‘Lakpahana’ is a store located in Colombo 07, across from the Colombo Race Course that owes its identity to the ambition of its founder Deshamanya Mrs. Siva Obeyesekere. Starting out as a store depicting rich cultural arts and crafts, it preserves skillfully and elegantly designed handicrafts. Lakpahana has a wide variety of hand made products that are 100% Sri Lankan. It gives the rural Sri Lankan craftsman the opportunity to market their products locally and abroad.

Today with the change in social, trends, handicrafts have taken on a new dimension, they are now not only artifacts of beauty but are utilitarian objects absorbed into modern day living. Most handicrafts use traditional motifs, colours and designs for decoration. The demands for new designs for the existing range of handicrafts and complete new innovations adopting traditional techniques and motifs are constantly increasing. The craftspeople of ‘Lakpahana’ make crafts preserving the aesthetic grace of age old traditional handicrafts and absorb new thoughts and ideas to cater to the modern market. They strike a balance between tradition and modern day trends by combining two or more materials, finding new uses for existing handicrafts and by introducing modern art in the way of colours, motifs and techniques.

Finding new utility value for traditional crafts or by adding value to the existing range these crafts have been transformed into articles for modern day living use.

Recommended by Trip Advisor, a member of the World Craft Council and with many UNESCO Excellence Awards for its crafts, Lakpahana truly is representative of Sri Lanka’s rich craft heritage.

Wooden Items

The wooden containers with decorative lacquer work, which earlier was a thing of ornamentation, has now been converted into an item for packaging tea, coffee, spices and various other items. Traditional lacquer work is an intricate process of painting with the finger nail or thumb nail, it is aptly called ‘niyapothu vada’ (finger nail work) and hails from the Matale district of Hapuvida in South Matale.

In recent times modern, lighter shades are combined with modern form of art. A good example, is the mats made of reed and rush woven with the traditional motifs named ‘Makara’ (a mythical animal), ‘Sinha’ (Lion), ‘Hansa’ (Swan), elephant and lotus used along with the bright colours of red, yellow, black and green as well as conventional stripes and circles.

Dumbara Mats

Dumbara a picturesque & fertile valley is to the north of Kandy at the foot of the ‘Hunnasgiri Hill’ has been the home of traditional ‘Dumbara’ mat weavers who for ages have practiced the art of mat weaving, using hana (hemp). The hana plant (Agave Sisalana) growing wild in the Dumbara valley provides the raw material for mat weaving. In addition to the traditional colourful mats. Dumbara craftsmen also make cushion covers, hand bags, shopping bags, letter and shoe holders, fans, screens, table mats, coasters, file and book covers, purses and other products to meet the demands of contemporary society.

Amongst the wide range of traditional handicrafts are masks, lacquer work, silverware, pewter, silver jewellery, brass work, handloom textiles, lace embroidery items, educational toys, coir rugs and mats, bamboo items, paper pulp and elephant dung items, coconut husk items and hand sewn hankies.

Therefore LAKPAHANA is a store waiting to be discovered especially for these looking for a special memento that has a Sri Lankan identity.

Searching for the most delicious and freshly made traditional treats? Head over to Lakpahana and indulge. Choosing from a variety of items such as stuffed veralu, coconut toffee, kalu dodol, cadju puhul, narang kavum and unduwel. The items are made fresh on a daily basis. Everyday favourites such as murukku, macaroons, marshmallows, aasmi, kokis, kavum and mung kavum are available in addition to neatly wrapped packages of love cake, bibikkan and jaggery cake. Lunu dehi as is a popularly known, is an integral part of Sri Lankan cuisine and even culture. These are just perfect for the festive season or even as a gift. Cake orders can be placed too. Sugar and jaggery alpal, tala bola, coconut and milk toffees stock the shelves in addition to the other yummy treats. Lakpahana also has freshly prepared lamprais for lunch every day. Other items available at Lakpahana include jars of bees’ honey (50ml/100ml), lime pickle, seeni sambol and dried fish pachade.

Lakpahana is open from 9.30 a.m. – 6.30 p.m. Monday to Saturday and 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. on Sundays & Holidays.