By Kirin Rinehart / Source: Ecouterre

aiayu-1-537x403

Many often seek out items that they wear and use in their home to tell a story, but often the story is told through the purchaser – rather than through the product itself. For Aiayu, the story begins before the product even reaches you. Aiayu designs sustainable, practical, and luxurious clothing and home goods with a focus on the stories that already exist within each fiber and each stitch of each product. The materials are the main focus driving the design process. Seeing beauty in natural colors and textures, each collection expresses a cohesiveness that one can only see achieved so successfully in the natural world itself.

aiayu-2-537x403

Each year, Aiayu designs one home collection and two clothing collections consisting of styles designed to last from one season to the next and for years to come.

Maria of Aiayu tells Ecouterre, “To me a good product is so much more than a design from the hand of the designer. It is teamwork between the designer and producer. The technology and skilled process behind the products is fascinating.”

This fascination evolved into a company that developed deep relationships with each of its suppliers. For example, for the products consisting of llama wool, Aiayu works with a farmer who cares for llamas high in the Altiplano of Bolivia.

Considered the highest quality and most durable wool in the world, this relationship and the resulting product, carry through the message of sustainability, quality, and beauty that directs Aiayu in each piece they create. Quite simply, Aiayu products are made with love – and meant to be loved.

aiayu-6-537x403

When asked about how fabrics are chosen, Maria says, “We seek out unexploded opportunities to give our products their own identity and the consumer a unique alternative (to what already exists).”

Rather than seeking out a specific material, Maria searches for skilled hands, responsible trade, and natural qualities. As a result, Aiayu products reflect elements that are the antithesis of materials so ubiquitous in the market today.

Sustainability was always the original business model of Aiayu. Maria tells Ecouterre that “It is important to know where and how things are done to make the right choices as a consumer. That helps us understand our world better.”

By creating beautiful products that last years and likely generations, Aiayu products make it easy to adopt sustainable approaches in our everyday life through the products we use the most.

When asked about the future of Aiayu, Maria is focused. “The appearance of our brand in the local market has turned out exactly as we wished for.”

Aiayu hopes to expand to other international markets but only if they can continue to maintain the same message. The original mission of Aiayu—producing quality products in a responsible way—must remain intact.

Read more @ Ecouterre