East of Africa Marketplace

Designers. Makers. Ethical Merchant Traders.

Ethically sourced & handmade in East Africa & our studio in Melbourne's West, with a global story of partnership woven into the fibres, artisan products & coffee beans.

Marketplace

East of Africa Fabric Store

Uhuru Street, Buguruni. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. 

All our Kanga, Kitenge, Kikoy, Batiki and African wax print fabrics are directly traded & ethically sourced from our sister store.

The partnership of our marketplace to our Tanzanian fabric store enables us to employ a team of two local staff. Our team is training in our own sewing studio to produce locally made handicrafts.

East of Africa Marketplace & Studio

330 Melbourne Road, Newport. Melbourne, Australia.

We are specialist African textile traders, importing hand crafted Tanzanian batiki, kikoy, kitenge, khanga, Ankara and African Wax Print. We also carry a large collection of Authentic Vlisco wax prints.

Our Melbourne studio produces our slow fashion, our custom furniture collection, our handcrafts from our directly traded fabrics and batiks including our bags, blankets and homewares. Our freshly roasted collection of East African coffee is available instore together with our direct trade Tanzanian tea.

International Sales via Etsy

Makers & Traders in Partnership

Our Marketplace shopfront trades together with our sewing studio. We have a stunning collection of beautifully made handcrafts directly traded and ethically sourced from Eastern & Southern Africa. We trade directly with our artisans to ensure the income is paid directly to them from the global Marketplace.

Our purpose is to connect you with talented artisans and small businesses. We believe that regular, consistent trade and partnership can be effective, empowering, and can support micro business and artisans to have sustainable, secure and valuable employment.

Visit our Marketplace & Studio

330 Melbourne Road Newport, Melbourne Australia

Opening hours:

Tuesday - Friday 10 - 5

Saturday - 10 - 4

Closed Sunday & Monday

For assistance & enquiries, please contact Erica 0410 622 699 or via erica@eastofafrica.com.au

Tanzanian Woven Baskets

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IDENTITY Bag
IDENTITY Bag
IDENTITY Bag
IDENTITY Bag
IDENTITY Bag
IDENTITY Bag
IDENTITY Bag
IDENTITY Bag
IDENTITY Bag
IDENTITY Bag
IDENTITY Bag
IDENTITY Bag
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IDENTITY Bag

$55.00
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IDENTITY
The heart of our work is to connect you to talented East African artisans, and for you to know them by name. 
The connection of identity is fundamental to our interconnected stories. 

We are inviting you to participate in our training of our team of women for our Kukua Pamoja :: Growing Together project we are establishing in the village in Tabora, rural central Tanzania. Our beading project will begin with you - your identity is fundamental to our beginning. We are creating unique beaded products to learn the skill of intricate design. Your purchase of a handcrafted bag will fund our team training. The project is viable and the women are ready, the seeds have been planted and we are ready to put in the work to take this idea and make it grow. 

This is the beginning of our new collection, build one by one as we gain momentum. Don't hesitate in writing your name in our network of partnership and community based projects located in rural Tanzania. We need you, and we would love to make a bag to reflect your identity. Because we are all better together.

Our identity bags are premium and created to be treasured forever.

Each bag is created by hand from premium glass Japanese Miyuki beads, stitched onto a lush heavyweight natural hemp fabric. This is paired with our direct trade East African wax print and our deluxe designer denim. The bag is padded and has a draw string closure. 

The bag measurements are:

22cm wide and 25cm high

Choose your letter and we will contact you to confirm the colour you would like for your bag. 

'A hasty person misses the sweet things'. Mwenye pupa hadiriki kula tamu.

Coffee Subscriptions

East of Africa Coffee Roasters are passionate about bringing speciality grade, ethically sourced African coffee into your home. By selecting a coffee subscription you will be able to enjoy freshly roasted coffee regularly shipped to your home or locally delivered.

Sign up

Kenyan Tusker Candles

We love global stories, which is why we create handmade products filled with them. Every aspect of our hand made and hand poured candles carry meaning and tales, all the way from East Africa.

Buy Now

Direct Trade Maasai Earrings

Your purchase of this product directly supports fair trade with Tanzanian Maasai Mama's. This trade contributes to their micro-businesses, invests in supporting traditional techniques and provides regular income for them and their children, and each pair is custom made.

Shop the Collection

East of Africa Coffee Roasters

East of Africa is a boutique Coffee Roastery based in Western Melbourne committed to trading in coffee exclusively from Eastern Africa. We intentionally do business with East African coffee farmers, to invest in their livelihoods, cooperatives, families and their communities. 

Shop the East African Coffee Collection

Featured collection

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Tanzanian Batiki

Handcrafted in Tanga, Tanzania.

Our stunning hand dyed and hand printed collection of batiki is custom made for us in collaboration with the talented Ester and her team.

Each piece of batiki is uniquely beautiful, truly a piece of fabric art. As it is always hand crafted, our batiki is carefully colour mixed, hand stamped and overdyed in a such a way that it can never be reproduced exactly the same.

The fabric is 100% cotton and already softened for wear with the hand dying and washing. The perfect weighted cotton for clothing or homewares.

As our collection is always produced in small batches, our fabric pieces are precious and very limited. Our batiki features in our store in cushion covers, bags, blankets and handcrafted clothing in our slow fashion collection.

Shop our Batiki Collection

Handcrafted in Tanzania

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