of the people who live in the Andean Mountains, and the language some of our artisans speak. We wanted to connect the Ecuadorian culture to the world and found an empowering word to do so. Haku seeks to create unique products honoring crafters and materials through collaborative design and knowledge exchange.
OUR BELIEFS
Fair Trade: Our business relationships are transparent and fair
Quality: We combine top-notch raw materials and attention to detail
Sustainability: We respect the earth and what it gives us
Traceability: We only use materials whose origin we know
Artisan: We value handcrafted work
Made in Ecuador: We are proud of our country and its potential
THE MAKERS: ETHICALLY HANDCRAFTED BY ARTISANS IN ECUADOR
We work closely with independent, highly-skilled multigenerational artisans in Ecuador. Each product is made from start to finish by their talented hands. They all work in small workshops at home and receive a mutually agreed upon fairtrade price for their work. Our woven textiles locally known as “fajas” are produced in a pedal loom by the Morales family. For the leather products, we have partnered with 8 artisans with more than 20 years of experience in leather crafting. We also collaborate with a community of 21 women living in a remote region of Ecuador. They are our cabuya fiber artisans who carry out the entire production process from the harvest of the leaf to the weaving of the final product. This allows them to contribute to the family income and gives them freedom. We believe partnerships with independent artisans to be one of the best methods of job creation in low-income rural areas.