This holiday season give the gift of substance and significance through objects and pieces that empower small communities. Spread fairly made beauty, make this year’s gifts about an affection filled with thoughtful gestures that carry critical thinking and ethical shopping. Ethical style not only carries the possibility to contribute to worthy causes, but it also means expanding prosperity to more contexts. We’ve curated a special selection you from HOPE and have included some other thoughts from Ten Thousand Villages, The Little Market, Done Good, and The Good Trade. Thoughtful shopping for ..read more

  One of HOPE’s artisanal partners in the materialization of a fair trade model is the Eperara Siapidara indigenous community. Located in the southwestern region of the Colombian territory, they feed their identity from both Pacific and Andean atmospheres and create beautiful woven patterns of both exquisite manufacture and social sense. Graphic patterns, delicately woven shapes, luscious colors or neutral and down to earth hues are some of the visual motifs that can be found in the artisanal work of this indigenous community. Beautiful clutches, woven baskets, and envelope bags are part of t ..read more

Conscious consumption and ethical style can be powerfully symbolic in a world saturated with excess and waste. In the 1960s, the premise “the personal is political” was coined, introducing and consolidating the notion that apparently small, personal things and actions had the ability to reflect wider structures and issues. Personal experience can, in many ways, mirror what is embedded in ampler political and socials schemes that surround us. In a contemporary landscape that has come to be dominated by the frenzied rhythm of constantly changing digital images, a saturated market of consumable o ..read more

Ethical fashion is all about refashioning structures and making style less about newness and more about fairness. There is beauty in symmetry. In shapes, forms, silhouettes, objects, style items and accessories that have this quality. But as style is no longer just about surfaces, and as it finds itself caught in a time where it is being asked more questions about its social, political and cultural meanings, there is another form of symmetry that can evoke an even more meaningful sense of beauty: the type in which manufacturing and creative processes honor the people who make the objects that ..read more

  The World’s fashion industry has had a magic success throughout its evolution during the past decades, especially with the technology acceleration, the trends and the four-season changes of clothes and products in general. For Mark Tungate, a journalist specializing in marketing and mass media, the world’s debt for this industry has increased in a trillion dollars. Our cars, phones, kitchens, and even the places where we have fun seem to succumb to the vagaries of fashion.  For this author, we cannot underestimate its importance today, which means that apart from its economic relevance, clot ..read more

  The touristic activity has not been though for business or pleasure only. Nowadays, tourism has become an activity for learning continently about the ways of living of other cultures and is getting to focus on how travelers feel their stays in different parts of the World. For instance, the main reason why travelers are searching for this type of tourism is because of the authenticity of their experiences with the people and places they get to know. The United Nations World Tourism Organization predicts that tourism in emerging economies will grow to be 57% of the global market by 2030. Foll ..read more

  HOPE’s vision is all about fairness, the redefinition of local luxury, honoring local identity and channeling a way of consciousness that is motivated by authentic sustainable models.  Style is better understood through context. The term luxury can often evoke the grand tradition of European know-how, old-world craftsmanship and the fabulousness of conspicuous consumption and fashionable display. And yet, in Colombia and Latin America, luxury, seen in context, can lead to a redefinition of the term, grounding it to a local sense of meaning and aesthetics. In such a context, luxury can become ..read more

Where we started The reason we wanted to send out this post, is to bring you in a bit more into our journey. Many of you who have been with us for the past few years, are now wondering why these big changes and it is only fair to share our process with you.  We started off 5 years ago in the alpaca business. We were manufacturing clothing made from alpaca wool in Peru and exporting the goods to our warehouse in the United States. Being from Colombia in South America, the logistics and the handling of the business remotely was a very big challenge, and very costly; more so because alpaca was ha ..read more

The Kankuamo people lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia in the villages of Atánquez, Guatapurí, Chemesquemena, Los Haticos, La Minha and Río Seco in the department of Cesar. Their settlement limits the reservations of the Kogui, Wiwa, and Arhuaco tribes. The Kankuamo people are estimated at around 15,000 individuals, and speak Sánha, a dialect of the Chibcha family. The Kankuamo people are characterized for their different way of dressing from the other peoples of the Sierra Nevada; the women wear two overlapping cloths and the men wear short trousers. The Ma ..read more

Wayuu mochila bags or mochilas are a traditional skill that has been practiced by Wayuu women for hundreds of years. The craft of weaving these bags is an art that is learned by the Wayuu women from an early age. Wayuu culture is known for making Wayuu bags or mochila bags.  Wayuu is a Native American ethnic group of the Guajira Peninsula in the northernmost part of Colombia on the Caribbean coast and northwest Venezuela. Although the region is mind-blowing with the contrast of desert and ocean, the people are very underprivileged, living in small wooden shelters. In many subregions of La Guaj ..read more