Plate M-12 · 1,417 stores · 301–450 of 1417 · curated ORBIS register
Ueba Esou makes and sells natural pigments for Japanese painting, continuing a Kyoto business established in 1751. Koel works with handloom weaving and block printing in Pakistan, making clothing alongside home textiles such as ajrak chaddars. Le Costantine (Tessitura) uses wooden looms near Lecce for handwoven rugs and scarves, with finishing also completed by hand.
What makes great craft & ateliers?
This plate lists 1,417 shops in 130 countries. Paris has the most with 15, followed by Delhi with 14. Among these shops, 84 describe made-to-order work, 21 offer repairs, 151 sell online and 9 work by appointment, going by their own descriptions.
Ask who made the piece: ask whether the maker is in the workshop, or whether the shop sells other makers' work.
Ask how it was made: ask about the materials and the process, and whether a piece can be made to order.
Ask how it will travel: ask for packing or shipping for anything fragile, bulky or heavy.
Explore craft & ateliers
Use the city plates when they appear below, or open any store for its official door and related ORBIS city and craft links.
This Jodhpur Park shop curates crafts, food, books, and textiles sourced from artisans across all 23 districts of West Bengal, covering terracotta and clay work, jute, kantha embroidery, brassware, and Bengali-language books. It positions itself as a single stop for regional Bengal craft rather than a manufacturer of any one item.
Best for Terracotta, jute, and kantha crafts from across Bengal
Nicola Smith throws and glazes Kilnhouse's tableware in Johannesburg, working three signature ranges — Spilled Milk, Lines in Sand and Speckle — defined by contrasting raw and glazed clay surfaces. Mugs, carafes and platters are hand-finished individually, with custom and sculptural commissions taken alongside the standing collections.
An independent Amami Oshima store curating island-made goods. Its shelves hold authentic Oshima Tsumugi silk, kokuto brown-sugar shochu, kimono accessories and local crafts.
Deshimaru is a Kirishima-based cut glass studio founded by artisan Tsutomu Deshimaru to continue Satsuma kiriko, the layered cut-glass technique that traces to the Shimazu-era workshops of the 1850s and was revived in 1985. The studio trains apprentices in the gradation cutting that gives each piece its signature sparkle and sells finished glassware directly from its own site.
Best for Gradient-cut glassware and custom Satsuma kiriko pieces
A weaver and manufacturer of authentic Oshima Tsumugi silk kimono, counted among the world's three great textiles. On Amami Oshima it runs mud-dyeing (Kusaki) workshops, studio tours and a museum.
Best for Authentic Oshima Tsumugi silk and mud-dyeing
Shimadzu Satsuma Kiriko revives the faceted, color-graded cut glass first developed for the Shimazu clan in the 1850s, a technique that had lain dormant for roughly a century before the company restored it. Operated under Shimadzu Kogyo, its artisans hand-cut each sake cup, tumbler, and vase in the gradient style unique to Satsuma kiriko.
Best for Color-graded cut glass sake cups and tumblers
Inoue Kamaboko hand-forms fish paste into kamaboko, hanpen and koban-age using whole fish selected for the Kamakura trade, a craft the shop calls the daiginjo of fish. It sells directly from its own storefronts near Kamakura Station rather than through department-store counters.
Founded in 1900 and rooted in ham-making techniques introduced to Kamakura by British trader William Curtis in 1874, this house still cures loin ham, boneless ham, sausage and canned specialties by hand. It has supplied hotels and Olympic events in Tokyo and Sapporo while keeping its original Kamakura workshop running.
Godfrey Ssegujja, a Kampala-born painter trained at Kyambogo University, stretches lubugo barkcloth over primed canvas and builds layered acrylic paintings that keep the material's beaten-bark texture visible beneath the pigment. His work threads the UNESCO-recognized Buganda craft into contemporary fine art addressing everyday Ugandan life, and he also runs free art workshops for children around the city.
Katani sells gold-leaf-decorated craft objects and materials from its Kanazawa workshop. Hands-on sessions let visitors apply leaf themselves, turning the stop into both a purchase and a technique demonstration.
Best for Kanazawa gold-leaf craft goods and hands-on gold-leaf workshops.
Gold Leaf Sakuda has manufactured and applied gold and silver leaf in Kanazawa since 1919, evolving from a leaf wholesaler into a maker of gilded folding screens and craft goods. Near the Higashi Chaya district, the company runs a factory tour, a small gold-leaf museum, and hands-on gilding workshops alongside its retail shop.
Best for Gold leaf workshops and gilded folding screens
Founded in 1975 by Kuniko Asano, recognized as Japan's first female metal-leaf manufacturer, Hakuichi grew into an eleven-store Kanazawa company built around a city that produces over 98 percent of the country's gold leaf. Its flagship Hakukokan complex sells gold-leafed lacquerware, cosmetics, and confections, and includes a renovated Higashi Chaya teahouse known for gold-leaf-topped soft serve.
Best for Gold leaf souvenirs and gilded lacquerware
Hakuichi’s Higashiyama store sells gold-leaf tableware, accessories, cosmetics and decorative crafts. The range demonstrates how Kanazawa leaf moves from traditional ornament into practical gifts and contemporary surfaces.
Best for Kanazawa gold-leaf tableware, accessories, and cosmetics.
Hakuza produces gold leaf using the centuries-old entsuke technique, a method recognized as an intangible cultural asset, and supplies leaf used in restoring national treasures and temples. From its Kanazawa storefronts, including one in the historic Higashi Chaya district, the company sells gold-leafed tableware, interior objects, cosmetics, and edible leaf for everyday use and formal gifts.
A gold-leaf manufacturer with a showroom selling leaf-decorated goods and a workshop for applying gold leaf to take-home objects. The company was established in Kanazawa in 1898.
Best for Gold-leaf decorated goods and hands-on gold-leaf application workshops since 1898 in Kanazawa
A fifth-generation workshop and shop making ceremonial paper decorations and gift wrapping with Kaga mizuhiki cords. The craft has been carried by five generations of the business.
Best for Fifth-generation Kaga mizuhiki cord ceremonial paper decorations and gift wrapping
Kaga embroidery workshop in Kanazawa founded in 1912 by Sutaro Imai; now run by his great-granddaughter Sachiko Yokoyama, a nationally recognized traditional craftsperson, producing hand-stitched silk, gold and silver thread work.
Best for Kaga embroidery craftsmanship since 1912
The Kaga embroidery workshop known today as Kaga-nui IMAI began in 1912 in Kanazawa, founded by Sutaro Imai as 'Nui no Imai.' The craft itself dates back further, transmitted from Kyoto in the early Muromachi period alongside Buddhist teachings and originally used for altar decoration, using silk, gold and silver thread worked by hand into three-dimensional designs that cannot be replicated by machine. The workshop passed through a second-generation head, Fukueda, and a third, Kiyoshi, before reaching its current representative, Sachiko Yokoyama, the founder's great-granddaughter. Yokoyama was designated a National Traditional Craftsperson in 2008 and established the current Kaga-nui IMAI studio in 2011, continuing production of traditional pieces alongside newer, contemporary-facing designs.
Kaga Yuzen Kaikan is Kanazawa's dedicated center for Kaga Yuzen, the hand-painted silk-dyeing technique developed for kimono under the Kaga domain, with exhibit rooms showing newly produced pieces alongside the dyeing tools and materials behind them. Its ground floor sells finished Kaga Yuzen textiles and smaller accessories, while a basement studio runs hands-on dyeing workshops.
Best for Kaga Yuzen silk textiles and dyeing workshops
A city craft shop exhibiting and selling work by Kanazawa makers across multiple traditional craft disciplines. The shop was founded in 1997.
