Our Story

It all Started

In February 2013

When our founder Harry took a trip down to Panama from the UK, and then decided to carry on to South America and continue travelling on through South America. Between cool beach towns, large cities and some of the most beautiful sunsets South America has to offer,he fell in love with the South American way of life and travelled through eight of the continents countries including Ecuador and Brasil.

He was taken to Ambato high up in the Ecuadorian Andes, at 3900m. He was introduced to a local group of female artisans that specialised in handmade alpaca good. They were struggling for work so Harry purchased a bunch of alpaca goods and sent them back to London to see if they could be sold. The beautiful alpaca sold well and Azuaya was born. The following year Harry did the same with a community of Panama Hat makers in the city of Cuenca, Ecuador.

The females artisans from both communities continued to produce the beautiful handcrafted hats and alpaca. It was exported from Ecuador to different countries around the world.

The name Azuaya comes from the region of where our Panama hats are our produced. The city of Cuenca is based in the region of Azuaya, and a girl from this region is called an Azuaya.

As the company has grown we have concetrated on our amazing hats, our comfort swimwear and our jungle based cosmetics. The brand Azuaya has become synonymous with beach, life, sun, party, looking good, feeling good and all the the feel good factors of South American life from Brazil to Ecuador.