The Karen are one of the largest hilltribes in Southeast Asia with a total population of about three million spread throughout Burma, Laos and Thailand.

With the Thai government's prohibition on clearing hillside land, for mainly ecological reasons, the hilltribe people have had to adapt their slash and burn agricultural practices and abandon their traditional semi-nomadic lifestyle. Opium became a major cash crop for the Karen people, and in the early 1960's King Rama IX and Queen Sirikit undertook to help them establish an alternative source of income.

Jewellery experts were employed, as part of the royal project, to teach the farmers new skills to enable them to work as silversmiths. They were taught to handcraft items from high content silver (Karen Hilltribe silver is much purer than Sterling silver), incorporating their own unique designs.

Those skills have been passed down from one generation to the next, and the beads and charms we use in our jewellery are beautiful unique representations of centuries old Karen culture and art.