Best for Kanazawa makers' traditional crafts across multiple disciplines, since 1997
Kanazawa Crafts Hirosaka has occupied its address at 1-2-25 Hirosaka, in central Kanazawa (postal code 920-0962), since opening in 1997. The shop operates as a dedicated showcase for the city's traditional craft trades, describing its mission as displaying and selling what its own materials call 'rare traditional crafts of Kanazawa,' distinguishing it from conventional souvenir retail. Its premises span two floors of gallery space, given over to rotating exhibitions that introduce individual makers working across a range of disciplines — lacquerware, woodworking, ceramics, textile dyeing, glasswork, metalwork, and weaving are among the craft categories represented in its exhibition programme, each rotation drawing on different local artisans rather than a fixed, permanent selection. The shop is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., closed on Mondays and over the New Year period, and can be reached directly by phone or email, a level of direct access typical of a small, specialist gallery rather than a department-store craft counter. Nearly three decades after opening, it continues to function as one of central Kanazawa's few venues built specifically around introducing visitors to the working artisans behind the city's lacquer, dyeing, and metalwork traditions, rather than simply stocking their finished goods alongside unrelated merchandise.
Founded in 1780 in Kanazawa's Musashigatsutsuji district, Nosaku has sold Kaga maki-e lacquerware alongside Wajima and Yamanaka lacquer pieces across eight generations. It also runs hands-on maki-e gold-inlay workshops for visitors at its Kanazawa shops.
Best for Kaga maki-e lacquerware and hands-on maki-e workshops
Nosaku dates its founding to 1780, when Notoya Sakutaro opened a lacquerware shop in Kanazawa's Musashigatsutsuji district. Eight generations later the family business still operates under a stated motto, 'the shop exists for customers,' and continues to sell lacquerware out of Kanazawa rather than having relocated or franchised out the family name.
The shop's range covers three related but distinct Ishikawa Prefecture lacquer traditions: Kanazawa lacquerware decorated in the Kaga maki-e style, in which gold or silver powder is sprinkled into wet lacquer to build up a design; Wajima Nuri, the multi-layered lacquer technique associated with the port town of Wajima; and Yamanaka Nuri, known for lacquering over finely turned wood. Selling all three under one roof lets Nosaku present Ishikawa's lacquer output as a regional family rather than a single house style.
Beyond retail, Nosaku offers maki-e experience workshops where visitors can try the gold-leaf inlay technique themselves, alongside custom lacquerware commissions and a repair service for existing pieces. The business operates a main shop in Kanazawa's Hirokoji district and a second location inside JR Kanazawa Station, plus a small tea room, Urushi no Mi, on site.
Based in Kanazawa's Nomachi district, Tsuda Mizuhiki works in Kaga mizuhiki, the local style of decorative paper-cord tying used for noshi wrapping and celebratory gifts, and extends the craft into three-dimensional cord sculptures depicting seasonal motifs. The studio also makes mizuhiki jewelry and DIY kits, one of which earned a Kanazawa Brand Excellent New Product distinction, and offers hands-on cord-tying workshops.
A historic Kanazawa sake brewery with shop, tours and tastings. The merchant house and brewery preserve Edo-period fabric and traditional craft details.
Best for Merchant house and brewery preserve Edo-period fabric and traditional craft details
Urban Truck Art was started by co-founders Maaz and Qurratulain to carry Pakistani truck painting onto handcrafted goods for buyers outside the country. Each piece is made by hand rather than printed, translating the floral panels and lettering styles seen on the country's cargo trucks onto smaller decor and accessory items.
Best for Handcrafted truck-art decor and accessories
Lokta is handmade paper from the bark of the Himalayan Daphne shrub — naturally insect-resistant, used for centuries for official records and Buddhist texts.
Best for Authentic lokta paper journals, cards, gift wrap
On Dabali Marg in Thamel, Healing Singing Bowls works with master artisan Santa Ratna Shakya to hand-hammer seven-metal bowls, gongs, and tingshas using techniques passed down through Newari metalworking families. The family-run workshop shapes each bowl by striking it hundreds of times rather than casting it in a mold.
Himalayan Hemp sources its fiber from remote western districts such as Darchula, Bajura, and Rolpa, where farmers have grown and hand-spun hemp at elevations up to 3,500 meters for centuries. Every textile is made by hand in Nepal, keeping the weaving within the highland communities that cultivate the plant.
Lovely Incense was founded by Dipendra Dangol roughly twenty-five years ago in Thamel, Kathmandu's tourist quarter, where he began selling a limited range of traditional Tibetan incense to visitors.
Best for Handmade Nepalese and Tibetan-style incense from a Thamel-founded house with its own factory
Lovely Incense was founded by Dipendra Dangol roughly twenty-five years ago in Thamel, Kathmandu's tourist quarter, where he began selling a limited range of traditional Tibetan incense to visitors. Within two years he saw enough demand to build a dedicated production factory covering both Nepalese and Tibetan incense styles, moving from a single storefront into manufacturing.
The company positions itself as Nepal's only sustainable incense brand, sourcing ingredients responsibly and combining long-standing Himalayan incense-making methods with more deliberate eco-friendly practices in how materials are gathered and processed. Alongside the fragrance business, Dangol has built the factory around local employment, particularly for women in the Kathmandu Valley, framing the incense trade as a livelihood project as much as a craft one.
From its start as a small tourist-facing stall in Thamel, Lovely Incense's move into its own production facility marks a trajectory shared by several Kathmandu Valley incense makers: a shop built to serve foreign visitors that grew, once demand proved durable, into a manufacturer supplying both the Nepalese and Tibetan incense traditions the Kathmandu Valley has long been known for.
Rincheling Gallery sits directly across from the Boudha Stupa, where owner Tashi Lama's painters hand-render Buddhas, deities, and mandalas using traditional mineral pigments and Vajrayana iconography. Each composition follows the strict proportional grids passed down through generations of thangka masters.
Termatree's statues are cast and consecrated in the Kathmandu Valley by artisans from the Vajracharya and Shakya castes, the Newari lineages historically responsible for the valley's sacred bronze and copper work. Each finished piece undergoes a consecration ritual before it leaves the workshop.
Tsering Art School has trained thangka painters in the Karma Gadri lineage since 1996, when Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche founded it in Boudhanath under the Dilgo Khyentse Fellowship. Students complete a six-year course before their finished scrolls are sold to support Shechen Monastery's cultural preservation work.
Verrerie d'Art de Kaysersberg has hand-blown glass in its vineyard-side workshop since 2002, shaping tableware, lighting and decorative pieces over an open flame. Visitors can watch the glassblowers work molten glass at the bench, in what the studio calls its air-and-fire demonstrations.
Skallywag on Sixth Street calls itself Kemah's first craft-beer pub. The SCENE Magazine's 2019 anniversary piece dated the tap wall to 2013; the kitchen still sends out scratch burgers, wings and tacos beside a rotating board of local beer.
Friedrich Schulz founded this sail loft in 1897; the firm has since sewn racing and cruising sails for clients from Prince Heinrich of Prussia to the four-masted bark now sailing as the Sea Cloud. Today's Schultz-Segel GmbH still builds spinnakers, gennakers, rigging, and canvas covers from its Kiel loft using computer-plotted patterns.
Best for Custom sails and rigging, maritime heritage
Azizi Life sells fair-trade baskets, jewellery, textiles and home décor made through Rwandan women’s cooperatives. Maker and cooperative information helps shoppers connect individual products with the communities behind them.
Best for Fair-trade baskets, jewellery, and textiles made by Rwandan women's cooperatives
Sisters Joy Ndungutse and Janet Nkubana built Gahaya Links into a network of over 4,000 weavers across 52 cooperatives, producing the agaseke peace baskets - each one hand-stitched from bamboo reed, sisal, and sweetgrass in roughly 30,000 individual stitches. The company reports that 80 percent of its weavers now hold bank accounts and 40 percent have gone on to start their own businesses.
