Welcome
"Hodi," in Swahili, the national language of Kenya, means, "May I come in?" And the reply is, "Karibu" - "Yes, you are welcome."
Welcome to Design Africa's wholesale website. We are excited to offer to our retailers environmentally natural gift items of African handicrafts and traditional folk art, carved and painted soapstone hearts, carved and painted wood birds as well as handwoven, hand knit wool dolls, hand woven African sisal and grass baskets and hand carved wild olive wood tabletop accessories.
Our fashion accessories include natural sisal and banana fiber totes and satchels with hand sewn cow hide leather handles. The technology is hardy, traditional basket weaving with an eye towards fashion that is environmentally sustainable yet entirely modern, unique and trend setting.
Whether you sell specialty products online, in a boutique or specialty gift shop or are a general retailer, our unique African crafts are sure to please your customers! Please sign up below to view our catalog at your leisure.
Since we are wholesalers, our catalog is not open to the public. If you are a member of the general public, and would like to purchase our hand-crafted African items, you may e-mail us at info@ShopDesignAfrica.com, and we will be happy to provide you with the names of retailers that sell our goods in your area. You are however, free to browse Ann Gardner's photo album from Kenya or try her Kenyan recipes.
For our retailer customers, we ask that you provide the following information in order to view our catalog:
About Design
Africa
Design Africa grew out of my seven years of residence in East Africa where I traveled while writing a Kenyan cookbook and working with stone and wood carvers, metal workers, and wool and fiber weavers, designing many of the items you will see in the catalog.
In addition to the
Kenyan cookbook, I also wrote short stories out of Africa which you can
read below from time to time.
So you are welcome to relax and visit here for awhile, view my photo album, or try some of Kenya's excellent recipes. Or maybe I will meet you inside while you browse the catalog. Karibu. - Ann Gardner