About Us
Coral & Tusk creates spirited embroidered textiles for the home and gifting. Founded in 2007 by designer Stephanie Housley, Coral & Tusk’s creative process is a special alchemy of storytelling, illustration, and machine embroidery. Designed with an authentic spirit, each Coral & Tusk embroidery begins as an original pencil drawing by Stephanie. Uniquely crafted, with a focus on the natural beauty of linen balanced with the artistry and detail of embroidery, a Coral & Tusk piece is sure to surprise and delight.
"We always try to have an element of surprise so that there's a continued story to tell.
Each of our pieces is about discovery."
Born and raised in the Ohio Valley, Stephanie Housley studied textile design at RISD and worked as a professional interior textile designer in New York City. After fifteen years in the industry, Stephanie founded Coral & Tusk with a single embroidery machine in her Brooklyn apartment. With her strong design background, inherent resourcefulness and the initial help of her husband Chris Lacinak, Stephanie transformed her passion project into a well-loved brand and independent business.
As Coral & Tusk has evolved over the years, Stephanie’s hand-drawn, machine-embroidered illustrations remain the company’s connecting thread. In 2016, after nearly two decades living in New York, Stephanie and Chris relocated to Wyoming. They share their mountain home with their dog Fuji and native wildlife.
Every collection begins with abundant research, drawing from a wide variety of inspiration.
Stephanie first creates her irreverent characters and bold pattern designs by putting pencil to paper. Every collection begins with abundant research and each individual design stems from her original hand-drawn illustrations.
Stephanie then scans her original drawing, creating a digital file. She redraws the design, stitch by stitch, using specialized software.
Once her designs are digitized, Stephanie connects with our partners in India to begin production. Together they work to perfect each design, finalizing layouts and colors. Our partners in India implement ethical working conditions and provide fair wages.
Once the design is perfected, it is machine embroidered in India by our embroidery partner of over ten years. The large scale embroidery machines make it possible for us to scale Stephanie’s creative process with the flexibility of small production runs.
Nearly all of our products are embroidered on 100% unbleached and undyed linen, avoiding the pollutants found in standard textile dyeing practices and reducing water consumption. Our linen begins as a flax plant in Lithuania and is then wet spun into yarn at an ISO 9001 company in West Bengal, India, before arriving in Bangalore, India for weaving. All of our linen fiber is Oeko-Tex Standard 100 Certified, confirming that it does not contain any harmful substances or chemicals.
Sewing is the final step of our production process. Every Coral & Tusk embroidery is transformed into the final product by our long-time tailors who expertly hem and stitch every piece for you to enjoy in your home.