Six painter brothers, led by twins Innocent Nkurunziza and Emmanuel Nkuranga, opened this artist-run gallery and studio complex in 2012 to give Kigali's contemporary artists a place to work and show. Up to ten resident artists produce paintings, sculpture, and craft on-site, sold through the center's gallery alongside its café and performance space.
Best for Contemporary Rwandan painting and sculpture
Brothers Johnny and Paddy McGuire opened Bricín on Killarney's High Street in 1991, pairing an Irish restaurant with a ground-floor craft shop. The shop stocks traditional and contemporary Irish crafts made by local Kerry craftspeople as well as makers from further afield around the country.
Best for Irish crafts and traditional Kerry cooking
Rumi and Bappaditya Biswas opened Byloom in 2011 to work directly with weaving clusters producing jamdani, double-cloth, and fine muslin cotton, adapting handloom techniques for everyday wear rather than only formal saris. The Kolkata store and its weaver partners also turn out kurtas, dupattas, scarves, and handwoven home textiles.
Best for Jamdani and muslin sarees woven with contemporary designs
Genesis Art Gallery deals in contemporary Indian painting and prints, representing established and emerging artists including Jogen Chowdhury, S.H. Raza, Suhas Roy and Ram Kinker Baij. Founded in 1985, the Kolkata gallery sells originals directly online with an authenticity guarantee and has exhibited at the Contemporary Art Fair India.
Best for Contemporary Indian paintings and prints by established and emerging artists
Product pages identify fibre, warp and weft details for individual saris and fabrics, helping buyers compare construction. The catalogue also warns that small irregularities are characteristic of handloom production rather than defects.
Best for West Bengal handloom textiles from state cooperatives
Operating since 1993, Weavers Studio produces hand-woven silks and other natural-fiber fabrics with custom embroidery for designers and saree buyers alike. The Ballygunge atelier also runs a textile research and archive arm alongside its retail operation.
Best for Hand-woven silk fabric and embroidered sarees
Founded in 1902, this family-run workshop on aleja Krasińskiego produces stained-glass art. It designs new ecclesiastical and secular windows and restores historic glasswork, taking commissions alongside its adjoining museum.
Best for Commissioned stained glass and restoration
Batik Boutique traces to 2009, when founder Amy Blair partnered with Ana, a single mother, to turn wax-resist batik cloth into wearable gifts, later formalizing as a Kuala Lumpur social enterprise by 2013-14. The label now works with more than 400 artisans from marginalized communities across Malaysia, providing fair wages and skills training in batik.
Best for Fair-trade batik apparel and corporate gifts made with Malaysian artisans
Batik Boutique began as a friendship rather than a business plan. In 2009, founder Amy Blair met Ana, a single mother in Kuala Lumpur who could sew but needed steady income; together they started turning batik cloth into small gifts, which Amy gave to family and friends before realizing there was a viable enterprise in it.
The operation moved online in 2012 and was formally incorporated as a Malaysian social enterprise around 2013-14, headquartered at The Row on Jalan Doraisamy in Chow Kit, with further boutiques opened in Putrajaya, Mont Kiara, and Desaru Coast. The company frames its work explicitly around fair wages and skills training rather than charity, paying artisans for output through the traditional wax-resist batik process.
The network has since grown to more than 400 artisans drawn from marginalized communities across Malaysia, and the label states it has produced over a million products since its early years of operation. Alongside retail and e-commerce, it runs corporate and bulk-order lines and batik workshops, extending the original Amy-and-Ana model into a wider artisan supply chain.
Kuala Lumpur Craft Complex houses three Karyaneka shops selling songket, batik and metal-craft souvenirs, plus a craft museum and workshop village. Malaysia's Kraftangan handicraft agency runs the complex on Jalan Conlay.
Best for Kuala Lumpur Craft Complex houses three Karyaneka shops selling songket
Kuala Lumpur Craft Complex, run by the government's Malaysia Handicraft Development Corporation (Kraftangan Malaysia), is built in a Malay Terengganu architectural style on Jalan Conlay and organized as a one-stop showcase for Malaysian craft rather than a single shop. Retail is split across three named outlets: the Karyaneka Gift Shop for souvenirs, the Karyaneka Corporate Shop for silver, copper, pewter, wood, and crystal pieces, and the Karyaneka Craft Boutique, which specializes in textiles — batik, woven fabric, and hand-woven songket.
A Craft Museum on-site traces the history and manufacturing process behind Malaysian craft through a rotating, diorama-themed exhibition covering motifs, materials, and techniques. The complex also runs a Craft Village where visitors can watch — and in some sessions try — batik-making, ceramics, and metal and pewter work, plus a Preka Centre that connects designers and craft entrepreneurs with current market trends.
The complex is open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., offers a free group chaperone service for visitors, and rents out several halls — including the 600-to-700-capacity Sari Theater — for corporate events and functions.
Batik artist Emilia Tan runs myBatik as a working studio and gallery in Kuala Lumpur, teaching hand-painted, wax-resist batik to corporate groups, schools, and tour visitors. The studio also runs outreach programs bringing batik painting to refugees, children with HIV or dyslexia, and Down Syndrome artists.
Best for Hand-painted batik workshops with community outreach programs
Jalan Geroda 2/1, Larkin, Johor Bahru (also Kuala Lumpur and Shah Alam)
Songket Dunia sells songket and Malay formalwear through its own online shop and outlets. The catalogue is organised by garment rather than by designer, running through sampin songket, kurung songket, kain songket, kurta. Baju Melayu is split between the Teluk Belanga and Cekak Musang collars, with separate nikah and bride ranges for weddings. Handmade premium songket sits alongside ready-to-wear pieces, and orders ship to Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Indonesia.
Sadu House has operated inside a 1936 courtyard residence since 1980, preserving the geometric loom-weaving of Kuwait's Bedouin communities through workshops, a research library, and a small retail shop. Purchases there support weavers directly, since the textiles sold are made with the same techniques the house exists to document.
Best for Handwoven Sadu textiles and Bedouin weaving heritage goods
Aizenkobo is a Kyoto indigo-dyeing workshop and shop set a few blocks from the Nishijin weaving district in Nakagyo Ward, near Nijo Castle.
Best for Naturally fermented indigo textiles from a third-generation Kyoto dye house near Nishijin
Aizenkobo is a Kyoto indigo-dyeing workshop and shop set a few blocks from the Nishijin weaving district in Nakagyo Ward, near Nijo Castle. The novelist Junichiro Tanizaki gave the workshop its name on February 18, 1929; the characters read literally as "indigo-love workshop." Now in its third generation, the business began as an obi maker before its current proprietors — Mrs. Utsuki and her artist husband — steered it toward Western-style indigo garments as kimono sales declined. Mrs. Utsuki has described the shift plainly: "I came to see that sales were dropping," she has said of the years after she married into the family shop.
Aizenkobo dyes with fermented natural indigo rather than a synthetic vat, a process that demands repetition: cotton is dipped roughly 100 times to build depth of color, silk closer to 200. Unlike chemical indigo, the workshop says the natural dye deepens rather than fades with washing and wear, and it markets its cloth's antibacterial and fire-resistant qualities as a byproduct of the fermentation method itself rather than any added finish.
The workshop's reputation has traveled well beyond Kyoto — a piece is held in the British Museum's permanent collection — and by its own account roughly nine in ten customers now come from outside Japan. For a shop that began as word-of-mouth obi-making, that is a marked inversion of its original clientele.
Hangesho sells Kyoto fans -- including summer, decorative, dance and hinoki-cypress fans -- and offers a fan-throwing game experience described as a refined pastime continuing from the Edo period, plus a fan-painting experience where customers decorate a fan surface for craftsmen to finish. It is located near Miyagawa-cho in Kyoto's Higashiyama district.
