117 stores · curated ORBIS register
Bootmaking and decorative craft sit alongside each other here: Alberta Boot Company cuts and stitches western boots in Calgary. Custom sizing forms part of the company's work, which began in 1978. In San Sebastián, Alboka Artesanía sells Basque woodwork and textiles, with festival figures among its locally focused objects. Gdańsk's Amber Styl combines amber with silver, with designs made in the workshop behind the shop.
Calgary
Alberta's only western boot manufacturer has cut, lasted, and stitched cowboy boots in Calgary since 1978, in a workshop open to visitors. The range runs from cattleman ropers to exotic ostrich, python, and bison hides, with custom pairs built to a client's measurements.
Best for Handcrafted western boots
Parte Vieja
Alboka Artesanía is a handicraft shop on San Sebastián’s Plaza de la Constitución specializing in Basque-made traditional craft, including wood, iron, textile and festival figures. Maite Jauregui has run the business since 1987, building the range around locally rooted artisan work rather than generic souvenirs.
Best for Basque wood, iron, and textile craft since 1987
Długie Pobrzeże 31, Old Town waterfront
Founded in 1980, it sells amber-and-silver pieces that owner Zbigniew Strzelczyk hand-designs and crafts in the workshop behind it, having worked amber since 1973. Every item is one of a kind.
Best for One-of-a-kind pieces from a veteran master
Valencia / Spain
Andori is a shop on Carrer de la Corretgeria in Valencia that has made one-off pieces by hand since 1982.
Best for Handmade one-off pieces
Montrose, Houston, Texas
Archway Gallery has been owned and run by its own member artists since 1976, currently around three dozen Houston-area painters, printmakers and sculptors who staff and curate the space themselves. It's one of Houston's longest-running artist cooperatives, holding regular exhibitions and figure-drawing sessions alongside sales.
Best for Houston artist-cooperative original art
Mostar / Bosnia and Herzegovina
Art Studio Pandur has been hand-working copper in Mostar since 1965, turning out reliefs, plates and souvenirs to a centuries-old Bosnian tradition. Visitors can watch the craft demonstrated live year-round and buy finished pieces in the shop or through its online store.
Best for Metalwork, copper art, souvenirs, handicrafts
Seville / Spain
Artesanía Téxtil has hand-embroidered Manila shawls, mantillas, and flamenco accessories in Seville since 1951, selling both machine- and hand-embroidered pieces from its shop near the cathedral. The full online store ships its silk shawls and bridal mantillas worldwide.
Best for Mantones de Manila, Embroidered shawls
Centro, Bariloche
The Asociación Civil de Artesanos de Bariloche is a civil association of artisans in San Carlos de Bariloche. It was founded in 1985.
Best for Bariloche artisans association
Hart Street, Henley-on-Thames
Asquiths opened in 1984 as one of the first dedicated teddy bear shops and now trades from a Grade II listed building on Hart Street. It sells collectible bears from makers including Steiff, Merrythought and Charlie Bears, and offers bear repairs and workshops.
Best for Collectible teddy bears and repairs
Leves (about 2 km from Chartres Cathedral)
Founded in 1946 by Gabriel Loire and now run by his sons and grandsons, this workshop two kilometres from the cathedral designs and restores stained glass using lead, dalle-de-verre, fusing and enamelling. Its windows reach across five continents, with about ten artisans working religious, civic and private commissions.
Best for Stained glass creation and restoration
Langkawi, Kedah, Malaysia
Atma Alam has produced hand-painted batik since 1987, founded by painter Aza Osman and batik artist Roshadah 'Sada' Yusof in Padang Matsirat, Langkawi. Resident artists still work wax-resist techniques onto canvas paintings, sarongs, and dresses in the village complex the couple built from a single shack.
Best for Hand-painted batik art from Langkawi's original artist village since 1987
Atma Alam Batik Art Village was founded in 1987 by Aza Osman, an oil painter who had spent roughly 15 years studying and working in Italy, and his wife Roshadah Yusof, known as Sada, a batik artist and designer. Aza had already run a commercial gallery, Gallery 6, in Kuala Lumpur from 1981 before the couple relocated to Langkawi to establish the village.
The site sits in Padang Matsirat, close to Langkawi International Airport, and is described by regional tourism sources as the island's original batik art village. What began as a single shack grew over subsequent decades into a larger complex housing a gallery, a working batik studio, showrooms, a boutique, and a sunken garden with a water feature.
Resident artists continue to produce both block-printed and exclusively hand-painted batik on-site, working wax-resist techniques onto canvas paintings, dress fabric, and sarongs, which are sold directly through the village's own gallery and boutique rather than through outside retailers.
Austria
Austrian ski maker founded in 1955 by wheelwright Alois Rohrmoser; skis and Hawx boots are still developed and built in Altenmarkt im Pongau, near his original workshop, and raced on the World Cup circuit.
Best for Ski equipment
Atomic traces to 1955, when Alois Rohrmoser, a trained wheelwright from the Austrian Alps, began hand-carving race skis in his own workshop, turning out around 40 pairs a year. Production scaled quickly: about 2,000 pairs by 1957 and 5,000 by 1960. In 1968, Olga Pall won Olympic downhill gold at Grenoble on Atomic skis, an early marker of the brand's racing credibility. In 1971 the company built a second, larger factory in Altenmarkt im Pongau, in Austria's Pongau Valley, and that plant remains the center of Atomic's ski production today, a few kilometers from Rohrmoser's original workshop. By 1989 Atomic had become a one-stop supplier of skis, bindings, boots and poles. The 1990s brought financial strain, and in 1994 the Finnish sporting-goods group Amer Sports (which also owns Salomon, Arc'teryx and Wilson) acquired Atomic; insolvency proceedings that followed were resolved by 2006. Today Atomic makes roughly 400,000 pairs of skis a year, alongside boots, bindings, helmets, poles, goggles and apparel, still manufactured in the Alps. The brand has remained a fixture on the Alpine Ski World Cup circuit - it was the top-winning brand of the 2022/23 season, with 31 race victories and 6 discipline globes - and has equipped skiers including Mikaela Shiffrin and Hermann Maier.
Yogyakarta / Indonesia
Batik Plentong was established in Yogyakarta in 1950 by Oleh Djaelani and has stayed a family business through its second generation, with Hadi Suwito — now in his 80s — running operations after more than six decades with the company.
Best for Hand-drawn tulis and hand-stamped cap batik made and naturally dyed
Batik Plentong was established in Yogyakarta in 1950 by Oleh Djaelani and has stayed a family business through its second generation, with Hadi Suwito — now in his 80s — running operations after more than six decades with the company. A workshop opened in the early 2000s as a response to the regional economic crisis, diversifying the business into a production site that visitors can enter to watch the process directly, alongside its ongoing wholesale and made-to-order output.
