A day of movement—doctor visits, the jewelry district, unexpected conversations, and the quiet building of something bigger.

The story continues—but first, we need to talk about yesterday.

The Setup: Why Yesterday Mattered

I packed a bag the night before because I got a notification: ultrasound, first thing in the morning. What that really meant was proximity—to the jewelry district.

And that changes everything.

If I’m near the district, I’m not just going to the hospital. I’m moving product. I’m solving problems. I’m stepping back into the world of Jewelry One of a KIND.

So into the bag went scrap silver and gold—ready for my scrap guy. Cash flow. Movement. Circulation.

Also in the mix: the Culebra link bracelet. One of my signature pieces. Hand-carved, hand-cast—2002, maybe 2003. It just sold (to one of my all-time favorite clients, Alicia—shout out). She has been collecting my work since 2001/2002. Truly OG status.

And the clasp? Needs to be redone.

Because here’s the truth: I’m a sculptor. I work in wax. I create form. I am not an engineer. I don’t build mechanisms—I imagine them. So now I need someone who can make it function without disrupting the integrity of the piece.

That’s the mission.

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Bus Talks: Psychology 101

The morning starts simply enough. Alarm. Clothes. Bus.

I sit down, and a young man sits next to me. And because I am who I am, we start talking.

At some point I literally lift my hand like a microphone and say, “Welcome to Bus Talks: Psychology 101.”

He asks me—very sincerely—about dating. Young women vs. older women. What’s the difference?

His friends are dating their own age and discovering… everyone’s immature. Groundbreaking.

So I tell him the truth: older women have experience. And with that experience comes self-esteem. Clarity. Less tolerance for nonsense.

We ride the #20 together, talking the whole way. We exchange numbers, hug goodbye. He tells me he wants to be a musician—but he’s also thinking about a trade.

Smart.

Because AI isn’t fixing your toilet. It’s not making a perfect custom clasp. It’s not doing fine jewelry with soul.

Electrician—that’s what he’s leaning toward.

Even smarter.

Inside the Body / Inside the Image

At the hospital, I have the ultrasound

.

And I’m reminded—again—how visually surreal the human body is. Black and white. Cloud-like. Abstract.

I studied photography. I see things like that.

I’m wearing my Kim Keever scarf—his work literally looks like atmospheric clouds suspended in liquid. As I’m watching my own body on the screen, I’m thinking about his art.

That overlap—science, body, image, art—it stays with me.

Back in the Jewelry District

Then: the jewelry district.

Seybold Building. And suddenly—I’m 30-something again in New York.

Same energy. Same hunt. Same feeling of this is where I belong.

I start asking around about the clasp. I meet Emerson—he points me to Mario. Mario turns out not to be Mario. Mario is the father in-law. Luis is the son-in-law. Luciana is the wife.

A full old-school jewelry family operation.

We talk through the mechanism. It’s simpler than I thought—but requires precision I don’t have.

They can do it.

“Two weeks,” they say.

Which in Miami means… four.

Still—I’ll take it.

Coffee, Style, and Unexpected Connection

Somewhere in all of this, I realize: I haven’t had coffee.

This is a problem.

I’ve already done a full day—bus, deep conversation, hospital, jewelry district—and it’s barely 10 a.m.

So I start hunting.

Instead, I find a moment.

So I start hunting.

Instead, I find a moment.

A woman at a café locks eyes with me and gives that subtle “I see you” gesture. I go over—obviously. She’s sitting with her father, and they are both impeccably dressed. She has a fabulous bag, incredible jewelry. Her father—scarf at the neck, perfectly worn beard—effortless, elegant, unmistakably French. They’re architects, designers, just… living in that aesthetic without trying.

And then the friend arrives.

Full presence. Full look.

Neoprene meets haute couture with a rock-and-roll edge. Sculptural, directional, completely self-possessed. The kind of style that doesn’t ask for attention—it just takes it.

Suddenly the whole table shifts. It becomes a scene.

