Holiday Buying Guide 2008

Gift-giving is often about expressing taste, and let's be frank: it's easier to support artisans from developing countries when their taste isn't so different from your own. Here's where Be Sweet comes in. Its knitwear, bags and jewelry are made in South Africa, mostly by women in job creation programs, but the company's founder has a hip Southern Californian sensibility that doesn't make wearing its scarves feel like doing a good deed. Rather than a charity, Be Sweet is a business that's trying to do well while doing good — as well as providing employment for women in South Africa, it gives some of its profits to a South African school.

—Josh Quittner

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