Lumago Designs In the News
We have been fortunate to have some excellent coverage and support of this endeavor over the years and are proud to share with you all the outputs of these efforts. If you are interested in doing a story on upcycling, livelihoods, social enterprise, or on Lumago Designs itself, please feel free to get in touch! We would love the opportunity to continue to share our story with the world!
Artesan Profile: Lumago Designs, Philippines
Lumago, means “to blossom” in the national Filipino language, and was founded by an American Social worker, Whitney Fleming, in 2011 when a huge typhoon devastated parts of the impoverished community on our city's dumpsite, located next to the Banica River. Subsequently, to find another source of income, a group of women from the community learned to make beads rolled from paper.
More than just a craft
People who have said “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade” might consider a group of women in the Phillippines who have taken the wastepaper they’ve found in dumps and fashioned it into jewelry. Now, two women in Jersey City are importing that jewelry to sell on Grove Street.
For the Lumago community in the Phillipines, recycling is a livelihood, and reducing and re-using is a way of life.
Lumago Designs: Turn Landfill Trash Into Wearable Treasures
Would you be surprised to find jewelry designers living off a city dump? Well, meet the women of Lumago Designs, a jewelry company that turns trash to treasure, puts the profit in the right pockets, and is run by a group of women who live off the Dumaguete City dumpsite in the Philippines.Not only do the women of Lumago Designs create bold pieces that any stylish eco-girl would love; they do it with the best of intentions. They buy their upcycled materials from the locals who scavenge the dumpsite, sell their jewelry for reasonable prices, and return the collective profits to the community.
Eco fashion, smart shopping
Thinking about a purchase is something all shoppers do. But more than the size of that shirt, the discounts you're about to get or the amount you're about to shell out, there are more important things that a true conscious shopper should think of.
"A conscious shopper is a person who asks questions about the things they buy." says Jenn Horne, creator and founder of Muni PH, an online guide for more conscious shopping and everyday living.
GRID Urban Issue
Lumago was featured in the the Dumaguete section of GRID's Urban Issue.
Muni’s 7 Picks from Manila FAME
Manila FAME is the biggest trade fair in the Philippines for sourcing design forward, high-quality products. Walking through thehalls of SMX last March 14-17 can make any Filipino’s heart swell with pride in the creativity and skill of our local designers and artisans.
Here, we’ll share our top picks for conscious consumption, showcasing things you can use on a regular basis – maximizing the resources put into making the product, and of course, the money you’ll be investing in it as well.
Green Living Producers: Lumago Designs
Creativity partnered with the right opportunity can be favorable to both people and the environment.
Lumago Designs proves this; its products, mostly accessories, are made from recyclable materials – leather from handbags or jackets found in ukay-ukay, paper from old magazines, and plastic from bottles, among others.
The real price tag of fast fashion
Manila (CNN Philippines Life) — It's hard not to feel even a tad morose after watching “The True Cost,” a full-length documentary detailing the often-concealed evils of the fast fashion industry. First screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015, the Andrew Morgan film is a loaded 92 minutes, packed enough to leave even the most avid fast fashion enthusiasts with the question: "What are my cheap clothes really worth?"
Lumago Designs Invites You to #BeadTheChange
December, 2016 — I still remember clearly how I rushed from my office to Glorietta for some last minute ‘kris-kringle’ shopping at the Yabang Pinoy Bazaar. After all, my gift was supposed to be for a colleague who was just here for a short internship and I wanted her to have something that was ‘made in the Philippines’. With less than thirty minutes left before closing, I quickly scanned the bazaar when a booth adorned with unique jewelry in eye-popping colors caught my eye.
Lumago Designs: Upcycled Jewelry To Uplift a Community
On recent trip to Dumaguete, after Muni’s Clean-Up Dive at Liquid Dumaguete’s Sunday Funday, I had the unique opportunity to meet the ladies of Lumago Designs, an upcycled jewelry brand founded by Whitney Fleming, who met the Lumago ladies in 2010 through her work at a local NGO.
ChooseSocial.PH: What makes us a Social Enterprise?
The Lumago Ladies Co-operative launched alongside Lumago Designs and hold shares in the social enterprise. They are the designers and crafters of all Lumago Designs products. Profits from the for-profit enterprise are redistributed back to the designers and crafters and also re-invested in healthcare, education, entrepreneurial ventures and emergency funds.
These women in the Philippines scour a dump site for trash to turn into 'something beautiful'
To grow, blossom or bloom — this is what the Filipino word, lumago, means in the Philippines’ national language. But for the women of Lumago Designs, the word has symbolic meaning, as well.
“We wanted the name, ‘lumago,’ because it signified the improvement of our skills and the blossoming of our craft,” explains 48-year-old Flordeliza Nocete.