LUCA
The name comes from the belief that everything that has ever lived, plants, organisms trace back to the same beginning. Sharing a common origin.
We chose it deliberately, for its uncertainty and its roots in the natural world. We're founded on the idea that all parts of the story are worth a closer look.
LUCA
We learn
Every object, item of clothing carries a story before it carries a price. Every piece is a living tapestry of people, craft, and place.
LUCA is our storytelling project, working with artists and makers to create objects using existing raw materials and craft practices.
Every collection we sell funds the next drop, allowing us to look a little closer at a different raw material, craft and the artists that keep it going.
We also allocate a percentage of all sales to funding the research that LUCAtech needs to create our new textiles, bio-stimulants and a community-based business model.
Take a look for yourself with our first collection, 01 | Cotton meets wax (dropping soon!).
LUCAtech
We create
Our research and development project, asking what comes next?
At LUCAtech we are investigating what can be made from native central Indian grasses. Plants that already thrive in extreme conditions, and require less resources than conventional raw-material crops like cotton.
We are exploring circularity with two products made from the bio-waste of grass cuttings. Textiles and agricultural biostimulants that return nutrients to the soil.
All of this is wrapped around a regenerative-value model. The ecosystem that sustains these communities isn't depleted and value is shared with the people who tend to the resource and create the product.
If you are keen to learn more about our R&D pathway, get in touch - we are always up for a chat!
Our team
LUCA tells the stories of craft and people, through the creation of objects.
LUCA, in practice, looks like this: we pick a material + a craft, and go and find the people who live and breathe it. Not a supplier. The maker. We spend the time, calls, messages, our videographer living in these spaces for days at a time, to understand not just the technique, but the life it sits inside.
Then we make a small, limited collection, and do our best to tell the whole story alongside it.
These limited edition products are sold to help fund our research into regenerative biomaterials, LUCAtech.
LUCAtech develops new materials that take less from the land and give more back.
One traces where things come from. The other looks at what the future of materials can be.
Each piece is made in collaboration with artisans and makers, using techniques and traditions from a range of places. We track these locations as part of the drop.
Our first drop 01, is made in three different regions in India. Bengal (the cotton is grown and woven), Ujjain (where the Batik artists live & work), and Chandigarh (where the products come together).
All of our pieces are tied to a specific maker, using a specific material and craft, during a particular time in place. So once it's gone, it's gone.
