Craft guide
ORBISJEWELERS & SILVERSMITHS IN NAIROBI14 stores · curated ORBIS register
Nairobi
Credible Jewels, rooted in Nairobi, sells handcrafted jewelry including necklaces, bracelets, rings and watches set with freshwater pearls, sterling silver, 18-karat gold-plated elements, cubic zirconia and mother-of-pearl. Prices range from KShs5,800 for bracelets to KShs22,800 for rings, with free shipping on orders over $450.
Best for Handcrafted pearl and silver jewelry
Karen / Langata South Road, Nairobi
Golden Eagle Art Gallery, along Langata South Road in Karen, Nairobi, stocks wood carvings, soapstone carvings, malachite pieces, paintings, drawings, textiles, jewelry and handmade custom-fit African clothing.
Best for Wood and soapstone carvings
Nairobi
HAKI Designs sells bold beaded jewelry handmade on the spot by young makers at its "yellow studio" inside the garden of Pallet Cafe in Nairobi. The business runs a 70/30 model where makers keep 70% of pay immediately and save 30% for the future, and it does not operate an online shop.
Best for Handmade beaded jewelry
Nairobi
Ami Doshi Shah's studio produces award-winning sculptural jewellery and design, drawing on bold African-inspired collections shown at international fashion showcases.
Best for Award winning sculptural jewellery design
Sarit Centre / Westlands, Nairobi
Joo & Co describes its collection as modern yet timeless jewellery. It says the collection is inspired by the Kenyan woman of today.
Best for Modern kenyan jewellery
Karen / Mbagathi Ridge / Online
Kazuri makes ceramic bead jewellery in Nairobi, using clay sourced from the foothills of Mount Kenya. Founded by Lady Susan Wood in 1975, the business began as a small workshop providing employment for women nearby. Its artisans shape the beads by hand before painting and firing them for use in jewellery sold through the brand's collections.
Best for Handcrafted Kenyan ceramic bead jewellery
Kazuri makes handcrafted jewellery from African clay in Nairobi, and has been doing so for five decades. Each bead is formed and finished by hand, which is why no two pieces carry quite the same colour or weight. The workshop treats that variation as the point rather than as a tolerance to be engineered out.
The Heritage Collection is where the house looks back at itself. It draws on the patterns and colours it describes as its own DNA, taken from the original styles it launched with and remade with the same intent.
Newer work runs alongside it. The Mara Moon Collection pairs traditional African clay jewellery with a modern bohemian turn, setting earthy pastel tones against brighter colour, and a separate collaboration with Yakaa Studio runs to three collections of its own.
The part worth planning around is the Kazuri Bead Bar, a creative space open to visitors in Nairobi. A guided tour comes with a jewellery-making workshop, and all tools and materials are provided, so you leave with something you shaped rather than something you picked off a tray.
Nairobi / Karen (Karen Blixen estate)
Ceramic jewelry made since 1975, when Lady Susan Wood started Kazuri with two women in her Karen Blixen estate garden shed. Today hundreds of Kenyan women, many single mothers, shape Mount Kenya clay into fair-trade beads.
Best for Ceramic jewelry made since 1975
Lady Susan Wood was born in 1918 in a mud hut in the Ituri Forest, where her English missionary parents were stationed; she and her husband settled in Kenya in 1947 and eventually ran a coffee plantation on the old Karen Blixen estate outside Nairobi — the farm made famous by "Out of Africa." In 1975, alongside two disadvantaged women, she began rolling and painting ceramic beads in a garden shed on the estate, meant as a small income project rather than a business plan.
It grew because the need was larger than two jobs: Kazuri became a dedicated employer of women, especially single mothers with no other income source, and now employs hundreds who shape clay carried down from Mount Kenya into beads, painted and fired by hand. The company is a member of the World Fair Trade Federation, which audits its wages and working conditions, and visitors can walk through the workshop and watch the process from raw clay to finished strand — the same conversion Wood started, at a much smaller scale, half a century ago.
Nairobi
LilaBare sells sustainable African fashion under its K.A.L.I. collection, including dresses, jumpsuits and jewelry made from natural fibre dyes and materials, handmade in harmony with nature. Prices range from $27 for accessories to $500 for the Mahi Kimono Handloom, and ready-to-ship items dispatch within 48 hours.
Best for Natural-dye handmade fashion
Nairobi
Mille Collines, a luxury womenswear and lifestyle brand born in Africa, sells coats, shawls, wraps and palazzo pants plus sisal and brass jewelry, from stores at The Watershed in Cape Town, Village Market in Nairobi and Bo Kaap in Cape Town. It ships internationally via DHL, with prices from R4,570 to R8,340.
Best for Luxury coats and sisal jewelry
Village Market, Nairobi
Poetic Trends Jewelry describes itself as a Kenyan-based accessories brand. It says it reinterprets traditional tribal jewelry.
Best for Reinterpreted tribal jewelry
Nairobi / Kenya
Founded in 1985, Spinners Web is a Nairobi showroom drawing on more than 500 Kenyan and sub-Saharan workshops for handmade baskets, jewelry, textiles, woodwork and home decor. Housed in a Scandinavian-influenced building with a garden cafe, the shop is open six days a week at Kitisuru Road.
Best for Crafts, baskets, jewelry, home decor, textiles
Two Rivers / Ruaka, Nairobi
Taj Gems & Jewellery says it was established in 1981. It specializes in gemstone jewellery, tanzanites and loose gemstones.
Best for Tanzanite and gemstone jewellery
Two Rivers / Ruaka, Nairobi
The Watch Hutt has traded in wrist watches and jewellery for over 15 years in the East African region as an official reseller of genuine branded watches with warranty. It sells watches for men and women and is centered on customer satisfaction.
Best for Genuine branded watches with warranty
Nairobi
Theresia Kyalo, founded by Theresia Kyalo who has a background in law, sells metal jewelry, bone and horn pieces, glass objects, textiles, silverware and line drawings called "Michoro" from Nairobi. The brand states it works to empower communities, particularly women and youth, through sustainable, ethical craft practices.
Best for Metal jewelry and michoro line drawings
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