The house runs both of batik's classic hand techniques side by side under one roof. Women artisans work tulis — hand-drawing wax patterns onto cloth with a canting, the small spouted copper tool that traces intricate motifs freehand — while male craftspeople work cap, stamping wax designs with carved copper blocks for more repeatable patterning. After waxing, cloth goes through repeated dye cycles using natural colorants, and the wax is then removed — by boiling water for cotton, by gasoline for silk — in a full process that can take up to two months per piece depending on size and complexity. The current team numbers around a dozen craftspeople spanning genders and generations, including second-generation batik maker Ibu Muryanti.
Suwito's own framing of the craft's value is direct: hand-drawn custom pattern work, he has said, "can never be produced by machines," and pricing reflects that gap — finished pieces range from roughly Rp500,000 into the tens of millions of rupiah depending on complexity, well above mass-produced batik-print alternatives. The workshop's continued operation as both a working atelier and a place where the tulis-and-cap process is visible to visitors makes it a rare direct window into hand batik production rather than the printed-batik goods that dominate most retail.
Rome / Via Condotti / Online
Opened in 1946 at 61A Via Condotti by Guglielmo Battistoni, a former Academy of Fine Arts student turned shirtmaker, this Rome atelier became an artists' gathering place from the 1950s — works by Picasso, Modigliani, Guttuso and Cocteau still hang on its walls — and dressed Marlon Brando and Andy Warhol.
Best for Roman dress shirts and tailoring.
Battistoni was founded in 1946 by Guglielmo Battistoni at 61A Via Condotti in Rome, in a courtyard just off the street. Battistoni had studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and came to shirtmaking, by his own account, out of both necessity and vocation rather than family trade. He became known for modernizing the men's shirt collar, cutting the points slightly longer and wider than the classical standard of the time. From the 1950s the atelier's courtyard location became a gathering point for artists and writers passing through Rome, and works by Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Renato Guttuso, Roberto Matta and Jean Cocteau still hang on its walls today, left by clients and friends of the house. The client list that built the brand's reputation for discreet luxury included Marlon Brando, Clark Gable, Gianni Agnelli, the Duke of Windsor, Charlie Chaplin, Marc Chagall, John Cassavetes and Andy Warhol. Guglielmo's son, Gianni Battistoni, later led the house; Gianni Battistoni died in 2024, marking a generational close covered in the Italian fashion trade press.
Islamabad
This is the retail arm of the Behbud Association of Pakistan, a women-run non-profit inaugurated in 1967 that trains home-based women in hand embroidery and needlework across eleven traditional crafts. Its Islamabad outlet at F-6 Markaz sells the resulting ghararas, gowns and pouches, with proceeds funding the association's schools and healthcare programs.
Best for Hand-embroidered ghararas, gowns and accessories
Arkhangelsk
Established in 1968, Belomorskie Uzory makes traditional Russian North crafts: wooden ware, birch-bark objects, and Mezen and northern-painted decorative pieces. The Arkhangelsk workshop belongs to the Russian Folk Art Crafts association.
Best for Traditional Russian North wooden and painted crafts
Selva Di Val Gardena / Italy
Bergland has carved wooden nativity figures, saints and crucifixes in Val Gardena since Walther and Reiner Kasslatter founded the family workshop in 1981, continuing the valley's woodcarving tradition. Every piece in its online shop is designed in-house and produced exclusively by Val Gardena craftsmen at the company's Roncadizza workshop.
Best for Hand-carved wooden nativity figures, saints
Bidar
Makes Bidriware, a metal handicraft from Bidar with pure silver wire hand-inlaid into a zinc and copper alloy base, then blackened with soil from the 14th-century Bidar Fort ruins for its patina. GI-13 certified and trading since 1975.
Best for Bidriware silver inlay metalwork
Cardo, Jewish Quarter, Old City, Jerusalem, Israel / Jerusalem / Israel
After 1967 Elyada established the Blue and White Art Gallery on the Roman Cardo; the gallery is now run by his son Udi Merioz.
Best for Art from a Roman Cardo gallery now run by Udi Merioz.
Gaborone
Trading since 1970, Botswanacraft is Gaborone's largest handcraft centre, sourcing coiled palm-leaf baskets from rural weavers and San community crafts directly from their makers. The complex pairs the retail hall and online basket shop with a courtyard restaurant and event space.
Best for Botswana baskets and San crafts from named weaver communities
Brescia, Italy
Hosiery house founded in 1970 by Mario Bresciani, headquartered in Spirano near Bergamo (not Brescia itself, despite the name); made socks for other luxury labels before launching its own hand-linked line in 1980, now run by his sons Massimiliano and Fabio.
Best for Artisan socks, heritage knitting
Calzificio M. Bresciani was founded in 1970 by Mario Bresciani, who drew on his experience in Italy's hosiery trade to open his own workshop rather than continuing to work for other manufacturers. The company is based in Spirano, in the province of Bergamo — despite the Bresciani name, which comes from the founder's surname rather than the city of Brescia. For its first decade the company mainly produced for other, larger fashion houses; it did not launch socks under its own Bresciani name until 1980. All Bresciani socks are hand-linked — finished by hand at the toe seam rather than machine-closed, a slower process associated with higher-end hosiery — and made from materials including Egyptian cotton, Australian merino wool, French linen, Himalayan cashmere and Andean vicuña. Mario Bresciani's sons, Massimiliano and Fabio, joined the business in the 1990s and expanded its distribution into menswear retailers internationally; the company modernized its branding and opened its own online shop in 2021.
117 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94108, United States / San Francisco / United States
Martin and Lucy Spector opened the Union Square fabric house in 1952 (Geary Street); family-run destination that relocated to 117 Post Street in 2017.
Best for Fabrics from a family-run Union Square house founded in 1952.
Thimbirigasyaya, Colombo 05
Buddhi Batiks began in Sri Lanka in 1971 when Buddhi and Ranasiri Keerthisena started making batik together. Their early work grew from a shirt into a workshop and shop, with wall art and flags also appearing in the brand's history. A 2023 retrospective account describes their daughter Darshi continuing that work as creative director and chief executive.
Best for Sri Lankan batik with a family workshop history
Buddhi Batiks began almost by accident in 1971: Ranasiri Keerthisena wanted to surprise her journalist husband Buddhi with a batik shirt for his birthday, but the artist she approached fell through. Buddhi, an artist himself, suggested they make it together — and that single shirt became the genesis of the business, first run from a workshop behind their home with a shop out front.
Early tourist success led to invitations to exhibit in Europe, particularly Scandinavia and Germany, with the proceeds funding the business's expansion. Over a career spanning more than 40 years, Buddhi Keerthisena became one of the artisans credited with shaping the modern standard of Sri Lankan batik, helping establish it as part of the country's cultural identity.
His daughter Darshi Keerthisena, who holds a B.A. Hons in Fashion and Textile Design from Birmingham City University, took over the family business in 2005 and has continued developing its hand-drawn batik shirts, dresses, sarongs and accessories in contemporary designs. The brand maintains a public presence primarily through its Facebook page rather than a dedicated e-commerce site.
