My story is a bit of an odd one. When you grow up in a family that does something, and you see something every day throughout your childhood, you either fall in love with it and follow it or you fall in love with it and you try to tell yourself that it’s not for you. My dad was a big gemologist and he always took me with him on his gem trips. When he met big clients, I would always go there with him. And I’m telling myself that I don’t want to do this, because I’ve been forced into it. I keep trying to find my own path and I get into advertising, and I live in New York City for 10 years, and all my career life is advertising, but everyone knows that I am into design and fashion. At one point, I sneakingly went to GIA in New York and took a one-day jewellery-design course, telling no one about it. I feel like I’m always hiding it. The turning point is when I got pregnant and I was living in London, with my husband, and we decided we need a different environment, so we move to Zürich, and when we move here, I struggled to imagine myself in advertising here.

Not yet, but this is when I decide to do something different. I want to do something on my own. This is when I go back to Thailand, and I fall in love with this handwoven silk and cotton, and natural dye, so I design a clothing collection actually. And then one week before the shoot, I thought something was missing, and decided to add some jewellery. I ask my mom to open up her safe, and I find her stone and pearl collection. I pick out these Baroque shaped pearls, and they become the very first earrings I design. I call over the family goldsmith and I basically draw on the pearl to show how I want the gold setting to be. I want the feeling of a melting gold that goes into the pearl. It was one week for him working really hard to get it done on time, and we shot around five pieces of jewellery. When I launch the collection, people start inquiring about the jewellery instead of the clothes.