The Leakey Collection

The Leakey Collection was founded in 2002 by Katy and Philip Leakey. Philip and Katy Leakey live in the rural bush of the Rift Valley in Kenya, among the Maasai. The Leakey Collection is a company that designs contemporary products, which are hand made by the Maasai women and men of Kenya in the categories of interior home and fashion accessories.... The Leakey Collection offers employment opportunity to over 1200 Kenyans depending on the time of year. Zulugrass and Zuluwood are products of The Leakey Collection. The Leakey Collection also designs a line of Passementerie, (fringe and trims), which is distributed by Samuel and Sons in New York and is available at selected Holly Hunt and Kneedler-Fauchere show rooms around the United States. Assembly of products for The Leakey Collection - Kenya is in a non-factory setting. Women work under the acacia trees at mobile, work sites which can provide work opportunity where ever work is needed in the Rift Valley. Work sites are set up only when invited into a community by Maasai women and elders. When a community no longer wants a work site it would be dismantled and moved. This happened once in 4 years. The Leakey Collection currently has a waiting list of communities that have requested work stations, which will open as demand for products increases. Work sites spans over 150 miles in the Rift Valley. All materials used by The Leakey Collection are environmentally sustainable. In 2002 The Leakey Collection won the Environment Conscious award from the Association of Makers and Exporters of Gifts and Allied Articles of Kenya for its innovative use and management of natural materials. The Leakey Collection uses only fallen dead wood from environmentally sustainable areas in its wood products. The environmentally sustainable harvest of the grass also works to preserve a wet land since the communities no longer burn the grass, which cattle do not eat, to make room for the plentiful grass that cattle do eat.Read More