Venice / Online
Ca' Macana has made papier-mache carnival masks in Venice since 1984 from its workshop at Dorsoduro 3215. Each mask is formed by hand from a gesso mould and finished with fabrics and feathers, or with gold or silver leaf. Classic bauta and moretta forms follow paintings by Pietro Longhi and Francesco Guardi. Its masks appeared in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, and the workshop runs mask-making courses.
Best for True Venetian carnival masks.
Ca' Macana has made papier-mache masks in Venice since 1984, working from a workshop at Dorsoduro 3215. Every mask is formed by hand from a gesso mould, so each one carries the hand of the artisan who made it. The decoration draws on fabrics and feathers, Swarovski crystals and gold or silver leaf. Classic Venetian forms such as the bauta and the moretta are reproduced from paintings by Pietro Longhi and Francesco Guardi. Drawings by Giovanni Grevembroch supply further models. The workshop holds a full set of Commedia dell'Arte characters from the harlequin to the colombina. Contemporary designs are made with the same techniques. The masks have appeared in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and in Fifty Shades of Grey. They have also dressed productions at the Vienna Opera and fashion photography for Vogue Japan. Alongside the shop the workshop teaches. Decoration courses and a mask-making course are open to visitors, along with family workshops. Mini-lectures cover the history of the bauta and the plague doctor mask, and workshop visits are arranged for tour groups and company outings. The site also publishes a guide to buying masks in Venice. It warns that industrial imitations have crowded out authentic pieces since the 1980s and explains how to tell a handmade Venetian mask from a copy.
León, Guanajuato, Mexico
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
Romney Manor, St Kitts (near Basseterre)
Founded in 1975 at St Kitts' Romney Manor, Caribelle Batik hand-dyes fabric, apparel and gifts using traditional Indonesian batik methods on sea island cotton. About 36 local staff produce pieces on-site, and the company marked its 50th anniversary in 2025.
Best for Hand-dyed sea-island cotton batik from Romney Manor
Caribelle Batik was established in 1975 on the grounds of Romney Manor, a St Kitts estate adjacent to Wingfield Estate, and built its reputation using traditional Indonesian batik methods applied to sea island cotton — a fabric prized for its fineness and durability. Over five decades it grew into what is widely described as the Caribbean's most sought-after batik textile producer.
Production happens on-site: roughly 36 local employees hand-dye fabric, apparel, wall hangings and accessories, and visitors can watch artisans demonstrate the resist-dyeing technique in person. A "Back of House Tour" lets guests work directly with dyes and take home a piece they helped make, extending the retail visit into a hands-on craft experience.
In 2025, Caribelle Batik marked its 50th anniversary, timed alongside the 400th anniversary of Romney Manor itself — a dual milestone the company has used to highlight both its own history and the site's much longer one.
Mooca / Campinas, Brazil
Brazilian art and craft chain founded in 1979 by brothers Paulo and Angelo Guaraldo, who opened the first store in Sao Paulo's Mooca district. Now runs five physical stores plus wholesale and online divisions, stocking painting, scrapbook and craft supplies from brands including Acrilex and Faber-Castell.
Best for Art, craft and scrapbook materials across five Sao Paulo-area stores since 1979
Seville / Spain
Castañuelas Filigrana has hand-carved castanets in Seville's La Macarena district since 1955, now led by third-generation artisan Lucía Álvarez. The workshop sells its professional and beginner castanets through a full online shop and welcomes visitors to its workshop by appointment.
Best for Hand-carved castanets from a third-generation La Macarena workshop since 1955
Nanora, Goa
A family heritage distillery in Nanora village, established in 1969 and run by Gurudatta and Rupa Bhakta, hand-crafting GI-certified caju feni by century-old methods. It was among the first to receive GI certification for bottling authentic Goan cashew feni.
Best for GI-certified caju feni
Seville / Spain
Now in its fourth generation, this Triana family workshop has hand-painted reproductions of 15th-to-18th-century Sevillian tiles since 1952. The studio sells directly from its shop and lists additional locations under "Nuestras tiendas."
Best for Fourth-generation hand-painted reproductions of 15th-to-18th-century Sevillian tiles since 1952
Clovelly village, North Devon
Founded by Ann and Bill Jarvis in 1985 and based in a Clovelly barn conversion since 1995, this workshop hand-screen-prints silk scarves, fabric, and accessories in classic English patterns. The studio has produced commissions for the Royal Academy of Arts and English Heritage.
Best for Hand-printed silk scarves and fabric
Veriña, Gijón
A Gijón preserver founded in 1964 in the Veriña district, hand-packing Cantabrian white tuna, other fish and shellfish to traditional Asturian recipes without additives. The full range of tins is sold through the company's online shop.
Best for Artisanal tinned fish and shellfish
Penang / Malaysia
Established in 1973 as Penang's first batik factory, Craft Batik still operates from Teluk Bahang producing hand-drawn and block-printed batik using traditional wax-resist dyeing. It sells scarves, sarongs, patchwork kits and hand-drawn paintings, including works by the late resident artist Tan Thean Song.
Best for Batik, hand-drawn textiles, wax-resist dyeing, scarves
Craft Batik was established in 1973 in Teluk Bahang on Penang island, making it the first batik factory on the island. It has continued producing batik by traditional resist-dye methods -- covering sections of cloth with a dye-resistant substance before coloring -- at a time when most batik fabric is machine-decorated, positioning itself around handmade production by its own artists.
The workshop's best-known associated artist is the late Tan Thean Song (1946-2017), who trained at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art in Singapore and won prizes for batik works including second prize at the 1969 Salon Malaysia for "Flying Kite" (now held by Malaysia's National Art Gallery) and first prize in the 1964 Malayan Young Artists competition. He served as the pioneer Chief Resident Artist and Master Trainer at the Arts Village in Teluk Bahang, mentoring other artists' styles, and in 1987 organized a six-month batik exhibition at Penang's Rasa Sayang Hotel.
Craft Batik's current catalogue includes silk and rayon scarves and pareo, block-printed and hand-drawn tablecloths, dresses, DIY patchwork sets, and a dedicated line of hand-drawn paintings attributed to Tan Thean Song, sold alongside the workshop's own production.
Church Street
Danforth Pewter has spun and cast pewter in Vermont since 1975, producing oil lamps, ornaments, jewelry and tableware from its own workshop. Its Church Street shop sells the line directly, much of it hand-finished by the company's smiths.
Best for Handcrafted Vermont pewter
Kirishima, Kagoshima
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
Porto / Portugal
Escovaria de Belomonte has handcrafted luxury personal and household brushes from its Rua de Belomonte atelier and shop in Porto since 1948, recognisable by its century-old advertising plaque. A second store opened in 2022 in the WOW cultural quarter of Vila Nova de Gaia, and pieces are also sold online.
Best for Handcrafted personal and household brushes since 1948
Connaught Place, New Delhi
India's heritage brand since 1960 — hand-block printed textiles, organic skincare, furniture and contemporary Indian wear made by rural artisans across 22 states.
Best for Indian craft & textiles.
