Kokula Art and Craft Shop

Kokula is an awarded art and craft shop with authentically Croatian traditional hand made souvenirs in Dubrovnik. The meaning of word Kokula in croatian language - dialect from Dubrovnik, is another name for a "Treasure Box", or more precisely, a special compartment within a Hope Chest, designed to hold precious family heirloom jewelry. We named our shop after Kokula suggesting that it's a place where you can find the most precious handmade pieces of local traditional embroidery, jewelry and other authentic handicrafts and artistic creations as a part of our rich cultural heritage. Traditional embroidery has been done in our family for generations and has always been passed from mother to daughters .The patterns are taken from a traditional national costume which is still in use in rural areas on special occasions, such as weddings, baptisms and various festivities of all kinds. In order to preserve and carry on that tradition we decided to start our family business and we opened Kokula shop in April 2012. We apply pieces of traditional embroidery on different products, like cushions, trays, hand bags, shoes, napkins, table cloths. We even frame it as pictures. Other products are made by local artist and artisans using traditional skills and natural materials. You can find fine pieces of Lepoglava lace (listed in UNESCO World Heritage), handmade embroidered linen napkins, unique hand made dolls made by Jasmina Kosanovic, textile and costume designer, ceramics by Vedrana Balkovic, traditional licitar hearts and many other croatian products. The Tourist Board of Dubrovnik recognized our attempts and included us in their program >, which is only for those who sell products exclusively made in Croatia. We won the First prize for the best decorated shop in Dubrovnik old town for 2012. which was given to us by City authorities. Also we signed a contract for EU funded project - EU jewelry from beads - from national costume to the market. It is a part of lifelong learning programme Leonardo da Vinci implemented by our National Agency for mobility and EU programmes. The BEADED jEUwelry project collects the experiences and best practices in folk jewelry beading education with involving 6 partner institutions from 5 European countries - Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Czech republic. The aim of the project is providing best practice and model approaches which can form a link between craft production, cultural heritage and economical growth. Kokula's role in this EU funded project is to put the jewelry, which is going to be made in the next two years by all the partners, to the market by offering it in our store in Dordiceva 6, in Dubrovnik.