What does the name mean?

“Caipocha” isn’t actually a word. Though it does resemble a number of indigenous names found throughout the Imbabura province of Ecuador (such as Laguna Cuicocha), “Caipocha” is simply a combination of the first syllables of our last names.

Where do you work?

Cristo has a fairly large shop in downtown Quito, the capital of Ecuador, and completes all his work there. Sandra and Roberto, however, aren’t very good at staying in the same place. The work they offer on this site was made in Ecuador and Colombia, with materials from those two countries as well as components they picked up during their travels in Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil.

Why is it important to buy direct from the artisans?

A lot of people have profited from our work, often far more than we do. By selling directly on our own website, we’re getting rid of middlemen, taking control and no longer earning less than 50% of the retail price of our products. In addition, we find it very rewarding to form relationships with the people who buy and enjoy what we make.

How eco-friendly is your jewelry?

In a word, very. Natural materials like seeds and bamboo are found on every page of the site, and we have often collected these materials ourselves. We also use lots of recycled materials, from favorites like scrap leather to new concepts like agglomerated wood and old CD’s. When a certain material you find isn’t as green as you might expect, that’s often because it’s not yet available to artisans in South America.