It might be based in Vancouver, but Obakki has been sending its founder, Treana Peake, on adventures around the world, physically and virtually, for more than 15 years now. In Uganda, she’s met with a group of women who make paper with elephant dung; in Mexico, there are potters creating one-of-a-kind bowls; in Italy, the glass-blowers of Milan brand R+D Lab have Zoomed her in to discuss the gorgeous borosilicate vessels they’re crafting for the brand.

What makes Obakki’s business model work is a two-pronged approach. Half of the business is focused on design wholesale. For instance, the brand recently partnered with Mexican designer Andrés Gutiérrez to bring his new white oak furniture series, the Thirteen Heavens collection, to the world. Based on Aztec folklore, the pieces include cabinets and tables with spirited details. Sales of Gutiérrez’s and other designers’ collections help support the other half of Obakki, which comprises purpose-driven collaborations with artisans who reap 100 per cent of the profit from sales of their wares.

It all started as an offshoot of the luxury fashion brand that predates the homewares line: Peake had been making runway collections and feeling the relentless pressure to meet ever-shrinking deadlines due to ever-proliferating fashion seasons. Yet, at the same time, she had been doing work in the international development area — digging wells across Africa, contributing to agricultural projects and bolstering livelihood initiatives — and encountering on her journeys craftspeople who she felt could use her connections to the West. That’s when, in 2007, she launched the Obakki Foundation.

“Now that you have a well, how do we get the economy going?” is how Peake characterizes the convergence of her two not-for-profit paths. “If I think I can reach an international market, Obakki buys the product from artisans and reinvests into community.”

She purchases small-batch homewares and textiles at the local price, she explains, so that they remain locally affordable. “Otherwise, they’d rely only on the international market and the local market will suffer.” It’s a new way of collaborating with artisans where they reap the full benefit of their painstaking work — and get proper billing as creative talents.