HOSOO is a Kyoto textile house with roots in Nishijin weaving dating to 1688 and a contemporary interiors range. Its flagship shop offers textiles for furniture and curtains, alongside a gallery devoted to textile exhibitions. The building also has a lounge, while the separate members-only kimono salon is not part of ordinary public shop access.
Best for Nishijin textiles for furniture, curtains and interiors
HOSOO traces its weaving business to Kyoto's Nishijin district in 1688, where patterned textiles are made from pre-dyed yarns. The process involves more than twenty stages shared among specialist craftspeople, rather than a single operation at one loom. That textile tradition now reaches beyond kimono cloth into fabrics and objects intended for use in contemporary interiors.
The Kyoto flagship makes that wider application visible through a shop offering furniture and curtains ordered using HOSOO textiles. The house presents a choice of more than 150 fabrics for this work, giving material selection a central role. Looking at a length of cloth and seeing it on furniture are related parts of the same visit.
A gallery in the building hosts textile exhibitions, while the lounge provides another setting within the flagship. The house also maintains a kimono business, although its members-only salon should not be assumed open to every visitor. For general shopping, begin with the public store and its textile applications rather than planning around access to that private salon.
Kobo Ainoyakata is a traditional indigo dyeing workshop and shop in Ohara, a rural district of Kyoto's Sakyo Ward roughly thirty minutes from the city center.
Best for Ash-lye-fermented Awa indigo textiles and hands-on dyeing sessions in rural Ohara, Kyoto
Kobo Ainoyakata is a traditional indigo dyeing workshop and shop in Ohara, a rural district of Kyoto's Sakyo Ward roughly thirty minutes from the city center. The workshop dyes using the tenneen-aku hakko-date method — natural ash-lye fermentation — a technique established during the Edo period, and works exclusively with Awa indigo grown and fermented in Tokushima, using methods the workshop describes as refined over more than 600 years.
The ash-lye fermentation converts sukumo, concentrated fermented indigo leaf, into a dye bath that can be maintained and redipped across Japan's full seasonal cycle, rather than requiring a fresh vat for each dyeing run. The workshop sells finished indigo textiles and goods through its own online store and hosts hands-on dyeing sessions for visitors by advance booking, out of its studio at 276 Oohnagase-cho in Ohara.
The workshop describes its purpose as preserving "the beautiful Japanese blue" for future generations, a framing that positions it as much a custodian of technique as a retailer, and it treats the ash-lye process itself — not any single finished garment — as the thing being handed down. The workshop publishes detailed process and product information but not a founding date or a clearly identified current proprietor, so those details are deliberately left unstated.
Founded from a 1947 Kyo Zogan damascene workshop by Shintaro Oda, this Higashiyama complex opened as a duty-free crafts center in 1967, gathering Kyoto artisans under one roof selling kimono, woodblock prints, pottery, lacquerware and more.
Best for Kyoto crafts including damascene, kimono, woodblock prints and lacquerware
Kyoto Handicraft Center traces back to 1947, when the Amita Damascene Corporation began as a small studio dedicated to Kyo Zogan — an intricate metal-inlay technique once used to decorate samurai swords. Founder Shintaro Oda expanded the idea in 1967, opening the Kyoto Handicraft Center as a tax-free shopping complex near Heian-jingu Shrine in the Higashiyama district, built specifically to gather craftspeople from multiple disciplines under one roof and give them a shared platform as international tourism to Kyoto grew.
Kyo Zogan damascene remains part of the offering, but the center has expanded well beyond it: kimono and yukata, Japanese woodblock prints, kokeshi and other traditional dolls, hanging scrolls, ornamental swords and armor, lacquerware, wooden crafts and pottery all have space on the floor. The center also runs cultural programming, including opportunities to meet a maiko, an apprentice geisha, adding a live cultural element to what is otherwise a retail visit.
For visitors trying to cover a range of Japanese crafts in a single stop rather than seeking out individual ateliers across the city, the center works as a concentrated, multi-generational survey of Kyoto craftsmanship, still anchored by the damascene work it started with.
The permanent exhibition explains all 74 categories of Kyoto traditional craft through objects, panels, video and touchscreens. Demonstrations by local artisans accompany the displays, and price-tagged examples can be purchased.
Best for Dozens of handicrafts on display — ceramic roof tiles, ornamental hairpins, paper lanterns
Run by the Yoshioka Jin Shoten shibori workshop, which has produced shibori on the site since 1940, the Kyoto Shibori Museum opened in 2001 as Japan's only museum devoted specifically to shibori resist-dyeing. It pairs rotating exhibitions with a retail shop and hands-on dyeing classes.
Best for Japan's only shibori-specialist museum, with a shop and hands-on dyeing classes
The Kyoto Shibori Museum sits on ground where shibori has been produced continuously since 1940, under the Yoshioka Jin Shoten workshop. The museum itself opened in 2001, built specifically to showcase the technique, and describes itself as the only museum in Japan dedicated to shibori.
Exhibitions rotate several times a year, displaying finished works and the traditional tools used across the shibori process — the resist-dyeing method that produces shibori's characteristic bound, stitched or folded patterning. The museum has also begun exhibiting internationally, part of a stated effort to promote the technique beyond Japan.
Visitors can take a shibori class on-site, with class participants receiving free museum admission as part of the experience, and shop for shibori-dyed textiles and traditional tools both in the attached shop and through the museum's online store.
Maisendo sells folding fans, including handmade custom-order fans that its craftspeople finish one by one, and describes its heritage as spanning around 1,200 years of Kyoto fan-making tradition.
Riku Matsuzaki (Kyoai) is a Home-grown, wood-ash-fermented indigo dyeing workshops from a small Oharano, Kyoto studio.
Best for Home-grown, wood-ash-fermented indigo dyeing workshops from a small Oharano, Kyoto studio
Riku Matsuzaki runs a small indigo dyeing workshop in Oharano, a district of Kyoto's Nishikyo Ward, working under the name Kyoai — literally "Kyoto indigo." The workshop cultivates its own indigo and ferments it into sukumo on site, then builds its dye vats with wood-ash lye rather than any synthetic reducing agent, a fully plant-and-mineral process the workshop markets as gentle enough for children and people with sensitive skin to dye alongside an adult.
Matsuzaki offers seasonal hands-on dyeing workshops running from spring through fall, open to both adults and children, and sells finished dyed goods through an online store. The scale is small and single-artisan rather than a manufacturing operation — closer to a craft studio than a production house — which the workshop's own materials present as central to its appeal rather than a limitation.
Matsuzaki has described the work as "encapsulating life with the colors of life," a phrase presented on the workshop's own site as its stated philosophy, and the workshop frames each seasonal session as tied to that plant-and-mineral cycle rather than a fixed, repeatable formula. The workshop publishes its process and philosophy but little independent biographical detail about Matsuzaki, so the entry stays focused on the cultivation, fermentation and seasonal visitor experience that can be verified.
Run by the Yamamoto family, who have dyed kimono in Kyoto for over 50 years, this studio opened its hands-on Dyeing Studio in 1999 — reportedly the only place in Japan letting visitors complete the entire roketsu wax-resist dyeing process.
Best for Reportedly the only place in Japan letting visitors complete the entire roketsu
ROKETSU Dyeing Studio YAMAMOTO grows out of a Kyoto kimono-dyeing business that the Yamamoto family has run for more than fifty years. In 1999 they opened a dedicated Dyeing Studio at their Nishikyogoku workshop, turning a professional textile craft into a visitor experience — reportedly the only place in Japan where guests can walk through the complete roketsu process themselves rather than watching or trying a simplified version.
Roketsu is wax-resist dyeing: a design is roughly sketched onto cotton, then traced in hot wax with a brush, section by section. The cloth goes into an indigo vat, emerging almost black, before a boiling-water bath melts away the wax and reveals the pattern underneath in white against the dyed ground. Visitors choose a textile format — handkerchief, bandana, T-shirt or noren curtain — and dye it themselves under the family's guidance, leaving with a piece that's genuinely their own design rather than a printed souvenir.