One of those New York moments—except we’re in Miami. French, Latino, fashion, architecture, energy—everything layered in the most natural way.

We talk. We connect. We exchange information. I invite them to my May 4 Jewelry & Money experience. ( You should come too if you are in Miami )

One of those completely unplanned, deeply human exchanges.

Discipline in the Details

Back to the mission.

Food becomes urgent. Supplies too—I need findings for a jewelry-making exercise for the event.

I stop at Bali—my go-to restaurant in the jewelry district. Big bowl, noodles, broth, vegetables. No coffee. Still, it fills my soul and warms me up.

After hours on the bus and in the AC at the hospital, I need to warm up from the inside out.

Miami is colder than some winter destinations.

Then I hit the supply store.

It’s massive—floor to ceiling. Beads, stones, silk, findings. Total heaven. All colors, all shapes, all sizes.

And I have to literally coach myself: stay focused.

Blinders on.

Findings. That’s it.

Of course, within seconds, I’m elbows-deep in a bin, digging through inventory like it’s mine—until I hear:

“Hey—what are you doing? Don’t touch that.”

I look up. Busted.

Maria.

She’s not wrong. Those are the back bins, not for customers. If I want something, it’s neatly packaged, priced, and hanging right in front of me like a civilized human would use.

I laugh immediately. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”

She laughs too—thankfully. Not mean, just… very clear.

And then, like always, we start talking.

She and her sister bought the business a few years ago. We get into it—how hard the jewelry industry is right now. Even in Miami, even in the Seybold building, which technically makes this the third-largest jewelry market after New York and LA.

And still—everything is shrinking.

Fewer suppliers. Fewer makers. Fewer people who actually know how to do the work.

So I reset. I get what I actually came for.

And I leave the stones behind.

Even though they are incredible.

Even though I could easily disappear into that world and spend money I didn’t come to spend.

No.

This is about discipline.

And today, discipline wins

Not Going Home

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, I remember Luma.

I had been scrolling earlier—it’s such a great app for seeing what’s actually happening in a city. Fashion, tech, food, everything. Way better than Eventbrite, better than Partiful. It just feels… alive.

I see an event: fashion, tech, and mindfulness.

I sign up.

Later, it hits me—I check the time.

It’s tonight.

Of course it is.

And I look at myself: jeans, loafers, bandana, glasses. I look good—but not “fashion networking event in Miami” good.

It’s around 2:30. I’m exhausted. I’ve already lived a full day.

And I know one thing—if I go back to the beach, I’m not coming out again. It’s over.

So I make a call, stay in Miami.I look up CitizenM, realize I’m close enough to walk, and head over. Lobby, computer, a place to land for a minute.

I sit down, get focused, and just start working.

By 5 p.m., I have been engrossed in work and realize it is time to go!

Showing Up Anyway

I realize I have to head back over to the networking event.

And then I catch a glimpse of myself.

I look like a wet dog.

It’s been a full day—bus, hospital, jewelry district, running around—and whatever version of me left the house this morning is… no longer here.

And this is the moment every woman knows. Every city, every suburb.

You’re out. You can’t go home. But you have somewhere to be.

And you have to pull it together.

Operation: find a Sephora.

Thank God they exist everywhere.

There’s one around the corner, of course. There’s always one when you need it.

I walk in with purpose.

Handkerchief—sprayed with perfume, back on the head.
Face—reassembled.
A little makeup, a little glow, some kind of dewy, slightly sparkly situation that says I’m alive, I’m fine, I belong here.

It’s not perfection.

It’s event-ready enough.

And every woman knows exactly what that means.I walk over.

I arrive.

I’m the first one there.

Because—Miami.

The host is not who I expected.

She’s better.

Istituto Marangoni— Built and exited an AI fashion tech company before it was even a thing. Now she teaches. Now she’s working in mindfulness after seven intense years of building.

We start talking.

And then, slowly, the room begins to fill.

A Rare Room

And something rare happens: a networking event that isn’t transactional.

People listen. Share. Ask for help honestly.

