How we buy

One-of-a-kind handicrafts, bought in person in Kathmandu

Straight from the workshop

Most shops selling Nepali crafts abroad order by the carton. A design is picked from a catalogue, a few hundred are made, and what arrives is whatever came off the line that month. It is a reasonable way to run a warehouse. It is a poor way to buy a thangka.

We buy the other way round. We go into the workshops of Kathmandu Valley — the lost-wax casters of Patan, the thangka studios of Bhaktapur, the handloom weavers around the city — and buy the actual object from the people whose hands made it. This bowl, with this note. This painting, by this artist. It is photographed as the individual thing it is, listed once, and when it sells it comes off the site.

Buying this way costs more per piece and takes far longer, and it is the only reason we can tell you who made a thing, where they work, and what we paid them for it. There is no exporter, no agent and no consolidator between the workshop and your door — which is why the money reaches the maker, and why the price of a good thangka here is the price of a good thangka rather than four people's margins stacked on top of one.

Kathmandu Where we buy, in person

Direct No importer in between

Worldwide Shipping, duties prepaid

What we are trying to do

Pay the maker their asking price without haggling them down, sell the piece honestly as the one object it is, and keep enough margin to go back next month and do it again.

How this works in practice

Chosen by hand, held for us

Every listed piece is one we have seen, handled and photographed ourselves, and that the workshop is holding for us. That is why the shop is small and why nothing here is ever “temporarily out of stock” — it is a real object in a real room, and it is either there or it is sold.

Photographed twice

Once when we buy it, which is what you see on the listing, and again once it is packed, which we email you before it ships. If those two sets of photographs do not show the same object, you have a claim and we have a problem.

Duties in the price

Shipping is DHL Express, and import duty and tax are calculated and prepaid at checkout. Nothing is owed to the courier when the parcel arrives. This is the single most common complaint about buying crafts direct from Nepal, and it is entirely avoidable.

We buy, we do not broker

The pieces here are ours — bought, paid for and shipped by us, not drop-shipped from a warehouse we have never seen. Volume production is a different trade entirely, so trade buyers are introduced to export houses in Kathmandu who specialise in it rather than being sold something we do not do.

Where the crafts come from

Patan metalwork

The Newari bronze casters of Patan have worked metal for generations, using lost-wax casting techniques documented in the valley for centuries. Singing bowls, Buddha figures and ritual metalwork come from these streets, and the good ones are still finished by ear and by hand.

Felt from the valley

Wet felting is largely women’s work in Kathmandu Valley, done in small workshops and cooperatives rather than factories. It is one of the few crafts here where the skill is widespread and the income reaches the person who did the work.

Pashmina weaving

Real pashmina is the undercoat of the Himalayan Chyangra goat, handwoven in Kathmandu and Bhaktapur on wooden looms. The market is full of viscose blends sold under the same word, which is why we list fibre content and weave on every shawl and why the good ones cost what they cost.

Lokta paper

Lokta is made from the bark of the Daphne shrub, which regenerates from the same rootstock after cutting. It is produced in village cooperatives in the hill districts and has been Nepal’s writing paper for something over a thousand years.

See what is in the shop

Every piece is individual and shipped worldwide with duties prepaid. When one sells, it is gone.

Browse the shop