6 Yoel Moshe Solomon Street, Jerusalem 9463306, Israel / Jerusalem / Israel
Founded 1964 by Bezalel-trained Malka Gabrieli, who hand-loomed in an Old Jaffa basement studio; Jerusalem shop now sells hand-woven silk/wool/cotton tallit sets (house Our Story; ACHI vendor listing prints 6 Yoel Moshe Solomon Street).
Best for Hand-woven silk, wool and cotton tallit sets from a Jerusalem shop.
ul. Hoża 40, 00-516 Warsaw, Poland / Warsaw / Poland
Created June 1976 as DESA paper-works salon; on Hoża since 1981; after 1989 privatisation run by Nina Rozwadowska and Andrzej Stroka as Poland's first gallery with a fixed print/poster profile.
Best for Polish prints and posters from a gallery devoted to works on paper.
17 Cloitre Notre-Dame, Chartres
Standing at the foot of the cathedral since 1976, this gallery showcases the Loire family's four generations of master glassmakers, selling stained glass in traditional lead, fused glass, dalle-de-verre and Tiffany lamps. It handles both new commissions and antique nineteenth- and twentieth-century panels.
Best for Stained glass art and Tiffany lamps
Incheon, South Korea (Ganghwa Island, Songhae-myeon)
This family workshop on Ganghwa Island has hand-cut and woven wanggol rush grass into hwamunseok floor mats since 1981, a craft the government has recognized with a 6th-industry certification linking its own cultivation, weaving and education programs. Beyond traditional patterned mats with butterfly and phoenix motifs, the shop weaves the same rush fiber into coasters, table runners and cushions.
Best for Hand-woven rush mats and traditional wanggol crafts
Kolkata, India
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
Minami-cho, Gujo City
Tanizawa is a Gujo Hachiman kimono shop and authorized dealer of Gujo tsumugi, a hand-woven silk revived after the Second World War by Living National Treasure Rikizo Munehiro through his Gujo Craft Research Institute, with the technique certified in 1982. Alongside tsumugi kimono, obi and accessories, the shop carries plant- and indigo-dyed cloth and arranges weaving and dyeing visits by appointment.
Best for Gujo tsumugi silk and indigo textiles
Gaziantep
Gaziantep atelier working in mother-of-pearl inlay and copper since 1966, producing inlaid backgammon and chess sets, boxes, mirrors, and hamam bowls. It offers custom pieces and sells its inlay and copper work through its own online shop.
Best for Mother-of-pearl inlay and copper
Mauritius / Mauritius / Online
Carrying on a Mauritian ship-modelling tradition since 1982, H.M Ship Models' master craftsmen hand-build historical, motor and yacht replicas plus custom commissions. More than fifty models are displayed at its Floréal exhibition, and orders ship worldwide from the online store.
Best for M Ship Models' master craftsmen hand-build historical
Kumano, Hiroshima
Founded in Kumano in 1974, Hakuhodo makes roughly 500,000 brushes a month entirely in its own Hiroshima Prefecture workshops, spanning makeup, calligraphy, nihonga and watercolor lines. The firm's craft earned the first Japan Monodzukuri Grand Award Prime Minister's Prize in 2005, as recorded in Hakuhodo's company history, and its brushes are built around undyed, uncut hair tips rather than trimmed bristles.
Best for Handmade makeup and calligraphy brushes
Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan
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
3, Himalaya House, 79 Palton Road, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus Area, Fort, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400001, India / Mumbai / India
The official specialist states that it was established in 1950 and sells artists' materials.
Best for Specialist art materials and local creative goods.
Hualien City
Named for founder Zeng Shui-gang, this Hualien mochi maker traces its hand-pounded recipe to 1948 and belongs to the city’s long Zeng-family mochi tradition. It specializes in freshly made Taiwanese mochi and related sweets, and should remain distinguished from several similarly named Zeng-family shops in Hualien rather than being collapsed into them.
Best for Family-recipe mochi dating to 1948
Copenhagen / Online
Copenhagen fashion label founded in 1981 by designer and former dancer Jan Machenhauer; known for architecturally cut clothing in natural fabrics, produced and sewn locally in Copenhagen for over four decades.
Best for Architectural cuts in washed cottons from a Copenhagen atelier since 1979
Jan Machenhauer founded his eponymous Copenhagen label in 1981, following training at the Royal Danish Academy. His earlier background as a dancer informs the label's design language, centering on the relationship between shape and function; the resulting clothes have a sculptural, architecturally inspired quality. Production has stayed local: for more than 40 years, pieces have been designed and sewn in Copenhagen using natural fabrics. Machenhauer also co-founded the French scarf and knitwear house EPICE Paris with Bess Nielsen in 1999.
Stoneyford, County Kilkenny, Ireland
Jerpoint Glass has blown Irish glass by hand at its Stoneyford studio since 1979, shaping wine carafes, glasses, and one-off gallery pieces that come out of exhibitions and experimental work. Visitors can watch glassblowers at the furnace and buy directly from the studio, open daily except limited Sunday hours.
Best for Hand-blown Irish glassware
Hebron Road 12, Jerusalem 9354206, Israel / Jerusalem / Israel
1982 project turning the former St John eye-hospital building into studios where Judaica artists, ceramicists and jewellers work, exhibit and sell; house site says applied-arts centre since 1970, ~35 workshop artists now (Jerusalem Foundation; house About).
Best for Judaica, ceramics and jewellery made and sold in resident studios.
Bangkok / Online
The Thai Silk Company founded 1950 by the American architect who revived a dying craft and vanished into the Cameron Highlands — hand-woven Thai silk from the Surawong flagship and the Heritage Quarter, dressed The King and I and The White Lotus alike.
Best for Hand-woven Thai silk and the legend that comes with it.
Sendai / Japan
Since 1947, Kanezaki has turned Sendai's signature sasa-kamaboko fish cakes using additive-free surimi, running five directly-owned shops across Miyagi plus a dedicated sasakama museum-store at its Wakabayashi-ku headquarters. Visitors can watch craftsmen at work and order online or by mail through the company's own shop.
Best for Fish cake, Kamaboko, Sendai souvenir
Nottingham / Online
Founded in 1983, Kitty Fisher designs and makes Nottingham lace accessories, cushions, table linens and silk pieces in its Nottingham workrooms. It no longer keeps a physical shop, selling its made-to-order pieces solely through its website.
Best for Nottingham lace, handkerchiefs, cushions, silk accessories, table linens
Lahore store, with roots across Pakistan
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.
Best for Natural-dyed block-print textiles
Kyoto / Online
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.
Centre St. Antoine, Gemmayze, Beirut, Lebanon / Beirut / Lebanon
Established 1979 as Lebanon's first social enterprise, created to keep artisans active and give local craftspeople a marketplace.
Best for Lebanese crafts from a social enterprise supporting local artisans.
Seville / Spain
Lina Sevilla has made flamenco dresses and mantones since 1960, recently opening a renovated shop-workshop on Calle Álvarez Quintero in the heart of Seville. The label runs a full online store alongside in-person styling appointments for brides and feria-goers.
