About us
“A dream you dream alone is only a dream, a dream you dream together is reality.” – John Lennon
We’re Chloé & Sebastiaan, adventurers in heart and soul who got married in 2017 and went on a honeymoon backpack trip. Bitten by the travel bug, we ended up living and working abroad for almost 2 years. 2020 was, as for most people, a very strange year. While we were planning our next adventure, we were suddenly not able to go anywhere. And in retrospect, this might have been the thing we needed most; a journey into ourselves. We had a lot of time to think about what we wanted to do.
When our uncle, who lives in Lanzarote, visited Belgium, he introduced us to the Art of Kintsugi. We immediately fell in love with this beautiful craft and the philosophy behind it. It was always our dream to start a business together! But it was important to us that the product matches our core values; sustainability & authenticity. And with Kintsugi, it feels as if all the pieces are falling into place.
The Art of Kintsugi
Kintsugi (also called Kintsukuroi) is the Japanese art of putting broken pieces back together with golden lacquer, so that the repaired objects turn into something more beautiful, not despite, but thanks to their golden cracks.
Kintsugi is related to the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-Sabi. It embraces authenticity and imperfections, highlights rather than hides the scars and celebrates these imperfections as part of the object’s history. Imperfections are gifts to be worked with, not shames to be hidden.
The Kintsugi method of repair is also born from the Japanese Mottainai, which expresses a feeling of regret when something is wasted. Kintsugi is therefore also about stepping away from the culture of disposability, about giving second chances. Many of us break something and immediately think: garbage. But Kintsugi learns us to see the potential for beauty in reconstructing something and to value the things we have right in front of us, even when they’re damaged.
The Art of Healing
We chose CHIYU as our brand name because much more than a method of repair, Kintsugi is also the art of recognizing that in the process of healing, we create something more beautiful, unique and resilient.
None of us get through life unharmed and it is way less painful to show your scars rather than to try to hide them. Kintsugi reveals how to heal, how to come out the other side stronger. So whether you are going through a tough break-up, a loss of something or someone you care about deeply, this practice of mending broken things may help heal what’s broken inside of you.
We want to inspire you to slow down, to reconnect with yourself, to embrace and celebrate imperfections. Acknowledge the person you have become throughout a journey filled with joy and sadness, which is called life, and know that you are better with your golden cracks.
We hope to CHIYU soon & in the meantime;
Stay golden!