The studio has drawn coverage from Japanese newspapers, radio, magazines and television, and visitors from across Japan and abroad, but the operation stays small and hands-on: this is a working family dye house that opened its doors to teaching, not a demonstration built for tour buses.
Shoyeido has made incense in Kyoto since 1705, spanning twelve generations of the same family business. Its incense is still handcrafted there using traditional recipes and aged raw materials, including aged agarwood and sandalwood in the Xiang-do Master's line.
Best for Twelve generations since 1705 — aged agarwood, sandalwood, and the Xiang-do Master's line.
Tatsumura Textile has woven brocade in Nishijin since 1894, when founder Heizo Tatsumura began reconstructing textile patterns held in the Shosoin imperial repository. The house went on to weave ceremonial cloth for imperial enthronements and collaborated with Christian Dior, work still referenced in its current jacquard collections.
Best for Art brocade and Shosoin-pattern jacquard textiles
Ueba Esou has made and sold natural pigments for Japanese-style painting from the same corner of Kyoto's Shimogyo Ward since 1751.
Best for Centuries-old gofun and iwa-enogu mineral pigments for traditional Japanese painting
Ueba Esou has made and sold natural pigments for Japanese-style painting from the same corner of Kyoto's Shimogyo Ward since 1751. The shop opened during a period when the city supported a whole trade in nihonga materials — accounts describe roughly twenty pigment shops operating in the surrounding streets at the trade's peak.
The house specializes in two pigment families central to nihonga: iwa-enogu, ground mineral pigments (some made from lapis lazuli and other stones that command premium prices for their color), and gofun, the white pigment made by grinding calcined shell. Ownership has passed down through the same family for generations; the company's own account of itself describes an eleventh generation now running the business.
Of the pigment shops that once served Kyoto's painters, Ueba Esou describes itself as the last one still trading from its own historic Shimogyo Ward neighborhood — a narrower claim than being Kyoto's last natural-pigment shop overall, since at least one other genuine nihonga pigment specialist, Saiun-do, still operates elsewhere in the city (Nakagyo Ward). It has also extended its shell-grinding craft into a gofun-based nail polish line, "Gofun Nail," which won a Good Design Award in 2015 — a contemporary product built on the same material the shop has processed for over 270 years.
This Lagos ready-to-wear label builds its collections around adire, sourcing the resist-dyed cloth directly from artisans in Osogbo who still hand-tie and indigo-dye it using techniques passed down through generations. Dresses, matching sets and trousers are cut from that fabric rather than printed imitations.
Ilekedi hand-strings waistbeads and matching anklets and bracelets in Lagos, reviving the Yoruba tradition of ilẹ̀kẹ̀ ìdí, once used to mark a girl's growth or a woman's marital status. The beads are sized to shift with the body, a property the brand markets as a natural way to track changes over time.
Koel was founded in 1977 to revive hand-loom weaving and block-printing in Pakistan, dyeing its silks and cottons with natural extracts from leaves, flowers, roots, and bark rather than synthetic pigments. Alongside apparel, the label makes block-printed home textiles such as ajrak chaddars and hand-spun towels, sold through its Lahore store among others.
The weaving workshop at the Le Costantine estate near Lecce works four-shaft wooden looms to produce tapestries, rugs, blankets and cashmere, linen and silk scarves by hand, a craft the foundation revived originally to support local women's independence. Every piece gets its finishing done by hand rather than machine.
Marrocco built its name quarrying and carving pietra leccese, the soft golden limestone behind Lecce's baroque facades, under founder Salvatore Marrocco, remembered locally as the "re" of the Salento quarries after his death. The firm still cuts and sculpts the stone into architectural elements and decorative pieces from Cursi, a few kilometers outside Lecce.
Best for Carved and quarried pietra leccese stonework
Luis Torres Muñoz and his two sons opened a six-person boot workshop in León in the 1970s, formally launching production in April 1978 and beginning to export to the United States by 1986. Caborca now runs four León factories turning out roughly 8,000 pairs of cowboy boots a week through a construction process the company documents as more than 200 individual steps.
Best for Traditionally constructed cowboy boots at scale
Made-in-France clothing label founded in Roubaix in 2013 by textile engineer Christele Merter, originally incubated within the Happychic group before becoming fully independent in 2019; works with more than 30 French garment workshops.
Best for Happychic's made-in-France Roubaix textile revival
La Gentle Factory was created in 2013 by Christele Merter, an engineer trained at Roubaix's National School of Arts and Textile Industries (ENSAIT), initially to supply sustainable, French-made pieces to Happychic group brands including Jules, Brice and Bizzbee. It became a standalone brand in January 2017 and left the Happychic group to operate independently in 2019. The label is based in Roubaix and works with a network of more than 30 French workshops covering every stage of production, while employing around 15 people directly and supporting roughly 26 further jobs among its subcontractors. It launched with menswear and has since expanded into womenswear and childrenswear, positioned at accessible price points.
Allpa was started by Lima sociologists Nelly Cánepa and María del Carmen de la Fuente after years spent traveling Peru's regions and working directly with artisan cooperatives on pottery, textiles and home decor. As a member of the World Fair Trade Organization, the company ties its product design to fair pay and long-term capacity-building with the makers behind each piece.
Lisbon artist's studio and shop — Portuguese contemporary sculptures blending craft, popular culture, and monumental scale.
Best for Large-scale contemporary sculpture from Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos's studio shop
Joana Vasconcelos is a Portuguese contemporary visual artist born in 1971 with a 30-year career built around monumental sculptures. Her Lisbon-based studio, the Atelier Joana Vasconcelos (located in the Alcântara district), manages over 50 employees and has operated since 2006. The hangar-like workspace overlooks the Tagus River port, populated with monumental sculptures, sketches, mock-ups, and teams weaving, beading, crocheting, strategizing, and designing. Her work fuses craftsmanship, popular culture, and monumental scale, transforming everyday objects into immersive sculptural environments. Her mixed-media sculptures—built primarily in various textiles—explore themes of identity, gender, heritage, and collective memory through a distinctly baroque vocabulary. The youngest artist and only woman to exhibit at the Palace of Versailles (2012), her exhibition was France's most-visited in 50 years. In 2018, she became the first Portuguese artist to exhibit at Guggenheim Bilbao with a major retrospective.
Founded in 1741 on Rua do Alecrim, Fábrica Sant'Anna is a working Lisbon tile workshop, where painters still trace each azulejo freehand rather than by machine transfer. The workshop produces both museum-grade reproductions of 18th-century patterns and custom commissions, made on the same premises where the craft began nearly three centuries ago.
Lisbon Tile Painting teaches hand-painted azulejo tile making using mineral pigments and real brushes in the majolica method, with pieces kiln-fired overnight and ready for pickup the next day, without thermal-transfer printing or machine methods. The studio is at Rua da Senhora do Monte 38C in Graça, Lisbon, with sessions daily at 10:30 and 15:00.
Tile Flies runs 90-minute azulejo tile-painting workshops for up to six people at a time, including brushes, a blank tile, a soft drink and a pastel de nata, with the finished tile taken home the same day. Founder Jaqueline started the workshop after teaching on Madeira Island, before moving it to Rua da Bempostinha 22 near Lisbon's Anjos metro station.
Founded in 1876, the Idrija Lace School keeps the bobbin-lace tradition of this mining town alive, training around 500 students a year and selling framed lace pieces through its own shop. The 'Quick Silver' line borrows patterns from Idrija's mercury-mining history, translating them into lace panels priced for serious collectors.
Best for Framed bobbin lace and lace-making courses
London clothing brand — dry-waxed Fisherman cagoules and honest craft basics since the 2000s.