Best for Flamenco fashion, Embroidery
Longquan, Lishui, Zhejiang, China
This state-recognized Chinese Time-Honored enterprise traces to 1956, continuing a Longquan swordsmithing tradition dated to the Spring and Autumn period, more than 2,600 years ago. Master craftsman Zhang Yesheng still forges on site at a factory that doubles as a national industrial-tourism site.
Best for Handcrafted Longquan swords
Longquan's swordsmithing history is conventionally dated to the Spring and Autumn period, more than 2,600 years ago, but the modern factory traces only to 1956, when local artisans were organized into the Longquan County Sword Production Group to keep the craft alive under state industry. It was formally reconstituted as the Longquan Baojian Factory in 1978, and the present company, Zhejiang Longquan City Baojian Factory Co., Ltd., was established in 2003.
Its current chairman and master craftsman, Zhang Yesheng, was born in 1968 and has apprenticed in the trade since 1986; he holds the title of Zhejiang Arts and Crafts Master and is recognised as a transmitter of the region's intangible cultural heritage. Under that continuity of hands-on leadership, the factory has collected a run of state designations: China Famous Trademark status from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, Chinese Time-Honored Enterprise recognition from the Ministry of Commerce, and a National Special Cultural Industry Key Project designation from the Ministry of Culture.
The site is also rated a National 3A-level scenic area and a National Industrial Tourism Demonstration Site, open year-round with public access to its forging workshops, grinding shops and exhibition halls -- a working factory that doubles as a heritage attraction.
Marrakech / Morocco
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.
Best for Fashion, Caftans, Moroccan Couture
1663 Duranleau Street, Net Loft, Granville Island, Vancouver, BC V6H 3S3 / Vancouver / Canada
Maiwa started in 1986 as Kwon's one-woman natural-dye practice and Granville Island shop; house now also runs a textile school and foundation supporting Indian artisans.
Best for Natural dyes, textiles and artisan support from a Granville Island shop.
Bologna / via stockists
Bologna's small-atelier luxury shirtmaker (1959) — 13 stitches per centimeter, and the famous 'Iseo' one-piece collar shirt; own e-shop absent, so linked via its Brussels stockist Maison Degand.
Best for The Iseo one-piece collar in Riva cloth.
BHV Marais / Rue de Rivoli
Italian lighting house founded 1950 in Lucca, Tuscany by designer Elio Martinelli. Produces Gae Aulenti's 1965 Pipistrello lamp, originally made for Olivetti's Paris showroom; still manufactured in Lucca under his daughter Emiliana.
Best for The 1965 bat-wing Pipistrello lamp, an icon of Italian lighting modernism.
Martinelli Luce was founded in 1950 in Lucca, Tuscany, when designer Elio Martinelli turned a cellar in the city's old centre into what he called his 'Laboratory.' The company built its early identity on injection-moulded plastic and methacrylate lighting, designed primarily by Martinelli and by architect Gae Aulenti. Its defining piece is the Pipistrello, designed by Aulenti in 1965 for the Olivetti showroom in Paris and produced by Martinelli Luce ever since; the lamp's name comes from its shade, four curved opaline methacrylate panels shaped to evoke outstretched wings. Martinelli Luce remains an independent, family-run company, today led by Emiliana Martinelli, Elio's daughter, with production still concentrated in Lucca.
Unión, Montevideo
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.
Best for Mate
Folly Beach, South Carolina
Family-run since 1965, McKevlin's is among the oldest surf shops in the United States, a block from the Folly Beach pier at 8 Center Street. The store shapes and sells surfboards and stocks its own apparel, leashes and hardware for local surfers.
Best for Surfboards, wetsuits and surf apparel
1556 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA 94117, United States / San Francisco / United States
Third-generation Haight shop; Mendel and Sarah Herscowitz established it in 1968 after opening down the block in 1952.
Best for A third-generation Haight shop established by the Herscowitz family in 1968.
Valladolid / Spain
Miel Montes Torozos has produced raw, artisan honey from the Montes Torozos hills near Valladolid since 1980, offering thyme, lavender, and holm-oak varieties along with gift sets. Orders can be placed through the shop's online store or directly by phone and WhatsApp while the site undergoes updates.
Best for Raw thyme, lavender and holm-oak honey gift sets
Koh Samui, Thailand
Opened in 1987, this was the first art gallery to establish on Koh Samui, built on a house style of impressionist oil paintings layering Buddha-inspired faces over abstract grounds. Resident artists still produce gallery originals and custom portrait commissions, each issued with a certificate of authenticity.
Best for Original Thai oil paintings and custom portraits
Koyasan, Koya-cho, Ito District, Wakayama, Japan
Founded in 1950, this family workshop still makes its raw goma-dofu with Guatemalan white sesame, Koyasan spring water, and Yoshino kudzu starch, following the method it opened with. The shop sells directly from its Koyasan premises, closed Mondays, with a small dine-in counter attached.
Best for Raw sesame tofu made with Yoshino kudzu
Himeji, Hyogo
The Myochin family forged armor for the Himeji domain before turning to fire tongs, and in 1965 the 52nd-generation smith tuned a pair of them into the clear-ringing hibashi wind chime the workshop is now known for. Hand-forged pieces run from the signature iron chimes to titanium bells, letter openers and vases, still made at the family's Himeji forge.
Best for Hand-forged iron wind chimes and hibashi
Mystic Connecticut / United States
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.
Best for Handmade, nautical, knotwork, bracelets
Portsmouth Nh / United States
N.W. Barrett Gallery has represented several hundred craft artists in fine gems, high-karat gold and other media from its Market Street space in Portsmouth, NH since 1985. The gallery is open seven days a week, year round.
Best for Crafts, Gallery
St Ives / United Kingdom
Founded in 1965 by potter Janet Leach, the New Craftsman Gallery has spent sixty years showing ceramics, jewelry, and painting from artists tied to the St Ives art scene, including early champions of Lucie Rie and Bernard Leach. The gallery runs a full calendar of rotating exhibitions and ships purchased artworks nationally and internationally.
Best for Art & Craft Gallery, Ceramics, Jewelry
Oketo / Japan
From the small Hokkaido town of Oketo, Oke-Craft gathers turned wooden tableware and cutlery made by two dozen independent workshops under a regional craft brand born in 1983. Bowls, plates, cups, and utensils are sold at the Forest Craft Center shop and through the official online store.
Best for Woodcraft, wooden-tableware, homeware
Omotesando, Tokyo
Landmark souvenir shop on Omotesando selling traditional Japanese crafts since 1951. Kimono, ceramics, lacquerware, folding fans, and woodblock prints.
Best for Traditional Japanese crafts on Omotesando since 1951
Todd Mall, Alice Springs, NT
Founded in 1972, this artist-owned company was the birthplace of the Western Desert dot-painting movement. It represents Pintupi and Luritja artists, and the work it carries is museum-grade.
