It’s one of the most exciting aspects of an exotic holiday: hunting the local markets for wearable treasures (and then showing them off to friends back home). That sense of discovery is what Kiyan Foroughi and Avid Larizadeh aim to capture with their website, Boticca.com, an international marketplace selling the goods of more than 220 accessory designers hailing from nearly 40 countries. The idea sprang from a 2008 trip Foroughi took to Marrakech, where he met a jeweler who traveled four hours round-trip every day to sell her wares. “I realized the distribution issues designers have and how hard it is for them to make the most of the economics,” explains Foroughi, a former investment banker whose Iranian grandfather was a distributor for Cartier and Piaget. He enlisted his friend Larizadeh, who had worked for eBay and Skype, and Boticca (derived from the 18th-century French word for “boutique”) was born. Among their recent discoveries: a leather and woven-metal tote from the Dubai-based Poupée Couture and a hand-embroidered necklace made of vintage textiles and rhinestones (above) from the Estonian designer Krista R—both far cheaper than a vacation and just as envy-inducing.
