Valeria Stroukova aka Val Str is an award-winning designer, exhibiting artist, world traveler, and a forever Tai Chi student. In the past 10 years Val lived all over the world including Toronto, Milan, Cannes, Malta, Bali, and Costa Rica. The question that challenges her the most is “Where is home?” For Val, home is an ongoing journey and an exploration. She loves discovering new places, cultures, people, and working on different projects. Life is more exciting this way!
Val has been working as a product designer for over 12 years. She started her design career early, at Orchard Custom Beauty, while still studying Industrial Design at OCAD University in Toronto. Upon completing her master's degree in Luxury Brand Management at NABA University in Milan, Val founded her fist brand Krato Milano. This unique brand of men’s jewelry gained a lot of international publicity and got featured in magazines such as GQ, Glamour, Daily Mail, Huffpost Style, etc. Val’s design career has taken a turn when in 2018 she moved to Cannes. Being overwhelmed by seeing so much plastic trash at the beautiful beaches of Côte d'Azur, Val turned to sustainability, eco research, and switched her lifestyle to zero-plastic. Since then, Val lives a very minimalistic lifestyle, cleans the beaches, raises awareness about plastic pollution, launches plastic-free products like Spongik, Lufo, OceanSpoken under OnePureWorld brand, and works as a design consultant for sustainable brands.