OMG! Heart Boticca!

Here are just a few of the wonderful textile artisans featured on Boticca! From Knit Necklaces to Felted Handbags to Shibori Textiles to Macrame Jewelry. Yes, exquisite macrame jewelry no less. All handmade!

Boticca is a high-end marketplace for handmades. Like an Etsy but with a sophisticated eye for fashion and design. The carefully curated Boticca artists and designers can join the marketplace through an application process or by invitation only. Headquartered in London and officially launched in October 2010, its founders were inspired by the souks of Marrakech and decided to bring their interpretation of the bazaars of Morocco to the web.

What’s So Special About Boticca?
I like that Boticca is a carefully curated handmade marketplace with a sharp eye for fashion and design. Simply put but not so easy to find! There are many handmade marketplaces online these days. But what sets each apart are the quality of their handmades. All which come from stringent curating and moderating of their artists and designers.

It used to be Etsy was not only strictly handmades but had a higher standard for the handmades featured in its community. These days Etsy is overrun with far from handmades and independent artisans. And is no longer the handmade marketplace it was during its hey day. It’s now a free for all marketplace not much different than Ebay. It’s like an Ebay but for crafts and craft supplies that range from shoddy to exquisite. It’s also overrun with resellers who claim their item is handmade when it blatantly does not look handmade and can be bought in bulk from value marts and wholesalers.

Aside from its high-quality high-end hand-selected artisans, online marketplaces like Boticca also provide a great alternative and new frontier to handmade marketplaces online! And an exquisite one at that! So for textile artisans looking for a better fit for their handcrafted wares perhaps Boticca is worth a look. For those shopping for genuine, original, handcrafted designs it’s also a great place to shop for exquisite handmades while supporting artists and their work at the same time. More about handmade marketplaces coming soon!

Textile Artists Featured In This Post:
Justin Smith Design ~ Felted Handbags ~ London, UK
Saako Design ~ Textile Jewelry ~ San Francisco, USA
String Theory ~ Shibori Textiles ~ Montreal, Canada
Ifat Creations ~ Macrame Jewelry ~ Madrid, Spain
Margot ~ Knit Jewelry ~ Hamburg, Germany
Uroco ~ Textile Handbags ~ Brighton, UK

Left: Alma Necklace by Margot

Read more about these artists here:
Ifat Creations ~ http://ifatcreations.tumblr.com/
Margot ~ http://www.margotandme.de/
Justin Smith Designs ~ http://www.justinsmithdesign.co.uk/
Saako Design ~ http://saakodesign.com/
String Theory ~ http://www.stringtheory.ws/

Check out some other online marketplaces for handmade goods in my list of handmade marketplaces.