Best for Museum-grade Western Desert Aboriginal paintings
Udaipur / India
Pichwai Artist, working from a studio in Udaipur since 1983, hand-paints traditional Pichwai devotional artworks depicting Shrinathji and Krishna on paper, cloth, and canvas. Pieces are sized and priced individually on the website, with worldwide shipping and custom commissions available.
Best for Pichwai Painting, Traditional Art
Val Gardena / Italy
Rabanser Holzschnitzerei has carved Madonnas, saints, crucifixes, and nativity figures from wood in Val Gardena since master carver Otto Ferdinando Rabanser founded the workshop in 1976, now run by his son Florian. Finished pieces are sold from the shop in St. Ulrich and through the workshop's own online store, alongside custom carvings made to order.
Best for Hand-carved saints, crucifixes and nativity figures
Sydney, Australia
Sydney work-boot maker founded 1989 by the Cloros family, whose bootmaking trade traces to Greek immigrant brothers who began selling handmade boots at Surry Hills markets in the 1920s. Known for the classic Australian elastic-sided, pull-on work boot, still made in Sydney.
Best for Ugg work boots, Australian
Redback Boots was founded in 1989 by the Cloros family in Sydney, though the family's bootmaking roots go back further: brothers Stanley, Bill, and John Cloros left Greece for Australia in the early 1920s, bringing boot- and shoemaking skills, and began fashioning boots sold at Surry Hills markets in inner Sydney. Redback's core product is the Australian work boot: a leather boot with elastic-sided gussets and pull tabs, allowing quick on/off with a snug, laced-boot-like fit. The company still manufactures in Sydney at a time when many competitors have moved production overseas, and its boots are used by tradespeople, farmers, and military personnel in Australia and internationally.
Datong
A surviving traditional Chinese movable-type foundry with vast racks of lead characters and matrices. Established in 1969; the Ministry of Culture lists the Taipei address, hours and official site.
Best for Established in 1969
Newport Beach / United States
Shaping handmade boards in Newport Beach since 1967, Russell Surfboards specializes in retro, alternative and custom shapes. Its Balboa shop takes custom board inquiries and also sells its own board models and apparel.
Best for Surf shop, surfboards, custom shaping
Zamalek, Cairo
Safarkhan Art Gallery, whose Instagram handle references 1968, exhibits contemporary and modernist Egyptian art across oil paintings, mixed media, sculpture, lithographs, watercolors and marble mosaics, including a Mosaics of Dahshur marble workshop collaboration. Artists shown include Omar Abdel Zaher, Ibrahim Khatab, Neama El Sanhoury and Katherine Bakhoum.
Best for Modern and contemporary egyptian art
Foz
Artisanal Italian gelato since 1949 — Attilio Santini's cult-following Portuguese institution with 60+ flavors.
Best for A wide range of artisanal Italian gelato flavours at this Portuguese institution
Santini Gelato is an Italian gelato shop established in 1949 by Italian immigrant Attilio Santini, who brought authentic Italian gelato-making traditions to Portugal. The brand has expanded to multiple locations across Portugal including shops in Belém, Chiado, Cascais, Carcavelos, Porto, and Faro. The Porto location at Largo dos Lóios, 18 offers around 20 flavors at any time, with approximately 60 seats inviting customers to linger. Santini is famous for its natural ingredients and ultra-fresh flavors, especially the strawberry variety, which has a cult following for good reason. The menu includes classics like hazelnut and lemon sorbet alongside Portuguese-inspired options such as Bolo de Bolacha and Pastel de Nata gelato. Despite its size, the Porto shop draws substantial queues even at 10pm, reflecting its long-standing local reputation for quality and variety.
Mawanella / Sri Lanka
Sapumal Industries was established in 1977 as a family-owned business on Kandy Road in Mawanella, Sri Lanka, describing itself as the island's pioneer manufacturer of incense sticks and incense powder.
Best for Sri Lankan incense sticks, powder, and sambrani manufactured continuously
Sapumal Industries was established in 1977 as a family-owned business on Kandy Road in Mawanella, Sri Lanka, describing itself as the island's pioneer manufacturer of incense sticks and incense powder. Close to five decades later it remains family-run, having grown into what it calls the country's leading and fastest-growing producer in the category, holding ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 14001:2015 certification for its manufacturing and environmental processes.
The company's core line covers incense sticks, incense powder, and sambrani (resin incense burned on charcoal, common to South Asian devotional practice), made through its own research and development laboratory and press facilities rather than outsourced production. It has diversified over the years into air fresheners, perfumes, and safety wax matches, and operates two subsidiary companies alongside the original Mawanella works.
Distribution runs across all of Sri Lanka's provinces as well as export markets, making Sapumal one of the more established names supplying the island's own incense-burning tradition — a market distinct from, but adjacent to, the Indian agarbatti trade that supplies much of South Asia. Its near-half-century of continuous operation from the same Mawanella base underlines a company built on manufacturing scale rather than a single retail identity.
Duomo
Renzo Scarpelli founded this workshop in 1960 to practice commesso fiorentino, the inlaying of hard and semi-precious stones into pictorial panels. The family cuts Tuscan paesina and gabbro alongside lapis lazuli and malachite into landscapes and still lifes, with a gallery near the Duomo.
Best for Pietre dure stone inlay panels
Praia da Joaquina
Shaping custom boards at Praia da Joaquina since 1978, Schlickmann builds performance surfboards tuned to each rider across models like the Spark, Blade and Titan. The workshop treats every order as an authorial piece, matching outline and volume to a surfer's style and level.
Best for Custom-shaped performance surfboards
Newport Ri / United States
Since 1986, Newport Scrimshanders has kept the American folk art of scrimshaw alive at its Bowen's Wharf shop. Its craftsmen carve jewelry, knives and display pieces from repurposed ivory, sold in store and through the online shop.
Best for Scrimshaw, artisan gallery, jewelry, carving
Seiffen
A Seiffen cooperative founded in 1958, producing nutcrackers, Räuchermännchen, candle arches and turned Christmas pyramids in the Erzgebirge folk tradition. Its showroom workshop sells pieces made on site alongside work from other regional artisans.
Best for Erzgebirge folk wood art
Senegambia Road, Serrekunda (Greater Banjul)
Founded in 1982, Senegambia Craft Market gathers Gambian artisans, makers and traders into one collective. Its stalls sell wood-carved masks, tie-dye, silver jewellery, beadwork, drums, leather goods and African-print textiles, with custom tailoring and woodwork.
Best for Gambian handicrafts, wood carving, tie-dye and jewellery
1157 Periwinkle Way, Sanibel Island, Florida
Family-owned since 1976, She Sells Sea Shells stocks Sanibel shells and exotic sea life alongside handmade shell craft — jewellery, ornaments, novelties, shell animals and flowers. Southwest Florida has voted it the best shell shop around.
