Welcome to Fall and Libra season my loves! I am so excited about our 'What's in the Stars" Astrological Forecast for October, coming Monday, October 3rd, 2022. But today, I wanted to talk to you more about our design process and approach to creating our newest one-of-a-kind collection.
Our 'Game of Thrones' inspired collection was released just a week ago today. I'm loving doing one release a month because it really allows for me to deep dive into telling you more about it and sharing an inside look into how I create.
Last year around this time, I started to feel really burnt out with design. When you create as many one-of-a-kind designs as I do, there comes a point where sometimes you feel like there's nothing left. So I started to play with the idea of choosing a theme for the year that I could explore and also use as inspiration to help guide me, and thus the Goddess Series was born.
I have absolutely loved creating our goddess series, but I also feel like with doing them I have a lot to live up to. There are a lot of expectations and personal connections all of you have to the goddesses and for a Libra like myself, I never want to let anyone down. So as I was moving closer to Fall and my birthday, I felt like changing it up and re-focusing myself was the way to go.
My goal with this company and brand has changed throughout the years and I have loved the journey to figure it out. But what it has brought me to realize, is that what I want to create is a world where anything is possible, where we are free to come as we are, and truly live in our power and magic. When you wear my jewelry, I want you to feel like the powerhouse that you are, ready to take on the world, turning heads, starting conversations, and adorned in enchanted armor that allows you to slay the dragon, whatever that may be for you.
So for my 'Game of Throne's' Collection I wanted to take you back to that world of fantasy and bring it to real life. I took inspiration from the costumes, characters, colors, and imagery and put it through my lens of design.
To truly understand what I was trying to do, let me go back to where this all started. I was about to watch "House of the Dragon" and I started flipping through this book my mom got me called "The Art of Game of Thrones" which is a large format book that 'presents a visual chronicle of the meticulously detailed paintings, sketches, plans and elevations, graphics and striking designs created by artists to bring the world of Westeros, Essos, and beyond to life on-screen'. It's basically a giant art book showing all of the most detailed paintings and renderings that the designers used to create the world. There are maps, landscapes, rooms, weapon and shield prototypes, flags, etc. Rather than the show itself, it was looking at this world created through other artists minds, that really got me thinking.. "what would I make?"
Here is some imagery from the book:
As you can see the art is very cool, and the book set out to do what I wanted to do, which was to capture the essence of this world. I did take some direct inspiration as you can see in the weapons above and my drawings below. But these just start with drawings, once you add the stones and start actually make aa piece, things change.
Below you can see the pieces inspired by weaponry finished.
When the topic of 'Game of Thrones' comes up the first thing many people think of (besides Dragons) are the battle scenes and weaponry. I was very inspired by the shapes of the weapons and their blades. I wanted to take those shapes and create pieces that said "I'm strong and beautiful... but don't F*ck with me". I used stones that embodied the attributes someone going into battle might need. Pietersite, known as the tempest stone that is known to stimulate the Pineal gland. Lodolite which can help with emotional healing and comes with the power of quartz, or Charoite which is associated with transformation and is said to have the ability to transform negative energy into positive.
In addition to weaponry, I was also inspired by their armor, shields and helmets.
You can't have weapons without armor to protect you right? The armor and shields in this series are so unique and beautiful. One of the most fascinating things I learned in fashion history was about the significance of dress throughout history. Fashion meant something so much more than what we felt like wearing. Armor was earned, colors correlated with your status and family name, dress lengths and certain accessories spoke volumes about status and rank without having to say one word. So with each piece I created I wanted it to say something different while still in the theme of power and strength.
Then for some pieces I chose to use inspiration from the characters (including dragons). For some I took inspiration from pieces worn in the show, but also tried to think about what their family heirlooms would be, what is a piece of jewelry that would exist in their world.
Many people might think that the characters and themes within the show would be the first place i'd go for inspiration and it was definitely a driving factor. But it was also important for me to not create costume pieces, but rather art inspired by them. For these pieces I used both design and stone choices to represent my character inspiration.
House Stark of Winterfell is the house I most closely relate to, even though I could NEVER live there. For Stark I used a lot of deep greens and blacks. Melisandre, The Red Priestess is like my spirit animal of the show. Her character and costume inspired many of our Seeker necklaces, as well as the use of red pietersite. A new but old design, our Drogon ring was inspired by the dragons and House Tagaryen. It has been a really fun exploration and I can't wait to do more fantasy and Sci-fi inspired collections in the future. Check out our NEWEST One-of-a-kind creations HERE.
