Our Story

This is not the store I intended to build.

The store I intended to build would have been easier — and probably found a wider audience. I was going to call it Sandals2Shades: sandals, sunglasses, and everything in between. I even have the domain name and the logo. But that was just a store. This is an adventure.

Sourcing sandals and sunscreen and sunglasses — anything that crosses your mind when you think of summer and the beach, or summer and the great outdoors — there are tens of thousands of products out there. And they all start to look alike. Because they are alike. They're the products you find in any big box store, made by the cheapest labor on the fastest machines. Break one? Just get another. They're interchangeable.

I'm tired of interchangeable.

Here's what happened. While trying to source those products, I kept running across small, niche items that stopped me in my tracks. They all had a story. They were sustainable instead of extractive. They were handmade — everything the big box store is not. They were often made by women, or by female-owned companies. I found shoes handwoven in Mexico using skills honed over centuries. I found shoes embroidered with traditional tatreez motifs by refugee and low-income women artisans, then handcrafted from locally sourced leather in Hebron. I found a clutch made in Laos — not just made there, but made by village artisan groups to honor traditional techniques while generating fair, sustainable income and keeping the value, and the craft, in the community.

Are you starting to see the vision?

This is not a big box store carrying big box things. This is a boutique — products and stories curated specifically for you. The products matter. They matter to the people who make them, and they matter to their communities. I understand that you can click twice and find a thousand varieties of scarves. But can you find one made from 100% sheep wool by a Fair Trade weaving collective that began as a small yarn-spinning initiative and grew into a social enterprise built around equity, craft preservation, and sustainable employment for women?

Should you care?

Let me leave you with a short story. There was a little boy on the beach, walking and kicking sand, stopping now and then to toss a beached starfish back into the ocean. A man on a nearby bench watched until he couldn't stand it anymore and went to ask what the boy was doing. "Well, sir," the boy said, "I just see all these starfish up here and thought I'd help them back into the water." The man huffed. "You can't be serious. There have to be thousands of starfish on this beach. You can't possibly make a difference." The boy thought about that for a moment, took a few steps, reached down, and tossed the next starfish back into the water. Then he looked at the man — respectfully, but with resolve — and said: "I made a difference for that one."

The stories you read here, and even the products you purchase, won't save the world. What we're doing won't even save a community. But somebody gave part of their life to craft that shoe, that bag, that bracelet, that scarf you're looking at. For that person, at least, you can make a difference.

And you'll look beautiful while you do.