Best for Sanibel shells and handmade shell crafts
Rann Of Kutch / India
Shrujan is a not-for-profit founded in 1969 by Rolex Award laureate Chanda Shroff to revive Kutch hand embroidery, and its craftswomen's work is sold through Shrujan's own shops and exhibitions across India and abroad. The organisation also runs the Living and Learning Design Centre near Bhujodi, documenting the embroidery traditions of Kutch's many craft communities.
Best for Embroidery heritage organisation
Intramuros, Manila
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.
1531 Johnston Street, Granville Island, Vancouver, BC V6H 3R9 / Vancouver / Canada
Established 1986 by weaver-designer Diana Sanderson on Granville Island; weft is still thrown by hand on floor and dobby looms that can hold 30+ yards of hand-dyed silk.
Best for Hand-dyed silk woven on floor and dobby looms.
Santa Cruz, California
Stretch Boards makes custom boards in Santa Cruz and traces William “Stretch” Riedel’s board-building work to 1979. The company describes producing each board under one roof, with EPS and epoxy construction a particular focus. Its models and custom options should be discussed in relation to the surfer and intended conditions rather than selected by appearance alone.
Best for Custom surfboards and EPS/epoxy construction from Santa Cruz
Stretch Boards is the Santa Cruz board-making business associated with William Riedel, known as Stretch, whose work began in 1979. His background includes boards for surfing and other forms of wave riding, with custom construction central to the company's story. The maker identifies a factory in midtown Santa Cruz rather than an outsourced retail-only operation.
The company describes building each board under one roof and gives particular attention to EPS and epoxy construction. Its approach combines materials and shape with feedback from riders, rather than treating every board as the same product with different graphics. The current catalogue presents different models, including variations on the Fish design developed with rider input.
Start a board enquiry with the surfing you actually do and the conditions for which you need it. A model name alone does not settle the dimensions or construction that will suit an individual surfer. Discuss those decisions directly with the maker, and keep ordering or factory-visit arrangements separate from assumptions based on old workshop photographs.
Chiang Mai (hillside north)
Founded in 1988 by textile scholar Patricia Cheesman above Chiang Mai, Studio Naenna hand-weaves silk and eco-cotton with Karen backstrap weavers, using 25-year-old indigo vats and other natural dyes. Cheesman's daughter Lamorna now leads the studio and its Nimmanhaemin showroom, Adorn.
Best for Natural-indigo handweaving on the slopes above Chiang Mai, since 1988
Patricia Cheesman founded Studio Naenna in 1988, drawing on research into Lao and Thai textiles that began in the early 1970s, when she was working on a UN pottery project in Laos. Following villagers who fled to Vientiane during the 1975 Lao Revolution and brought their heritage cloths with them, she began documenting and studying regional weaving and dye traditions in depth, later lecturing on ceramics and textiles at the University of Chiang Mai from 1985.
The studio sits in the shade of Suthep mountain, surrounded by fruit and dye trees, and works with Karen weavers using backstrap looms and 100 percent natural indigo dyes drawn from indigo vats kept going for 25 years. Its stated aim is to honor a 2,000-year-old regional weaving tradition while working at the pace of the natural materials involved — ikat, brocade and embroidery on silk and eco-cotton.
Patricia's daughter, Lamorna Cheesman, has since taken over the studio's operations, running both the original workshop and its Nimmanhaemin showroom, Adorn, alongside ongoing indigo and weaving workshops open to visitors.
Yakushima / Online
Takedakan is a Yakushima woodcraft shop selling yakusugi (ancient cedar) items such as trays, chopsticks and gift pieces through its own online store, run under the family workshop name since 1962. The site links to a physical store location via Google Maps alongside its e-commerce catalog.
Best for Yakusugi ancient-cedar trays, chopsticks and gift pieces
Hanoi / Hang Gai
Four generations of mother-to-daughter hand embroidery on Hanoi's silk street since 1969 — begun with wartime handkerchiefs stitched with love words for soldiers, now a 1,000 m² design house at 61 Hang Gai whose double-sided silk needlework is gifted to visiting royalty.
Best for Double-sided Vietnamese silk embroidery from the source.
Granada, Andalusia
The Beas Bimbela family has cut taracea inlay in Granada since 1948, now into a fourth generation working from a workshop on Calle Santa Rosalia. They assemble marquetry board games, jewellery boxes and wedding keepsakes from tessellated wood, bone and metal.
Best for Handmade marquetry board games and boxes
Granada, Andalusia
Founded in 1962, this Granada workshop hand-cuts geometric marquetry from woods, bone and metal to build chess boards, jewellery boxes and trays in the Nasrid tradition. Each finished piece is numbered and dated by the craftsman and shipped from the workshop's online catalogue.
Best for Inlaid taracea boxes and chess boards
348 D, Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road, near Sultanpur Metro Station, New Delhi 110030, India / New Delhi / India
Sheel Chandra founded The Carpet Cellar in New Delhi in 1975 (collection catalog); Architectural Digest India treats the house as a specialist in hand-knotted antiques and recreations.
Best for Hand-knotted antique carpets and recreations from a Delhi house founded in 1975.
10, Regal Building, Sansad Marg, Connaught Place, New Delhi 110001, India / New Delhi / India
Business Standard (2019) calls it probably Delhi's first lifestyle boutique, founded 1969 in the Regal Building; The Delhi Walla (2026-06-26) confirms the shop still survives there.
Best for A Delhi lifestyle boutique founded in 1969 in the Regal Building.
Dar es Salaam
Working from a Dar es Salaam studio tied to the movement Edward Tingatinga began in 1968, this artist collective paints the enamel-bright birds, animals and village scenes that define the Tingatinga style. Each canvas is sold under the name of the Tanzanian artist who painted it and shipped directly from the studio.
Best for Original Tingatinga paintings straight from the artists
France / Online
Women's outerwear label produced by Lener Cordier, a coat-making family firm based in Hazebrouck, northern France, working in the trade since 1954; designs and manufactures its trenches, coats and parkas in its own workshops.
Best for Cholet-designed trench coats — single-category French outerwear mastery
Trench & Coat is produced by Lener Cordier, a French family firm that has specialized in coats — described on its own site as making 'pieces with sleeves' — since 1954, based in Hazebrouck in the Nord department of northern France. Design, pattern-making and production for the Trench & Coat collections are handled inside Lener Cordier's own workshops rather than through outside contract manufacturers, and the company sources roughly 90% of its materials from long-standing European suppliers. The brand's stated aim is to make well-made coats affordable rather than positioning itself as a luxury house: its own materials describe wanting a coat 'to last through seasons and years, without losing its beauty' at a reasonable price point. The current range covers women's trenches, wool coats and parkas, sold through the brand's own French-language and English-language online stores.
Virginia Beach / United States
Ultralite Surfboards has shaped custom surfboards from its Virginia Beach shop since 1982, offering made-to-order boards alongside professional epoxy and polyester repair work through its Pro Glassing service. Customers can order online through the custom-board form or visit the Baillio Drive workshop directly.
