ABOUT
Guardians of Culture And Craftsmanship
Our mission goes far beyond curation as we seek to preserve the rich traditions, environments and communities of our artisan partners.
Who We Are
RB Curated is a purpose-driven, boutique lifestyle brand and ethical luxury label. We design and create limited edition artisanal goods, utilizing traditional handicraft techniques.
We embody the roles of ambassadors and guardians of culture and craftsmanship, connecting history, people, and tradition through intentional design. Our brand prioritizes purposeful creation, empowering artisans, and upholding social responsibility within a changing industry.
In our designs, the human hand defines authenticity.
What We Believe
RB Curated is rooted in the notion that the items surrounding us convey a powerful message. We are committed to preserving cultural heritage and identity by curating and creating luxury, traditionally handmade designs. We strive to impart the beauty and soul of artisanal craftsmanship, fostering a sense of meaning and connection in your living spaces. Through dedication to ethically preserving cultural traditions and techniques, we aspire to cultivate a legacy of community connection and ancestral appreciation.
Why It Matters
Every thread, every fiber of our products carries a deep purpose – one that reaches beyond our individual selves. It forms a deep and lasting connection with our artisan partners.
Regan Billingsley, our founder, is celebrated in the world of interior design for her skillful layering of color, texture, scale, and pattern. It is a talent deeply rooted in her love for textiles, especially those made by hand. Inspired by her mother and sister’s experience building homes in the remote Guatemalan highlands, and their stories of the warmth, resilience, and generosity of the people, Regan embarked on her own journey to rural Guatemala to explore its rich weaving traditions.
What began as a personal exploration quickly became a mission to honor and preserve these cultural legacies. In each village, she saw how traditional weaving is not just an art form but a way of life passed down through generations and reflected in the intricate huipiles worn by indigenous women. Each garment tells a story of ancestry and place, often taking up to six months to create. For these women, weaving is more than craft. It is heritage, identity, and pride woven into every thread.
However, financial hardship often forces women to sell their huipiles, garments never meant for commerce, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and eroding the value of their cultural significance. Regan saw firsthand how these deeply meaningful pieces were being repurposed into accessories, often without any benefit to the artisans themselves.
Motivated to support the artisans in a respectful, ethical way, Regan founded RB Curated as an interiors brand rooted in preservation, sustainability, and partnership. RB Curated builds long-term relationships with artisans across Latin America, ensuring artisans are fairly compensated, deeply respected, and globally celebrated.
RB Curated believes that true luxury lies in heritage, craftsmanship, and human connection. Their collections offer interior designers and homeowners one-of-a-kind pieces that bring authenticity, depth, and soul to any space. By working directly with artisans, RB Curated not only celebrate their artistry but also safeguard the cultural traditions that define their communities.
This is more than design. It’s a story of passion with purpose. Every fiber carries meaning, every piece connects cultures. For Regan, it’s about family, community, and honoring the stories that shape us. By preserving these traditions, we help sustain the bonds of heritage that connect us all.
To understand more, we recommend the documentary Recycled Huipiles: Unraveling Tradition by Tela Film Productions and Erin Semine Kökdil: https://youtu.be/hq77tlJJjCE?si=1KE-vc6LOLuQ5gGz.
What We Value Most
Design Integrity
Sustainability
Investing in People
and Empowering Communities
Preservation of Craft and Culture
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As a contemporary brand with a focus on artisanal handicraft, we acknowledge the ever-changing landscape of our industry, where traditional craftmanship and cultural identity face the threat of being undervalued and disappearing. Recognizing heritage as a magnificent legacy worth safeguarding, we collaborate directly with artisan communities to ensure our designs respect, preserve, and protect traditional artistry, community, and culture.
Across Latin America, the creation of handcrafted goods reflects the distinctiveness of each culture and locality. Often situated in remote regions, artisan communities rely on their crafts as pillars to their cultural identity. When you support our brand, you play a vital role in conserving traditional crafts and cultural heritage that risk fading amid globalization.
By uniting with our cause, we can collectively uphold the preservation of artisanal traditions and the diverse tapestry of cultural legacy.
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We prioritize people and are dedicated to upholding Fair Trade principles.
RB Curated emerged from valued partnerships with master artisans and communities throughout Latin America. Through ongoing dialogue, we ignite inspiration and foster mindful innovation together. Our relationships are built on principles of fair wages, equality, individual empowerment, community investment, and responsible business practices. We ensure fair and prompt payment, providing early advances and supporting expenses for samples, tools, and other necessities related to handcrafted goods.
Throughout generations, traditional handicraft techniques have been passed down, often spanning centuries, and communicating significant ancestral narratives. Collaborating with our artisans cultivates new opportunities, nurtures self-reliance, and promotes local entrepreneurship. This fosters avenues for skill enhancement and income generation, thereby supporting economic growth within communities and reinforcing endeavors to safeguard cultural heritage.