Best for British-made polos; Quality essentials, transparent; Fisherman, Coastal
Albam operates from two London locations: 111A Commercial Street in East London (Albam East) and 23 Beak Street in Soho (Albam West). The brand has become synonymous with British craft and understated design, best exemplified by their well-known Fisherman's Cagoule, first released in 2007. The cagoule is constructed from British dry-waxed cotton for water resistance and fastens with signature white buttons; it features a detachable hood, rear pocket, and distinctive large buttons. Due to limited production runs, sold-out cagoules often take hours to return when re-issued, and limited END collaborations produce only 150 pieces per color. The jacket has been much copied by mainstream brands like Topshop and French Connection, testament to its design influence on British fashion. Albam's broader offering focuses on craft basics and transparency in production, emphasizing quality materials and thoughtful construction over fast fashion cycles.
London luxury sleepwear — handmade pajamas, robes, and gowns in silk and fine cotton since 1926.
Best for Cotton pyjamas, silk robes and serious loungewear
Derek Rose operates as a London-based luxury sleepwear and loungewear maker with a heritage spanning nearly a century. The brand specializes in handcrafted pajamas, nightgowns, robes, and leisurewear produced in England using premium materials including silk and fine cottons. The company emphasizes meticulous tailoring, comfort construction, and fabric quality. Derek Rose positions itself in the luxury segment, with pieces designed for evening wear and special occasions as well as everyday sleepwear. The brand maintains a direct retail presence in London and sells through their online platform.
Bespoke and ready-to-wear shirts from 66 Jermyn Street since 1999, made to traditional English shirt-making techniques in Swiss and West Indian Sea Island cottons, with the atelier at Bearland House in Gloucester.
Ada Designer Chikan Studio is a Lucknow house of hand-embroidered Lucknowi chikankari, offering kurtis, sarees, suits, menswear and home linens. Its online store ships worldwide from Lucknow and the brand also operates physical Ada stores.
Best for Chikankari, hand embroidery, textiles, apparel
Rohia by Chhangamal offers hand-embroidered Lucknowi chikankari sarees, kurtis and suits crafted by Lucknow artisans. Its online store sells with online ordering in multiple currencies and worldwide shipping, and lists physical store locations.
Best for Chikankari, hand embroidery, sarees, apparel
The Chikan Label sources hand-embroidered chikankari from artisan clusters in Chowk and Aminabad in Lucknow, a craft protected by a Geographical Indication tag and practiced by around 2.5 lakh artisans using more than 32 distinct hand stitches including flat, embossed and open-work jali techniques. Its products, described as 100% hand-embroidered, include kurtas, kurta sets, sarees and palazzo sets.
Best for Hand-embroidered chikankari with jali stitches
Lët'z Refashion at 8-10 Rue Genistre in Luxembourg sells second-hand clothing and designer pieces made from upcycled materials. It also runs sewing courses and workshops covering block printing, textile painting, visible mending and patch making.
El Riojano is a Madrid pastry shop at Calle Mayor 10, with a history dating to 1855. Its range includes cakes and confectionery, with an online shop for ordering from the bakery.
Calle del Maestro Victoria 2, 28013 Madrid / Madrid / Spain
Maty supplies dancewear and costumes from its shop on Calle del Maestro Victoria in Madrid. The range covers ballet footwear and flamenco clothing, alongside stage makeup and accessories for dressing up.
A family art and craft shop trading since the 1880s, its 37 Lever Street store and website carry over 30,000 products from watercolours and sketchbooks to David Shrigley mugs. Vintage photobooths and craft kits round out a stock spanning traditional handicrafts and design-led homeware.
Best for Art supplies, craft materials, homeware, gifts, photobooths
Marble Beers is an independent Manchester brewery whose beers are sold directly through its own online shop. The site accepts direct online orders behind a standard age-verification gate, giving customers a direct route to the brewery's beers without making the checkout platform part of the description.
Best for Brewery, craft beer, cask ale, online shop
Makati makerspace and craft-workshop studio at Unit 302, Pamana-Languages Building, 926 Arnaiz Avenue. Runs beginner-to-advanced group and private classes in sewing, felting, embroidery, printmaking and woodcraft.
Best for Filipino maker studio, craft shop, and workshop platform
Craft MNL is a makerspace and workshop studio in Makati, Metro Manila, operating from Unit 302, Pamana-Languages Building, 926 Arnaiz Avenue, in the city's business district near Ayala Triangle Gardens. It functions as a venue and platform for teaching craft skills to people of varying experience levels, running group sessions, private instruction, online classes and team-building workshops. Its published class categories include sewing, felting, embroidery, printmaking and woodcraft, alongside DIY content and craft supplies for sale. Coverage from Philippine lifestyle outlets describes it as a community space for crafters, designers and creative entrepreneurs to share skills.
Maker-led retail in Manila's First United Building (Andrés Luna de San Pedro, 1928), grown from artist pop-up markets after the owners opened vacant rooms to creatives.
Best for Maker-led retail and community space in historic Escolta
Maison Inabel carries handwoven Inabel cloth from Ilocano ancestral looms, sold by the yard in binakol, pinilian, kantarines and kundiman patterns as well as finished boleros, skirts, barongs and table linens. Founded in 2023, its online shop prices fabric per yard and lets shoppers order fabric and finished pieces directly for delivery.
Best for Inabel weaving, handwoven textiles, Ilocano fabric
A Filipino crafts showroom-gallery in Intramuros, Manila, established in 1966, dealing in handcrafted textiles, ceramics, antiques, folk art, and historical artifacts as part of a family-run export and retail business.
Best for Philippine craft and ethnographic objects in a long-running Intramuros gallery-shop
Silahis Arts and Artifacts has operated in Intramuros, the walled historic core of Manila, since 1966, making it one of the longer-running crafts businesses in the district. The company describes its own work as designing, producing, wholesaling, retailing and exporting handcrafted Philippine goods, a broader remit than a typical single-format shop. Its showroom at 744 General Luna Street functions partly as a gallery and partly as a museum-style display space, mixing historical Filipino artifacts and antiques with contemporary crafts: folk art, Asian ceramics, textiles, books, prints and sculpture are shown alongside newer handmade pieces. The stated purpose behind the business, per its own materials, is to build understanding of Philippine heritage through its crafts and material culture, positioning the shop as much as a cultural resource for visitors to Intramuros as a retail outlet. Independent travel and directory sources consistently describe it as a long-established fixture of the neighborhood rather than a recent addition.
A family-founded retailer selling Barong Tagalog, embroidered textiles, native accessories, shell craft, and Filipino home decor. Nestor and Salud Tesoro founded the business after the liberation of Manila. Established 1945.
Best for Barong Tagalog, embroidered textiles, shell craft
Filipino heritage craft flagship—tableware, embroidered textiles, shell work, and traditional apparel from 80 years of artisan partnerships.
Best for Heritage craft store at Greenbelt, the brand's flagship
Founded in 1945 by Nestor and Salud B. Tesoro, Tesoros Greenbelt is a curated destination for authentic Filipino handicrafts, supporting local makers while preserving cultural heritage. The flagship store at 1016 Arnaiz Avenue in Makati has expanded to 12 locations across the Philippines including NAIA terminals and El Nido. The shop offers handmade tableware, embroidered textiles, shell crafts, and traditional apparel at accessible prices, making it both a tourist draw and a trusted resource for locals seeking quality cultural products.
Located inside the Jardin Majorelle in Marrakech, the boutique sells handmade goods crafted by Moroccan artisans using techniques shaped by Amazigh culture and Islamic art. Its product line pays homage to Yves Saint Laurent, echoing colors and motifs — like flowers and serpents — that he favored.
Best for Moroccan-craft, handmade, homewares, fashion
Maison du Caftan Marrakech is a couture house descending from a business founded by Haj Abdellah Ben Brahim in 1981, making handmade caftans, takshitas, djellabas and menswear. Its online shop takes orders with secure CMI Morocco card payment and its boutique is at 65 Rue Sidi el Yamani, Marrakesh.
