OUR NAME HOLDS GREAT SIGNIFICANCE *PURE QUALITY, PURE GOOD - AMAZING.
It takes two women, three working days, 24'400 glass beads and a whole lot of know-how, cultivated talent and patience to make just one of our beaded pouches. We want to honor the time, diligence and love put into each and every woven thread.
“We call Pura Utz an empowerment project.”
Not only because we acknowledge the value of the women we collaborate with
- but because we are connecting worlds and seek to have a positive impact on everybody who is connected to our products.
That is what pure quality means to us – Pura Utz!
Our directors Bernabela and Anna consider each other as soulmates and share the same dream for Pura Utz.
They met each other through an NGO and after three years of work and an evolving friendship they decided to co-found Pura Utz together in Bernabelas house in Santiago Atitlán. This was in 2018. The team at first consisted of six women and has since grown to 16 and at times of high production and collaboration exceeded to more than 50 women. The house has undergone a lot of change and two levels more have been constructed to create a proper ‘taller’/ workshop for the Pura Utz team.
It's a dream of enabling a full-time income to a team of more than fifty women in Guatemala to help them grow their self-worth through providing for themselves and investing in their futures, all the while continuing to make unique handmade products of high quality for you. It has to make sense the whole way through. It is a dream of purposeful growth that will enable the making of a wonderful place for Pura Utz in Santiago Atítlan. We want to create the most beautiful and wholesome production place that allows for more funnels of work and growth for our team.
A place to enjoy the smell of the fresh morning coffee, while viewing the volcano lake and feeling safe.
Since I was 8 years old I started working as a nanny at a friend’s house. After her baby grew up she taught me how to do embroidery and at the age of 13 she began to teach me the most simple techniques - there was one called ‘maya’, it was the easiest to start at that time and I began to learn more and more from there.
Since then working with artisanal craft has been my main job. After working with her and learning more and more skills, I met other people who bought artisan goods in the village and little by little I acquired more knowledge about the different techniques that existed in bead work, and when I got married, this was my only source of income to support my family. Work in the village has always been limited for women and even more so at that time.
From my own experience, I have a lot of empathy and understand perfectly that women need their own income for their families to be able to get out ahead in life - and since then this became part of my life dream: ‘someday I want to have the possibility of generating work for the women of my town, so that they can have a better quality of life’.
Bernabela Sapalú, co-founder
When I founded Pura Utz it was a dream of working for the empowerment of the Mayan women through their crafts and skills.
For many years I have considered Guatemala my second home. Visiting the country for the first time when I was around eleven years old, proved to create a certain path for me in life. Since then I have undertaken numerous travels to Guatemala, working as a volunteer, nurse and eventually doing my thesis on the reproductive health of the Mayan women.
Oh yeah – my ‘real’ profession is as a trained nurse. I feel a profound compassion and love for Guatemala — the amazing people, the diverse culture, the endless color and everything in between the old school buses and corn tortillas.
Anna Waller Andrés, co-Founder
wanna know more?
Financial Times article, March 2025
“When we started Pura Utz, no one would have imagined for our work to be recognised and appreciated in places such as Japan,” says head of production and administration Elisa Sapalú on a video call from Santiago Atitlán.
We are showing that women are knowledgeable and resourceful and have talent against discrimination.”
Fashion Forum, June 2024
Smykkebrand startede som socialt projekt – nu sælges det i nogle af verdens mest prestigefyldte butikker
Med deres farverige perlesmykker har det populære smykkebrand Pura Utz formået at bygge en forretning op, hvor vækst og succeskriterier ikke udelukkende handler om økonomi, men i højre grad om socialt ansvar og ordentlige arbejdsforhold.
Latina Magazine, May 2021
“It’s important for us to sell our products at this rate because we’re generating stable jobs here. The artisans make their products with a lot of love and time,” says Elisa.
“That’s the biggest reason customers should support our work at Pura Utz. It’s not just a bracelet or an earring, it’s filled with our labor and love.”
For every product made, the artisans are guaranteed to take home one-third of the price the item is sold for. Elisa explains that it’s important that their consumers have an idea of what each item costs so they can value their work and understand the training and skills needed to produce. In turn, pay transparency has afforded the artisans the opportunity to save money, set their own schedules, and invest in costs they might otherwise avoid like buying new clothes or upgrading their homes.“For the artisans, this makes a huge difference because it significantly improves their financial situation,” says Elisa. “They know this first hand because they used to work in places that paid very little despite their working extremely hard.”
Vogue, August 2019
“The craft and project come before the design,” says Andrés. “This means that every design is based on what the women know how to make, and then from there, we try to create something new and special.”