We are dedicated to guaranteeing artisans are fairly compensated for their craftsmanship. This provides sustainable economic opportunity and prevents exploitation by providing artisans with improved wages, safe working conditions, and access to essential resources such as education and healthcare. We collaborate with communities where we can contribute to local craftsmanship and reinvest in community development.
By endorsing our brand, you’re engaging in a worldwide initiative striving for a more equitable and just society. Your consumer decisions have the power to drive the market towards sustainable and ethical practices, effecting positive change on a global scale.
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We collaborate with artisans esteemed as leaders, teachers, and master craftsmen in their communities. The intricate pieces they produce often require up to six months to complete.
Everything we design embodies the same level of care, attention to detail, and commitment to quality reminiscent of traditional artistry. Our team thoughtfully considers the design, features, and characteristics of each piece.
Preserving the integrity of our designs is essential for upholding our brand, safeguarding the craftsmanship of artisans, ensuring fair compensation for their work, and maintaining cultural significance. In an industry prone to imitation, we are dedicated to serving as guardians of cultural heritage and traditional artistry.
Our brand and designs are shielded by a robust array of intellectual property rights, encompassing registered and unregistered design rights, as well as contracted production protection.
To protect the well-being of our artisan partners and the integrity of our brand, we cannot tolerate the unauthorized reproduction of our designs or the infringement of our intellectual property. We actively monitor for potential violations and are ready to pursue legal measure against those who infringe upon our rights, jeopardizing our mission to honor, preserve, and uphold the traditional craftsmanship, community, and cultural heritage of our artisan partners.
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Through visits with our artisan communities, we establish enduring relationships with our artisan partners, promoting sustainability every step of the way. We trace the entire supply chain, ethically monitoring product creation from inception to completion, to safeguard our artisan partners and their craft. Each item is meticulously crafted in small batches, ensuring attention to detail and the use of high-quality materials, resulting in products that are well made and long-lasting.
The narrative behind small batch artisan goods often cultivates a profound connection between consumers and their purchases. This fosters a conscious approach to consumption, emphasizing quality over quantity and placing sustainability at the forefront of purchasing choices.
By endorsing the production of artisan goods, consumers actively participate in conserving traditional craftsmanship and cultural heritage. This encourages the perpetuation of time-honored techniques handed down through the generations, preventing the loss of valuable skills, knowledge, and cultural identity.
Small scale production occurs within local communities, providing economic opportunities and sustaining livelihoods. By purchasing artisan goods, consumers directly enhance the welfare of artisans, their families, and local communities, promoting sustainable economic growth.
Small batch production minimizes resource consumption, energy usage, and waste generation. Artisans employ traditional techniques and locally sourced materials, reducing the carbon footprint associated with transportation and manufacturing processes. Additionally, many of our designs are organic, dyed with natural materials, and packaged in recycled or post-consumer materials.
By supporting our brand, you actively contribute to promoting sustainability in various ways: minimizing environmental impact, preserving traditional crafts, supporting local communities, advocating for quality and durability, and cultivating mindful consumption habits.
Our Team
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Founder of Casa Flor
Averie has devoted her career to promoting fair trade principles in the artisan industry. Working in both the home goods and fashion sectors, she is driven by ensuring artisans achieve financial stability so that they continue to do the work they love.
Throughout her career, Averie has personally seen the decline of handicraft in Latin America due to a pressing need to find financially stable work outside of their communities and their homeland. She is passionately devoted to preserving cultural heritage and creating opportunities for artisans to continue sharing their stories, their tradition, and their craft.
Averie believes that not only is craft a beautiful art form, but it also offers an emotional outlet by providing a space where artists can be creative and find personal fulfillment. The thing she appreciates most in her work is seeing the artist’s passion and self expression come through their work.
Averie resides in Antigua, Guatemala and works extensively throughout Central and South America, with master artisans, building bridges between her heritage and the clients she serves.
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Director of Casa Flor
Flory’s life has been deeply intertwined with weaving. Born and raised on the shores of Lake Atitlan in the town of San Antonio Palopo, she learned the art of weaving and selling huipiles from her mother at a young age. Her father, also a weaver, created textiles and tabletop goods, and he relied on young Flory to oversee his production. Attending a boarding school for young ladies further instilled in Flory a profound devotion to her roots, culture, language, and clothing. Today, she proudly wears her San Antonio suit as a member of the Kaqchikel ethnic group.
After an extensive career with non-profit weaving organizations, Flory joined the Casa Flor team, acting as the bridge between artisans and customers by overseeing production, managing orders, and handling accounting. She regularly visits the weaving communities, translating and communicating design direction, fabrication details, and project scopes in various Mayan languages. One of her greatest joys is showing the artisans how their work has been transformed into finished pieces.
Flory’s passion for working with artisans comes from her dedication to preserving ancestral crafts, thus keeping the history and identity of the communities alive. She believes that crafts are one of the few remaining ways her culture is passed down to future generations. Through her work, she hopes to inspire new generations to learn and continue bringing life to textiles.