Marrakech fashion house producing limited-edition kaftans, kimonos, dresses and contemporary Moroccan garments through its Medina atelier. The range also includes sabra-silk scarves and cushions.
Best for Stylish mix of traditional and modern textile designs — handira wedding blankets
Santons Arlatenco is an Arles santonnier hand-crafting Provencal santons, the painted clay nativity figures of the region. Each is made in the local Arlesienne tradition.
Best for Handmade Provencal santons
Santons Arlatenco is the mark of a single santonnière, Florence Portalès, who makes santons de Provence by hand in Marseille, not far from Aubagne. Her workshop is of modest size, tucked at the bottom of the garden of the family house. Every piece is made by one pair of hands from the first stage to the last, which the maker says gives her small world a personal and unique character. Each santon is shaped in terracotta by pressing clay into a two-part plaster mould, then reworked on leaving the mould and decorated by hand. The matte paint recalls the old distemper finish, and the materials and techniques are those inherited from the nineteenth century. The range specialises in seated santons and figures from the Camargue, with Arlésiennes and Camargue subjects at 7 cm. Shepherds and small trades follow, then the Nativity and the Magi, the white crèche and angels, and animals with accessories. Traditional small trades are often shown in Arles costume. The Arlatenco stamp engraved in the base guarantees the workmanship, and slight differences in pose or colour are presented as proof of handwork. Ceramics are made in summer and santons in winter, with some overlap between the seasons. The collection grows by several new models each year.
Marseille santon workshop founded by Marcel Carbonel in 1935 in the Saint-Victor quarter, where it still operates; hand-molds and hand-paints Provencal clay nativity figures and holds France's Living Heritage Business label since 2007.
Best for Hand-painted santons and nativity scenes.
Marcel Carbonel began making santons - the small painted clay figures used in Provencal Christmas nativity scenes - in Marseille in 1935, working from a workshop on rue Fort-Notre-Dame in the city's 7th arrondissement, in the Saint-Victor neighborhood where the workshops remain today. Before turning to santons, Carbonel had worked as a porter, taxi driver, streetcar operator and courier, and had left art school in 1928 for lack of means after his father's death, later learning lithography. He started the business with his wife Clotilde, a moulder, and two decorators. By the 1950s the workshop employed about ten people, and Carbonel built a reputation for detailed, vividly colored figures that helped standardize a recognizable santon style. In 1977, his daughter and son-in-law, Daniele and Alfred Renoux, formalized the business as Les Ateliers Marcel Carbonel. In 2007, the workshop received France's 'Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant' (Living Heritage Business) designation. The Marseille site today combines a working atelier, boutique and museum, open to visitors year-round.
BG Arte is a workshop of tufa (calcarenite) stone carvers in Matera, making lamps, rose-window airers, sculptures, nativity scenes and souvenirs from blocks of the local stone. It sells through its online shop and from premises in Matera, including Piazza Vittorio Veneto 37.
Art Labo Kasuri (Mingei Iyo-kasuri Kaikan) in Matsuyama keeps alive the indigo ikat technique devised around 1802 by weaver Kanaya Kana. Visitors can watch weaving demonstrations, try a natural indigo dyeing experience, and shop aizome handkerchiefs, bags and Ehime specialty treats.
Best for Iyo-kasuri indigo ikat weaving demonstrations and dyeing experiences
Iyo-kasuri traces to Kanaya Kana (1782-1864), a weaver from Imade village, now part of Matsuyama in Ehime Prefecture. Around 1801-1804, during the roof rethatching of her house, she is said to have noticed a mottled pattern where straw bound tightly to the roof frame stayed pale while the exposed straw weathered darker in the sun, and adapted the effect into a dyed-thread weaving technique using pre-dyed warp and weft yarns to form patterns as the cloth is woven.
The craft, known first as Imade-gasuri and later nationally as Iyo-gasuri, grew into one of Japan's largest textile industries; by 1904 it accounted for roughly 26.5 percent of the country's total kasuri production, the largest share of any region. Production has since contracted sharply from that peak, but hand-weaving of the indigo ikat continues on a small scale in Matsuyama.
Art Labo Kasuri, also known as Mingei Iyo-kasuri Kaikan, opened in Matsuyama in 1973 to preserve and display the craft. It shows the full weaving process and the characteristic well-crib (igeta) and cross-shaped patterns, and lets visitors try a roughly hour-long hands-on natural indigo dyeing session to make their own handkerchief, bandana or hand towel, alongside a shop selling indigo-dyed goods, hime-daruma dolls and Ehime citrus jellies.
Baobab Batik is a Malkerns, Eswatini workshop founded in 1991 by Dutch artisan Els Hooft, who learned wax-resist batik in Benin and Tanzania before bringing it to Eswatini. More than 15 women artisans hand-dye cushion covers, aprons, children's leggings and homeware, sold online worldwide.
Best for Batik homeware, cushions and children's textiles
Els Hooft, a Dutch-born artisan, first encountered batik dyeing while traveling in Benin and Tanzania. She brought the technique to Eswatini and, in 1991, founded Baobab Batik in Malkerns as a workshop employing only women, on the belief that every woman deserves the chance to build a sustainable livelihood.
What began as an experiment with melted wax and dye grew into a working craft business. Batik's characteristic unpredictability, wax cracking as it cools and dye seeping through the cracks, produces mottled patterns that the workshop markets as evoking African landscapes and wildlife; the artisans work primarily in natural fibers, including cotton, rayon and linen.
Today more than 15 women artisans work at Baobab Batik, producing homewares such as cushion covers and kitchen aprons alongside a children's line of leggings, toys and soft goods, sold locally in Eswatini and exported worldwide through the workshop's online store.
At the Peak Craft Centre in Piggs Peak, Coral Stephens hand-weaves mohair, cotton and raffia into carpets, curtains and throws using yarn spun and dyed on site. Its woven goods are sold from the craft-centre showroom in northern Eswatini.
Ngwenya Glass blows eco-friendly glassware entirely from recycled glass at its Motshane workshop, from wine glasses and decanters to its signature African animals. Pieces are sold at the factory shop and through a full online store shipping worldwide.
The Koorie Heritage Trust's ShopKHT sells Aboriginal cultural objects such as boomerangs, coolamons, and message sticks alongside craft, apparel, books, and homewares made by First Peoples' makers. It operates both online and from the Trust's free-entry home at Federation Square in Melbourne, open daily from 10am to 5pm.
Best for Aboriginal-art, craft, cultural-objects, books
Queen Victoria Market, Melbourne's historic open-air market, where traders in the Meat & Fish Hall and under the open-air sheds sell fresh food, specialty goods and locally made craft. First-party door live with trader directory and posted trading hours (Tue/Thu/Fri/Sat/Sun).
Best for Fresh food, specialty goods and locally made craft
Colbo makes handmade red stoneware tableware in Mendoza, including plates, bowls and cups, with pieces held by MoMA and shipping across the country. Customers can assemble their own set of plates and bowls in their preferred quantities, sizes and colors.
Founded by Milton Monsalvo, this Mendoza-based design platform combines an architecture studio with a small gallery. It develops objects and collections in collaboration with local workshops and related trades, and the space also functions as a showroom.
Best for Collaborative design objects and collections
Saturday art market — every Saturday, the Plaza San Jacinto fills with painters, sculptors, and artisans selling their work. The most outdoor art market in Mexico City.
Best for The original artwork, the San Ángel setting, and the Saturday tradition.
La Ciudadela Oficial in Mexico City invites visitors to discover the country's cultural wealth through what it calls the country's most representative handicrafts. It lists hours of 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Best for Representative mexican handicrafts market
Coyoacán's craft market — stalls selling Mexican crafts, textiles, jewelry, and souvenirs in a colorful market setting. Combine with a visit to the Frida Kahlo Museum and the Coyoacán plaza.
