Lucuma Designs celebrates the beauty in everything handmade! With sustainability in mind, we seek to benefit people and our Mother Earth ahead of profits. Inspired by love for nature and rooted in tradition, our fair trade gifts and fine crafts support cottage industries in Peru and Costa Rica.
We take pride in our personal connections and strive to do business in a way that is good for the artists, the gift givers, receivers, and everyone in between. Equally important to us, is offering you personalized service and attention to detail that exceeds expectations.
Lucuma Designs is a proud member of the Fair Trade Federation and 1% for the Planet. With every purchase, you build a kinder and greener world!
Our Founders’ Story
As an American-Peruvian duo, Don and I had a crazy idea: what if we could share the best of Peruvian craftsmanship with the world and build opportunities for talented artists while doing what we love. Don’s know-how and curiosity for new technologies paired well with my eye for good design and passion for traditional handicrafts as we launched Lucuma Designs in 1998.
Soon after, we learned about the fair trade movement and discovered within it our bigger purpose. Through the years, our understanding and commitment to fair trade practices and values of social justice, solidarity, and equality grew little by little to become a way of life. Recently, we felt the need to become better stewards of the Earth, and so Lucuma Designs joined the 1% For the Planet movement to step up our sustainability efforts.
Over the past 20 years, with the help of our local team in Lima, we have been nurturing personal connections with our Peruvian artist partners. Side by side with our gourd artists in Huancayo, knitters in Puno, clay artists in Lima and Arequipa, alabaster carvers in Ayacucho and in few other places, our journey together continues to surprise and inspire us.
Since 2018, we also call as friends artists from the indigenous community of Boruca, Costa Rica. Their exquisitely carved balsa wood masks, like no other in the world, give testimony to their rich cultural heritage and talent.
These long term relationships allow us to co-create our handmade and fair trade gift collections which are sold in over 500 specialty stores and museums within the US and Canada.
All around, we believe that when business gets infused with compassion, it has the power to open hearts and change the world, one handicraft at a time. Thank you for sharing this adventure!
Alessandra Bravo & Don Blackowiak
co-founders, Lucuma Designs
