Where is this actually made? Is it made in Europe?
It is a question I have asked myself before every purchase for years. European Craftsmanship is where I publish what I have found: brands that produce in Europe. Building it in public towards Europe’s largest brand directory, one brand at a time.
Origin
It started because I could not find a pair of shoes
I wanted a pair of elegant work shoes made in Europe and I could not find them. Not on Google, not in the shops in my city. Now and then I would come across a pair made in Italy, but only by chance. I looked for platforms, magazines, influencers covering this, but I still could not easily find out where anything was actually produced.
So I started looking myself and created a list of the brands I came across. Then Instagram turned out to be useful for it: the algorithm worked out what I was after and surfaced makers I would never have found through a search engine. The list grew from five brands to fifty, then past a hundred.
I wanted the list to be more than something for myself, so I began reviewing each brand more thoroughly. I read what they said about where they produce, went through material guides and sourcing pages, and sometimes even emailed them when I could not tell from their site.
I started sharing what I had found. European Craftsmanship is what I wanted back then: every brand read the same way, in the same order, organised so you can find what you need without losing an evening to it.
The first five months brought 95.000 followers. More than 100.000 people follow the work now.
Across platforms · 2026
The response was bigger than I expected, and it came from everywhere. People wrote in with brands I had missed, asked for categories I had not covered yet, and told me they had been looking for exactly this. That is when I decided the brands deserved a proper home, and people deserved somewhere to find them without starting from scratch. January 2026, I started building.
I am still building it, in public, one review at a time. The longer version of the story, and what the list taught me, is in the magazine.
The platform
What you can do here
The brand directory
The brand directory is the heart of the platform and covers fashion, beauty and home. You can filter by category, by the country a brand is based in, by the country it produces in, by certification, price band, size range and who it makes for. The two country filters are separate on purpose: you might be looking for Italian brands because you are Italian, or for brands producing in Italy because that is the craftsmanship you want.
Every brand on it has been through the same review. Two things decide whether it is listed at all, everything else shapes its profile.
Each brand profile puts the useful parts in one place: where the brand produces, what it makes things from, how it operates and what it values. If you want my opinion on it, that is in Notes from Lisa. That is usually enough to decide whether this is a brand you want to support, before you have spent anything. When you have decided, you go to the brand’s own shop and buy from them directly.
The product directory
In the product directory you can browse products from different European brands in one place and filter by category, country of production, material and price. It starts small and grows as more brands come in.
The magazine
There is also the magazine, where the longer pieces live. More on that below.
Staying in touch
A free account lets you save brands and come back to them when you actually need to buy something, and read the magazine without a limit. And to stay up to date with everything, you can subscribe to a monthly newsletter.
Suggesting a brand
The list is my own research, but suggestions are always welcome. If you know a brand that belongs here, or you make things in Europe yourself, suggest it and I will review it the same way as every other.
The magazine
So the next good decision is your own
The magazine is where the longer pieces live: how long a garment should reasonably last, how to care for things so they last longer, how to repair them, what makes one cotton better than another, and whatever else I have gone down a hole on that seems worth passing along. The glossary explains the terms that turn up across the site.
Read a few of them and you will start noticing things on a product page you used to scroll past: the fibre blend and what it means, the construction that decides whether shoes can be resoled, the reason two similar coats are 200€ apart.
The idea is that you can judge quality yourself, in a shop or on a product page, and trust your own eye. Fibre, construction, how a thing is put together and where it will give first. None of that is secret knowledge. It is just rarely explained to the person actually buying. Read enough of it and you will start spotting things you have not paid attention to before. That is how I started building my own longer-lasting, higher-quality wardrobe.
Money
How this is paid for
Getting listed does not cost a brand anything, and it is not something a brand can buy: if they are based in Europe and make their things in Europe, they can be here. If they do not, there is no fit.
What I earn comes from affiliate links. Some brand profiles have one, they are always labelled, and if you buy through it the brand pays me a commission. It does not add anything to your price. The details are on the affiliate disclosure page if you want them. Later in 2026 there will be two more options for brands to collaborate. All that buys is space and my time.
So yes, I work with brands, and I am glad to. Not only because it is what makes this possible, but also because I get to know the people behind them.
Principles
Where something is made matters. And it should be easy to find out
I started doing this because I think where something is made matters, and because it is not always easy to find the brands that are transparent about it. A product is the result of someone’s work: someone cut the fabric, sewed it, finished it, packed it. I would rather buy from somewhere with enforceable labour and environmental rules than somewhere without them. That does not make a brand automatically good, and I do not treat it as a guarantee. But it is a floor I would rather build on, and it is worth knowing which brands clear it.
I also think you should be able to find out easily where something is made and who made it. It should be ordinary, something a brand states transparently, not something you have to dig for. It matters to me, so I look it up. When a brand shares that information and produces in Europe, it goes on the list for the full review.
The other reason is the brands themselves. I want to give them a space to be discovered and seen, and to connect them with people who share their values.
That is most of what this is: research I was already doing, made useful to someone other than me.
What you do with the information is your choice. I will tell you what I found and what I think. The decision stays yours.
FAQ
Common questions
Who runs European Craftsmanship?
European Craftsmanship is founded and led by Lisa Walter, who researches and reviews every brand here herself. It started as a personal research project in 2018 and grew into what it is today, and the timeline above shows how.
Can a brand pay to be listed, or pay for what you write?
No, and no. Getting listed does not cost a brand anything, and it is not something a brand can buy. How the money actually works is above, under How this is paid for.
What does “Made in Europe” actually mean on this platform?
It means the final assembly happens in Europe. That is the factory where fabric is cut and sewn, a shoe is lasted, a bag is constructed, the stage closest to the thing you end up holding.
Materials are a different question. Not all of them come from Europe. What matters more to me is whether you can find out what materials are used and where they are from. Some brands source cotton from Turkey or zips from Japan and say so, and those are the ones I trust more, because they are transparent about it. A few say they source entirely within Europe, and those I label “100% Europe”, based on what they publish.
How do you decide which brands are listed?
Every brand goes through the same review. Two things decide whether it is listed at all: based in Europe, and producing in Europe. Everything else shapes its profile, and all of that comes from what the brand publishes about itself. If I have read everything a brand puts out and still cannot tell where the product was made, I leave it off. The full process is on the How I work page.
What is an affiliate link and does it cost me more?
An affiliate link is a tracked link, so a brand can see you came from European Craftsmanship when you buy something. Not every link here is one, and the affiliate links are always labelled. When you buy through one, we earn a commission from the brand. It costs you nothing extra: you pay exactly what you would have paid going to the brand directly. The only effect it has is that you are supporting this work.
Read on
Where to next
01 / Directory
Browse the brand directory.
Every brand I have reviewed. Filter by country and category, sort by price. The fastest way to the brands themselves.
02 / Magazine
Read the longer pieces.
How long things should last, how to care for them, and how to judge quality for yourself.
03 / Process
How I find and review brands.
What I check before a brand is listed, what shapes its profile, and the editorial standards I apply.