You may have noticed from our collections that at Caradiaz we work mostly with Spanish jewellery designers and manufacturers. At the end of the day, I come from Spain so there is no language barrier and I'm familiar enough with the 'mañana, mañana' syndrome to know how to handle it. But it was also important to be close enough to our sources to develop a good business relationship and have as much control as possible on the production of our products.

More and more companies are outsourcing their manufacturing to countries like India and China to benefit from cheap labour but quality tends to get heavily compromised. In fact, last year we worked with a designer who had all her pieces made in India and when we received the goods, we had to send back more than seventy per cent because of the quality (or rather, the lack of it!). We inspected all the pieces one by one (we always do) and found all sorts of problems, from broken beads to missing beads, wrong assembly, dodgy wiring and more. Needless to say that we stopped working with that designer straight away in view of the experience...

Fortunately, some Spanish companies can still produce quality goods at competitive prices in their own local sites and employing skilled adults. So for us, India and the Far East shall remain places to draw inspiration from and enjoy wonderful holidays!