It’s small. Intentional. Human.

Exactly what I needed.

I connect with incredible women. I even get a ride home with Lisa, who has a shoe line womads.co.

The Realization

And somewhere on that ride home, it lands:

This wasn’t just a productive day.

It was a full day.

Movement. Creation. Conversation. Problem-solving. Beauty. Random connection. Old worlds colliding with new ones.

This is what building a jewelry business looks like.

This is what creating community in Miami feels like.

And more than anything—it’s the feeling that I am supported.

By something bigger than me.Jewelry One of a KIND Journal is where I write about collectible jewelry, craftsmanship, collecting, Miami, hospitality, beautiful objects, emotional permanence, and whatever strange design spiral I happen to disappear into next.

If you made it all the way to the end, thank you. Maybe you know someone else who would too. Send it to your people.

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And if you’d like to continue the conversation — through jewelry, a future jewelry experience, a custom piece, or simply being in the room next time — I’d love that.

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If you talk to enough artists, eventually you realize that many of them spend their entire lives figuring out how to continue creating. Artists get stipends. Artists get benefactors. Artists get grants. Artists get commissions. Artists get patrons. They piece together entire lives around making sure they can continue making the work.

I think about that a lot, living in one of the most expensive cities on the planet. Partly because I run a jewelry company. Partly because I write. And partly because every time I think I’ve figured out what I do, the work gets bigger.

The jewelry becomes an experience. The experience becomes an installation. The installation becomes a conversation. And somewhere in the back of my head is a giant sculpture I haven’t made yet.

My dream, my vision, is to be able to create and to be paid well to do it.

I keep thinking about that meme with the tiny house, the giant piece of land, and the massive building. The biggest footprint on the property says ART STUDIO. Every time I see it, I laugh because that’s me. Except I want to do it on Miami Beach.

There are so many different ways artists support their work. And I’m also thinking about the early jewelry designers: Cartier, Verdura, and Belperron. How they all started. They had benefactors or particular clients who commissioned major pieces, but they were all putting it together with bubble gum and toothpicks at the time. They didn’t start as giants.

All of the jewelry houses we now think of as institutions began as people. They had patrons. They had clients. They had believers. They had people willing to commission ambitious work. We all start by trying to figure out how to keep making the work.

And a lot of artists die poor.

That is not my vision.

I have no interest in starving for my art. I have every interest in making ambitious work and building a sustainable life at the same time.

So lately I’ve been thinking about how other artists do it. Who supported them. Who commissioned them. Who believed in them. And how they expanded beyond the object itself.

Because the object isn’t always the end point.

Sometimes it’s the beginning.

Similar to writing.

It is the process.

It is the journey that gets us there.

Then I think of the force of Cartier. Being a merchant. Being looked down upon. You know, just the—What am I talking about?

I’m talking about the haves and the have-nots.

We, as artists, create worlds. When you walk into a space that an artist has created, whether it’s looking at a piece of jewelry and picking it up and wearing it or walking into an exhibition, we almost trick you into learning something new through the visual.

Through the visual, we bring people into conversations about politics, the diaspora, domestic violence, financial equity, financial insecurity, and poverty. We bring people into conversations about what those things actually look like in today’s society.

Because the majority of us are living in it, but not talking about it.

But we, as makers, bring people in through beauty, through a tactile experience, and through a powerful vision.

And that takes craft.

And that takes money.

And that takes time.

And that takes years of experience, conversation, reading, and learning.

There’s a woman I met at the Untitled Fair this year.

Her name is Tiff Massey.

She is a force.

The energy of just walking into her booth.

She actually paid for her own booth because she decided she didn’t want anyone else to do it for her. She curated her own booth. Built her own world. And told us all about it through images and sculpture.

She makes earrings into large-scale sculptures. She takes jewelry forms and transforms them into sculpture. She takes adornment and turns it into something monumental.

What struck me most wasn’t just the work itself.

It was the confidence of the work.

The certainty.

