Our Process

The original inspiration for Faire Collection was inspired in Ecuador, an incredibly biodiverse country. Ecuador has beautiful, enormous rainforests and it's the home to many little-known seeds and nuts. These amazing native materials form the basis of our Otavalo jewelry collection, including the beautiful tagua which we use in most of our collection. All of our materials are sustainably sourced by skilled artisans who have used their handcrafts for generations.

In Vietnam, we work with up-cycled bull horn, marble, brass and jackfruit wood. The up-cycled bull horn is a byproduct of the food industry as we try and advocate for NO WASTE wherever and whenever we can. The wood we use is from a jackfruit tree which is an agricultural tree native to Vietnam that skilled artisans sustainably harvest. The marble is one of the most interesting aspects in our materials as we work with a local artisan village specialized in handcrafting marble statues. We use the leftover material from the statues in our jewelry. Again, we strive for NO WASTE! All of these materials are handcrafted in our fair trade workshop in Ha Noi, Vietnam.

We work together with our artisans to find the very best quality materials for our collections, all of which are sourced with care. It is incredibly important to us to ensure our work is sustainable and environmentally sound.

Sustainability

Harvesting the seeds of the rainforest is part of a natural, sustainable cycle. By working with communities and building a profitable alternative to logging or farming in the rainforest, we can help protect traditional ways of life, as well as the environments in which our artisans have lived in for generations.

OUR MATERIALS


Tagua is a beautiful, smooth seed found in pods which emerge from the trunk of the Ecuadorian Ivory Palm. When ripe, the pods are either harvested from the trees or fall to the ground where they can be collected from the forest floor. The nuts are then dried naturally in the sun for several months. Once the dark shell is removed, a beautiful, hard ivory-like seed emerges, ready for our artisans to carve.

Coconuts have been used to make jewelry for generations in the rainforests and coastal areas of South America. The shell is lightweight and soft, and its natural properties add beautiful, warm tones of light and dark brown to our jewelry.

The Pambil seed is found on a tall South American palm which reaches heights of 70 feet and forms part of the canopy of the rainforest. The wood is often used to build houses and the leaves make great thatched roofs. The fruit of this tree contains a small seed which we use in our jewelry collections.

Açaí palm tree palms are found in the swamps and floodplains of the South American rainforest and are best known for the fruit they produce. These small purple berries are harvested by hand, high above the ground by traditional forest farmers. Inside the fruit is a seed and once dried and polished, the seeds of the açaí berries, create some of the most exquisite, natural beads.

Each brass element can take up to a day to perfect, with every part of the cutting and polishing process being done by hand. By combining brass with natural elements such tagua or horn, our artisan designers create a contrasting elegance, resulting in a beautifully modern interpretation of a traditional artisan craft.

Wood offers a striking yet natural contrast to other materials in our collection. Ecuador and Vietnam are well known for their exceptional wood carving and our artisans use both traditional carving methods and modern laser cutting techniques, respecting traditions and adding a modern-day interpretation. Through its alluring pallet of colors, wood brings a natural richness to our jewelry.

We use up-cycled bull horn to create incredibly textural designs to sit beautifully with our handmade brass. By applying heat and water, our artisans are able to cut and mold the up-cycled bullhorn. The horn is repurposed from the food industry and would otherwise go to waste. With its natural color variations offering combinations from white to black, and warm caramel to soft gray, we specialize in creating distinctive matte and sophisticated polished up-cycled pieces.

Traditionally both the bull horn in Vietnam and tagua in Ecuador are cut using craft saws and handheld carving tools. Laser cutting techniques have increased the intricacies of our work, allowing us to create stunningly detailed shapes and more complex designs. It also offers a greater degree of standardisation and a higher level of precision, giving us the freedom to enhance our collection in an innovative way.

A Fresh Interpretation of Craftmanship

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Quality & Care

Every piece of our fair trade jewelry collection is handcrafted by artisans with love and care in Ha Noi Vietnam and Otavalo, Ecuador. Because of that, we want to help you take care of your piece so you get the most out of it!

Our jewelry is shipped to you in recycled packaging. We'd love for you to keep the packaging and reuse it whenever possible. You can reuse the mailer the jewelry is shipped in for future packaging needs. If you would like to dispose of your packaging materials, please put them in your recycling bin as they are 100% recyclable.

Your jewelry comes in a hand-made dust bag. This jewelry keepsake is assembled by our fair-trade artisan partners in Otavalo, Ecuador. The hemp bag is embossed with our logo and is a beautiful keepsake for your jewelry. We recommend keeping this drawstring bag to store your jewelry as it was made with love and care.

 

It's helpful to keep jewelry in a cool, dry place. The majority of our materials are natural, organic substances, so you want to make sure they aren't kept out in the sun or anywhere moist or wet. 

 

Never wear your jewelry while swimming or showering. The water will cause your jewelry to crack! Before you jump in the water, take your jewelry off and you can store it in the drawstring bag that we ship it to you in. 

 

Avoid contact with moisture : don't wear your jewelry while you're putting lotion on or any oils on your body. The natural materials that your jewelry is made from will start to discolor or crack. 

 

If you have additional questions on how to keep your fair trade jewelry clean, please contact info@shopfaire.com