Best for Surfboard Shaper
Naples / Online
Neapolitan tie house founded in 1948 by Mario Ulturale in a home workshop producing semi-finished ties; his son Vincenzo (b.1957) opened the first full made-to-measure workshop in 1985. Known for handmade seven-fold ties and a superstition-referencing cornetto charm sewn into the tail; now also in Rome and Milan.
Best for Lucky-charm seven-fold ties.
Ulturale's history begins just after the Second World War, when Mario Ulturale set up a small tailoring operation inside his own home in Naples in 1948, producing semi-finished ties for other workshops rather than finished retail products. His son Vincenzo, born in 1957, grew up inside that trade and eventually took the business further, opening the company's first proper workshop in 1985 — the point at which Ulturale began assembling complete, made-to-measure ties under its own name rather than supplying components to others.
The house's best-known product is its seven-fold tie: a Neapolitan construction method in which a single piece of silk is folded — three folds on one side, four on the other — without any interlining, a technique prized for drape and hand-finishing skill rather than for using extra material. Ulturale is also associated with a small superstition-referencing detail, a cornetto (horn charm), historically sewn into the tail of some of its ties, and with novelty pieces like its '00 Tiè' model.
Originally a single Naples workshop and boutique, Ulturale has since added retail locations in Rome and Milan, while keeping its ties handmade rather than machine-assembled.
Abidjan / Online
Abidjan's own wax-print house — real Ivorian wax designed and printed in Côte d'Ivoire since 1967, the cloth of West African celebration sold from the source, not the copy.
Best for True Ivorian wax prints from the source
1440 Old Bridge Street, Granville Island, Vancouver, BC V6H 3S6 / Vancouver / Canada
Founded 1984 by David New-Small and Nora Sterling as New-Small and Sterling; Boha Glass: first independent studio-glass facility in BC; now run by Benjamin Kikkert after New-Small retired 2016.
Best for Studio glass from a workshop founded in 1984 and now run by Benjamin Kikkert.
San Miguel de Allende
Velia Sierra Design has produced 100% Italian linen clothing in Mexico since 1982. The family-run house sells women's and men's ready-to-wear and accessories from stores in San Miguel de Allende, Punta de Mita and Guadalajara.
Best for Italian-linen clothing handmade in Mexico
Velia Sierra Design has been working with Italian linen since 1982, when the family business now behind the label began producing clothing under the philosophy 'manos mexicanas, tessuti italiani' — Mexican hands, Italian fabrics. Four decades on, that combination still defines the house: certified Italian linen, pre-washed and finished with natural softeners, cut and sewn entirely in Mexico.
The collections split into womenswear — blouses, trousers, skirts, dresses and tailored jackets — and a smaller menswear line of shirts, jogger trousers and overshirts, alongside linen accessories like woven bags and resin jewelry. Pricing sits in the designer-boutique range, with pieces regularly discounted 30 to 60 percent during seasonal sales.
The brand operates physical stores in three Mexican destinations: a flagship in San Miguel de Allende's Centro Histórico, a shop in the resort town of Punta de Mita, and a location in Guadalajara's Providencia neighborhood. Velia Sierra also uses its retail presence for events — the brand's own site cites pop-up brunches and a styling collaboration tied to public appearances during the 2026 World Cup. For shoppers who want linen with a documented, family-run supply chain rather than an anonymous one, it's a specific, traceable option.
Milan & Valenza / Online
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.
Garden City Beach, South Carolina
Open on Atlantic Avenue since 1969, this surfer-owned shop hand-shapes its own Perfection Surfboards alongside a full range of boards, apparel, and paddleboard rentals. Started by Eric Eason and now run by Kelly Richards and Brian Campbell, it also runs surf lessons on the Grand Strand.
Best for Hand-shaped surfboards and beach gear
Yrjönkatu 12, 00120 Helsinki, Finland / Helsinki / Finland
Clothing-fabric specialist founded 1988, natural-fibre silks, wools, linens and cottons; Sew DIY independently visited the Yrjönkatu 12 boutique.
Best for Natural-fibre silks, wools, linens and cottons for garment making.
Hangzhou, Zhejiang
Established in 1975, Wensli turns Hangzhou mulberry silk into scarves, ties and framed silk artworks using a double-sided printing process it developed in-house, and it supplied ceremonial gifts for the G20 summit and the Asian Games. Its research center releases thousands of new patterns each year, sold alongside a silk culture museum that follows the fibre from cocoon to jacquard loom.
Best for Printed silk scarves and silk gifts
Downtown Juneau, Alaska, USA
William Spear has hand-designed enamel pins and zipper pulls from his Seward Street shop in downtown Juneau since the 1980s, with early pieces like a 1987 walrus pin now traded as collectibles. The shop still sells the full catalog of cloisonné-style pins directly from its own site.
Best for Alaska-themed enamel pins and zipper pulls
Takayama, Gifu
Yamada Shunkei-ten, founded in 1971 in Takayama, produces Hida Shunkei lacquerware, a clear-lacquer finish said to originate about 400 years ago under craftsman Takahashi Kishichiemon. It makes trays, bento boxes, chopsticks and tableware in transparent amber lacquer.
Best for Hida Shunkei clear-lacquer trays, bento boxes and tableware
Yamada Shunkei-ten was established in 1971 in Takayama, Gifu Prefecture, and is registered today as a limited company led by Yamada Hidetoshi. The shop makes Hida Shunkei, a regional lacquerware whose origin story, recorded by the city of Takayama, dates to the Keicho era roughly four centuries ago, when craftsman Takahashi Kishichiemon fashioned a dish from wood prized for its grain and had it finished by an official lacquerer in a clear lacquer that let the wood show through, a technique subsequently named Shunkei-nuri and presented to the shogunate.
Hida Shunkei received formal recognition as a Japanese traditional craft from the national government in 1975, four years after Yamada Shunkei-ten's own founding and following the 1961 establishment of a regional producers' cooperative. Genuine pieces from the shop carry a sticker certifying hand-applied ('tenuri') work by traditionally trained craftspeople, produced under controlled temperature and humidity during curing.
The shop's range runs from traditional forms, tiered boxes, bento boxes, trays and confection dishes, to contemporary items such as tumblers, wine glasses and accessories, all finished in the same clear amber lacquer that is Hida Shunkei's defining feature, aimed explicitly at making the craft usable in everyday, present-day life rather than purely ceremonial.
Kita 7-jo Nishi 19-chome-1, Chuo-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0007 / Sapporo / Japan
Shop-plus-workshop opened 2016; father Takuji Kawaguchi founded woodcarving wholesaler Takusho in 1986; son Naoto carves on site.
Best for On-site woodcarving from a shop-workshop opened in 2016.
Kalambaka / Meteora, Greece
Dimitrios Zindros opened this icon workshop in a small room in Meteora in 1974, and it has since grown into one of Greece's most recognized producers of hand-copied Byzantine icons and ecclesiastical items. Its hagiographers still follow the compositional rules and egg-tempera methods of Byzantine iconography while blending in modern production techniques for church and private commissions.
Best for Byzantine icon reproductions and ecclesiastical items
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