MAITE means “love” in Basque. Also, “Wrap” in Japanese, like wearing scarf around the neck or covering body. We want to encourage every woman to embrace herself just the way she is.
In 2013, we started to work with a group in Carabayllo in Lima, which Ms. Reiko Lee Kaburaki was helping local women with knitting together for improvement in the living standards. Their work, producing hand knit products with alpaca yarn for Japan, Korea, the U.S and Switzerland, has brought them positive economical impact, and also courage and confidence in a strong machismo-culture society.
Now we also work with artisans who knit with manual machine at home or workshop and small factory in Peru.
In 2015, we also started to produce socks in Japan by importing premium alpaca yarn from Peru. It is not easy to produce comfortable socks using the yarn with alpaca in high composition. With the craftsman skill and antique machine, we create unique types of socks, which is now signature product of MAITE.
Using precious premium alpaca
The fiber of baby alpaca is really fine with a diameter of 21.5 to 22.5microns and is similar to the cashmere’s. Though the fiber of baby alpaca is really fine, it is strong and has great heat retaining property. We uses baby alpaca in most of the products, and even finer yarn called “Royal Alpaca” for some of our scarves and haramaki (tammy warmer).
Simple Basic design
We design our items based on basic design with elegant silhouette. We offer you the items that you can use regardless of the changes in fashion and from casual to smart casual style. As most of our clothing lines are made with manual knit machine, it is very light weight yet warm enough.
Hand knitting 
The biggest difference between hand knitting and machine knitting is the airy feeling. It is said that hand knitting knits the air together with yarn, which can not be achieved by the modern industrial machine as it knits fast with high tension. Also, working closely to producers, we keep high quality and deliver customers’ voices to them to create better products together.
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ABOUT ALPACA
Baby alpaca
Majority of all alpacas in the world live in South America (mainly in Northern-Peru and Bolivia) and about 80% of them live in Peru. Recently, there are places where you can see alpacas even in the U.S, Australia, New Zealand etc.
Why warm
Protecting from the severe nature environment, alpaca has really fine hair. It makes softness and smoothness in touch, and because there is cavity in the hair,it is really good at retaining the heat.
Care
The alpaca fiber has a little oil so that it will repel water and dart. For daily care, recommend brushing with a brush. When you will not wear for a long time after the season, we recommend to put them with moth repellent after dry cleaning or hand washing. When you do hand washing, please wash with water under 30 degrees, and dry it completely in shade. Hanging or putting it flat is better than hanging to prevent stretching. Please use neutral detergent or shampoo and conditioner.
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OVERSEA ORDER
You can buy some of our products here in Pinkoi : https://jp.pinkoi.com/store/maite-alpaca
If you are interested in the items not on Pinkoi, please e-mail us with your address.
Shipping cost needs to be added to the total price.
We will check the shipping cost and come back to you. We accept Paypal.
Please directly contact us by e-mail to the e-mail address below for any question or orders.
Email: info@maite-jp.com
