Introduction: Making Before Meaning

For the founder of Ebijou, making didn’t begin as a business idea — it began as instinct.

Long before jewelry became a brand or a product, it lived as play: weaving belts together, sewing shirts, collecting shells, assembling textures simply because the hands wanted to move. Creation wasn’t strategic. It was natural. And when something didn’t exist, it was made.

That relationship to making never left.

In this conversation, we trace the quiet origin of Ebijou — not as a launch plan, but as a moment of recognition: when something created mindlessly was seen, noticed, and valued by someone else. A reminder that sometimes the work we don’t think twice about carries the deepest signal.

From Instinct to Recognition

The story begins with a necklace made the night before a flight — created quickly, without ceremony, meant only as something personal to wear and release into.

Standing in line at Starbucks, a stranger kept touching the piece, asking where it came from. The answer felt almost confusing: I made it. Why would anyone care about something so casually created?

Later, on an American Airlines flight, the question lingered. Written on a napkin somewhere between takeoff and landing was the first real pause: What could this be? What could it become?

Not because of ambition — but because attention had been paid.

That moment didn’t turn making into a business overnight. It simply revealed that what felt ordinary to the maker carried meaning for others.

Process: Color, Texture, and Trust

Creation at Ebijou begins with observation.

Color is everywhere. Texture, tone, pattern — pulled from plants, architecture, sketchbooks, lived surroundings. The process is intuitive rather than linear, guided by feeling instead of formula.

Some pieces are bold, layered, textured. Others are simple — designed to be mixed, worn, and personalized by the person who chooses them. Nothing is made to dictate identity. Each piece leaves room for the wearer to complete the story.

Making, here, is not about perfection. It’s about trust — trusting the eye, the hand, and the moment when disparate elements suddenly belong together.

Architecture, Symmetry, and the Love of Form

Long before jewelry, there was architecture.

From childhood, blueprints and structure held a fascination — the balance of color, line, and symmetry. That discipline shaped how form is understood today: the idea that something imagined can become tangible through patience, intention, and collaboration.

Jewelry and architecture share that same thread: concept becoming form, held together by both intuition and structure. Making, in any medium, becomes a way of seeing ideas through to completion.

Advice: Creating Space When None Exists

When asked what advice she would give to emerging makers, the answer is grounded and clear:

Trust yourself. Follow your gut. Don’t take no — especially from yourself.

The creative path is often shaped by doubt before it’s shaped by confidence. But when the world doesn’t make space, creation becomes the act of claiming it. Finding a niche isn’t about shrinking — it’s about honoring specificity until community forms around it.

People don’t just wear jewelry, she explains. They carry it. They bring its energy into their daily lives. And that exchange — maker to wearer — is where value truly lives.

Color as Memory, Ritual, and Healing

At the heart of Ebijou is a belief that color carries memory.

Color as voice.
Color as joy.
Color as ritual.
Color as memory.

Each piece reflects lived experience — childhood markets, community exchanges, women selling, bartering, laughing, surviving. These memories don’t fade. They translate into form.

Art becomes a place to return to — a space that doesn’t fail, a practice that restores. Even through motherhood, relaunch, and uncertainty, making remains the thread that reconnects the self.

Creation, here, is not escape. It is grounding.

Final Reflection: Making as Belonging

This conversation reminds us that creation doesn’t begin with permission.

It begins with instinct — with hands moving, colors combining, stories forming before language catches up. When nurtured, that instinct becomes belonging. Not just for the maker, but for everyone who recognizes themselves in the work.