Best for The crafts, the textiles, and the Coyoacán visit combination.
In the heart of Little Havana, Casa Habano rolls premium cigars by Cuban-trained hands from an exclusive tobacco blend. The Calle Ocho shop sells fresh cigars, humidors and accessories in person and online, and hosts factory tours.
Best for Hand-rolled cigars by Cuban-trained rollers, humidors, and factory tours on Calle Ocho
Reviving a historic American brand, Cremo hand-rolls premium cigars with Cuban master rollers at its Little Havana factory. Its Calle Ocho store and online shop sell cigars, bundles and a monthly membership club.
This Miami cigar shop and manufacturer stocks one of the country's larger selections, from its own house cigars to major premium brands. Buyers can shop the extensive online store or visit the main store to watch cigars being rolled.
Forged on Calle Ocho since 1995, El Titan de Bronze is a boutique Little Havana factory hand-rolling premium cigars and producing lines for noted brands. Cigars, samplers and gift sets sell through the online shop and at the factory store.
Best for Hand-rolled cigars from the Little Havana factory on Calle Ocho since 1995
Milan outerwear house founded in 1911; in 1935 it introduced the Valstarino, a goat-suede blouson adapted from the American A-1 flight jacket, which won royal warrants from the House of Savoy in 1939 and the Duke of Ancona in 1942 and is still handmade in Italy.
Best for The Valstarino.
Valstar was founded in Milan in 1911, initially producing waterproof outdoor clothing in heavy cotton fabrics rather than the suede jackets it later became known for. Its defining piece arrived in 1935: the Valstarino, an Italian reworking of the American A-1 military flight jacket, made from goat suede with two flap pockets, horn buttons, a knitted waistband, and a stand-up collar and cuffs. It is widely credited as one of the first bomber-style jackets designed for civilian wear rather than military use. The jacket's reputation grew quickly in Italy: Valstar received royal warrants naming it official supplier to HRH the Princess of Savoy in 1939 and to the Duke of Ancona in 1942. In 2009 the Valstarino was included in the 'From Sign to Dream' design exhibition in Milan, shown alongside other recognized pieces of Italian design such as the Bialetti coffee pot and the Fiat 500. Valstarino jackets are still made by hand in Italy, and Valstar continues to produce outerwear, knitwear and coats for men under the same name.
Milanese jewelry maison founded 1984 in Valenza by sculptor Carlo Ciarli and Angela Camurati; sculptural pieces are still handcrafted in Valenza. Acquired by Richemont in 2024.
Best for Sculptural gold volumes.
Vhernier began in 1984 as a jeweller's workshop in Valenza, the Piedmontese town long known for jewelry manufacturing, founded by sculptor Carlo Ciarli together with Angela Camurati. It took roughly six years for the pair to settle on the rounded, sculptural style - inspired by the human body and by modernist sculpture - that became the house's signature, often combining precious metals with unconventional materials such as titanium, bronze and ebony. Businessman Carlo Traglio acquired the company with his brother Maurizio and became president in 2001; the first standalone Vhernier boutique opened in Milan in 2002, followed by a Capri boutique in 2003. All pieces continue to be handcrafted in Valenza. In 2024, Swiss luxury group Richemont acquired Vhernier, which by then operated around 17 mono-brand boutiques worldwide.
Monte Carlo Beer, founded in 2019 by Antho and Will, sells a premium lager crafted in France under a Monaco-rooted brand, plus branded apparel and accessories and limited-edition beers. The company partnered with Molson Coors in 2025.
Monte Carlo Vermouth makes Bianco and Rosso vermouths with citrus, floral and rose notes, using a Moscato d'Asti DOCG base from Piedmont blended with Côte d'Azur botanicals from Grasse distillers and hand-picked rose petals from the principality's rose garden. It is crafted in Monaco.
La Pasionaria has its atelier at Reconquista 587 in the Ciudad Vieja of Montevideo. The site places it at the corner of Juan Carlos Gómez, a short walk from the Teatro Solís.
Matebom has made mates and bombillas in the same family workshop in Uruguay since 1973. It uses natural calabash gourds from the north of the country. An Italian immigrant who arrived in Uruguay at fourteen started the house after taking to mate.
Uruguayan mateware studio rooted in the shared mate ritual. It works with local artisans on personalized pieces, combining innovation in design with traditional craft techniques.
Mercado de los Artesanos is a cooperative Montevideo market for work by Uruguayan makers. It is a multi-vendor destination, so individual artisans should not be treated as one merchant inventory.
Best for Uruguayan artisan cooperative goods at the Montevideo artisans market
1356 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, QC H3G 1J1 / Montreal / Canada
Founded 1906 as the Canadian Guild of Crafts / Canadian Handicrafts Guild; Like a Local Guide treats buying handmade jewellery, sculpture, textiles and ceramics as the point of the visit.
Best for Handmade jewellery, sculpture, textiles and ceramics.
At this Morella workshop the Garcia family weaves the town's traditional mantas to order, letting customers pick the pattern and colours for blankets, scarves, bags and mantonets. The made-to-measure pieces are sold from two shops on Juan Giner and Blasco de Alagon in the old town.
Best for Textiles, handwoven blankets, mantas, scarves
Bella Potemkina runs a Moscow workshop making limited hand-worked eveningwear. The founder danced ballet for over eleven years, and the collections draw on the rehearsal room and on historical dress. Jacquard, velvet, tulle, lace, pearl embroidery carry the work, cut into bustier dresses and corseted silhouettes. Boutiques trade in the Riviera centre on Avtozavodskaya and in Afimall City.
Best for Hand-worked Russian eveningwear in jacquard, velvet and pearl embroidery.
Bella Potemkina describes her label as a workshop making vintage dresses in a contemporary form. She danced ballet for more than eleven years in her youth, and the collections keep returning to that material, to the barre, the rehearsal room, the wardrobe of Giselle and The Nutcracker, and historical dress. The stated references are boho chic, baroque, neo-vintage, Empire and French aristocratic style. The dresses are limited and hand-worked. Royal jacquards, velvet, textured tulle, raised lace, three-dimensional embroidery and panels worked with pearls carry most of the effect, and the house argues that this level of detail is out of reach of mass production. Corsets shape the waist. Ruffles, bows and flounces do the romantic work, and peony prints run through the cloth. Bustier dresses over layered tulle skirts point back at Versailles, and the jewellery beside them uses cameos, old medallions, antique angels. Five collections carry the Belle prefix, which are Banquet, Fleur, Amour, Jacquard and Chic. Beyond dresses the label makes furs, skirts, corsets, blouses, trousers, jackets, suits. Shoes come with them, along with accessories that include turbans, gloves, collars, clutches. The Moscow boutiques stand in the Riviera centre on Avtozavodskaya and in Afimall City on Presnenskaya embankment. An online boutique sells the same range beyond the two Moscow rooms.
Mystic Knotwork is a decorative knot shop, hand-tying sailor-knot bracelets, woven coasters, nautical wedding decor and home goods from American cotton since 1957. The family works from a 180-year-old building on Cottrell Street and a second shop in Olde Mistick Village, and sells online too.
Fukusaya has baked its hand-mixed Nagasaki castella since 1624, keeping the crunchy layer of zarame sugar at the bottom of every cake. Alongside the flagship sponge, its Nagasaki head office and shops sell Hollander cake, handmade monaka wafers and seasonal Fukusaya Cube gift boxes.
Best for Hollander cake, handmade monaka wafers and seasonal Fukusaya Cube gift boxes
Goto Tsubaki Distillery makes GOTOGIN, a craft gin distilled on Fukue Island using local botanicals chosen to evoke the archipelago's landscape. The distillery sells its bottlings directly through an official online store.