Native New Yorker Georgia Varidakis first fell in love with design while crafting leather bracelets from discarded scraps at her father's shoe repair. "My plan was to go into costume design," says Georgia. "My mother was a seamstress when she first moved to America, and taught me how to sew at a young age." An obsession with jewelry-making, however, soon took hold. "I started out self-taught, and then took classes at a few different jewelry schools." The rest, as they say, is history.
More specifically ancient history — or rather, inspired by it. "I love to go through antique shops and museums," says Georgia. "The stone exhibit at the Museum of Natural History is my absolute favorite!"
Her aesthetic, which combines natural elements (think seahorse pendants and geode earrings) with the undeniably "cute" (bunny studs and heart-shaped cocktail rings), speaks to modern women with a penchant for quirky-chic design that feels young, but still clever and unique.
"Most designs start with a sketch, but a lot of them stem from wanting to see what something looks like in metal form," says Georgia, who often uses the object or symbol itself as her primary mold. A pair of fan coral earrings, for example, are cast directly from slices of coral. "Sometimes, I just like to start with a piece of wax and see where it goes."
To view the complete collection, visit georgiavaridakis.com.
