About
Polished Coconut is a business with a social mission. I collaborate with select groups of artisans to preserve their cultural heritage and help elevate select crafts to their highest design expression. I have believed for over two decades that empowering women behind the craft through optimal pricing, fair trade, and microcredit financing is the key to long term socioeconomic development within these communities.
Together, We respond to the growing consumer demand for slow fashion and ethically sourced home design products. Together, we meet head on the critical need for environmental sustainability and conservation of exceptional ancestral craftsmanship.
Our Pledge
Polished Coconut maintains the highest standards of quality, craftsmanship, ethics, and beauty. We are pioneers or sustainability – one of a small select group to sell socially conscious goods that empower women through fair trade.
Our relationships with women artisans has deepened as we’ve connected them to buyers from around the world and helped to inspire newer and more creative products. Our selections are rooted in tradition, beauty, social consciousness, the preservation of cultural heritage and the empowerment of women.
Because of Polished Coconut’s commitment to cooperative economics, we’ve never strayed far from the ancestral craft. We believe in old-fashioned design sessions under thatched huts and the star-filled night sky. We’ve dug deep to inspire both ourselves and our customers and fill our online boutique with the most exceptional bespoke pieces from across the planet.
Polished Coconut strives to pass along the same style and attributes embodied by the women in my family: strength, hard work, generosity, a down-to-earth attitude, and of course — Always Polished
Our process
Polished Coconut is part of social movement whose goal is to help producers in developing countries achieve better trading conditions and to promote sustainability. Since inception, my philosophy has encompassed the “big picture” of environmental and cultural preservation through the deployment and promotion of ancestral craft. I offer a wider variety of exceptional handcrafted products which affords a higher probability of appeal to a larger market segment of social conscious consumers.
I am an advocate for the payment of premium pricing to all my suppliers. I extend interest free micro credit loans to the artisans to enable them to purchase high quality primary material. Each purchase of a handmade product contributes to income generation for these artisan communities. Families are fed first, mothers-the breadwinners-can cover expenses, and then finally have access to better quality cotton and weave without pressure about needing to make a bag to support their families. The cog in the wheel of endemic poverty begins to turn. My financial commitment to the artisans has outlasted the fickle trends of fashion and demonstrated to the communities where I am involved as one of a long-term commitment to them and their social and economic development.
History
As a young girl, I marveled at my grandmother’s incomparable poise and flair for fashion. She would mix the styles of her native Mexican roots with pieces from American designers of the 1970s: Halston, Bill Blass, Adolfo, Ralph Lauren, and more. She was a dream to see. I always aspired to her grace and sensibility — that eclectic clothing, impeccable aesthetic, warm heart, and unparalleled Mexican cooking. Her entire essence made the ordinary feel extraordinary.
Polished Coconut began over a decade ago as an ethically sourced home design market import-ing hand-loomed hammocks, coverlets from the Zenu tribe, and painted trays from Mexico. Soon thereafter, I met a group of artisans who specialized in basket-making, and we worked to apply their highly skilled technique to a variety of home goods: mats, runners for hallways and kitchens, and our much-beloved placemats.
Today, I can feel Grandmother’s spirit of tradition and authenticity among the independent ar-tisans whose work I champion. @polishedcoconut provides these women the wages and recognition to elevate their craft. We support small-batch designers whose antique treasures and up-cycled vintage pieces provide the old-world beauty we all long to retain in our everyday lives.
