Momento Goods' Oaxaca Palm baskets, $50, are handwoven by a family of Mexican artisans. (Photo by Erinn Schaal)
Lauren Bogen’s journey to founding Momento Goods — a new Richmond-based online retailer featuring ethically made home and lifestyle products — reads more like an adventure story than a business plan.
Bogen caught the travel bug after she earned an undergraduate degree in elementary education and set off for Guadalajara, Mexico, to teach English as a Foreign Language. Later, she studied English as a Second Language and taught in Mexico, Vietnam and Myanmar.
Momento Goods started as a personal collection. A mug from Guadalajara reminded Bogen of her first trip. She began exploring how to responsibly source items from a contact in Oaxaca, Mexico, to share her love of travel and other cultures in a way that would enrich the lives of the artisans and her customers, just, as she says, “following what feels right.”
Bogen launched Momento Goods — combining the English word “memento,” or keepsake, and the Spanish word “momento” for a moment in time — as an online business in January 2020. She works as a teacher with Henrico County Public Schools and travels to Mexico during school breaks. View the Momento collection, including hand towels, mugs, baskets, wool throws, and a tiny onyx mortar and pestle at momentogoods.com.
