Our Story

While traveling through remote regions of Yunnan and Guizhou in southwest China, our co-founder, Caroline, discovered beautiful handicraft traditions, preserved by geographic remoteness and refined by generations of women artisans. But in a region faced with illiteracy and limited job opportunities beyond agriculture, she learned that women artisans today often lack a marketplace for their handicrafts beyond their own villages. Caroline and Mark, our other co-founder, wanted to find the best way to share these textiles with a wider audience.

What started as an idea on a napkin has grown into an organization that works directly with 750+ women artisans, partnering on design, quality control and distribution. Our mission is to expand artisans' market access and economic opportunity by sharing their beautiful textiles with the world.

We offer limited-edition handbags that featured handmade linings, and also textiles to the trade.

We're committed to ensuring our partner artisans grow their own businesses. For that reason, 20% of our profits fund women's education in our partner communities, helping make women’s traditional handicrafts both a sustainable and meaningful livelihood.

Nu ( 女, 'nü,' third tone) means “woman” or "female" in Mandarin Chinese. Supporting the work of women artisans is central to our work, and we wanted to make sure our name reflected that.