The understanding that jewelry doesn’t have to remain jewelry.

It can become architecture.

It can become cultural memory.

It can become a conversation.

And her giant versions of the hair ties little girls wear. She takes Black womanhood, contemporary jewelry, and contemporary hair adornment and turns them into art.

And not only does she do that—I’m sort of destroying your art right here, Tiff, and I’m sorry—but she brings the force of a Black woman into sculpture through earrings and objects.

She takes those forms and turns them into a powerful force of recognition.

Of what jewelry can define.

I’ve never been to Detroit. I didn’t get to see her exhibition. But I read that she took over the Detroit Institute of Arts.

She had her entire community behind her.

She had a DJ.

Just got goosebumps thinking about what she was able to accomplish.

This is her culture.

And oh my God, she’s incredible.

Go look at her work.

Standing there, I wasn’t just looking at sculpture.

For me, I was looking at possibility.

And then my brain did what my brain does and wandered over to Jill Platner.

I’ve been thinking about Jill Platner a lot. She is a master of sterling silver. Jill Platner jewelry is just absolutely magical.

Her studio, which I see on social media—thank you, Jill, for putting the inside of your studio out there for those of us who don’t get to visit it.

Her jewelry work is sculpture, and her large-scale sculptures are absolutely incredible. What fascinates me is the continuity of the work. The forms are still there. The language is still there. The ideas are still there.

I mean, Calder made beautiful jewelry too. But Jill’s pieces are like these giant earrings hanging from the ceiling. These anthropomorphic forms. They’re forms that jewelry designers and sculptors understand immediately. You look at the work and think: of course.

The form wanted to become larger. The idea wanted more room.

Which brings me back to the question: How do I keep making the work? Not next month. Not next year.

For the next twenty years.

Recently, Radical Partners invited me to create one of the Signature Experiences for 10 Days of Connection. They gave me a stipend and trusted me to build the experience I wanted to see in the world.

So I built a writing experience around money and making a piece of jewelry. I invited Miami’s community. It was free to the public. People signed up. There were three prompts, and then we made jewelry.

What surprised me was how difficult people found the making portion. There were large holes and pieces of string to loop through them. I thought it would be easy.

It wasn’t.

A lot of people struggled.

What I realized afterward was that it became the perfect metaphor. Making something by hand is harder than it looks. Craft is harder than it looks. Creating something from nothing is harder than it looks.

The writing exercise around money was equally revealing. Almost everyone shared some version of the same experience: under-earning, joyful spending, and audacious goals they weren’t entirely giving themselves permission to pursue.

Those were the themes.

And afterward, I couldn’t stop thinking about an installation.

A wall of jewelry. Chains. Stones. Color.

And hanging from each piece, a written prayer. A hope. A wish. A goal. Something written by the person who comes to the show.

It would be an interactive piece. People would be invited to engage with the work, write their own prayers, hopes, wishes, and goals, and add them to the installation.

Like a curtain of expression.

That’s exactly what it is.

A curtain of expression.

I’ve also had another vision for decades: the first ring I ever made.

I’ve always wanted to turn it into a sculpture. A large-scale sculpture cast at a foundry. Something larger than life.

I keep thinking about it.

After twenty-five years of making things, I’ve learned that’s usually a sign. The ideas that won’t leave me alone are often the ones worth paying attention to.

So maybe the question isn’t really how can I be paid to make art. Maybe the question is how do I keep making the work.

Because every time I think I’ve figured out what the work is, it changes shape.

The jewelry becomes an experience.

The experience becomes an installation.

The installation becomes a conversation.

– Amanda

Collect the Collection

Visuals of the Studio

Apparently it’s good for your lymphatic system, regulates digestion, and does all kinds of other really great things. You’re supposed to do it with your feet straight up against a wall, but right now this is the closest I could get to comfortable because I couldn’t get to the wall.

I am cooked.

It’s the witching hour: 4 p.m., when either people call you, it’s email time, or your body just says, “Fuck it,” and it’s done. There’s no in-between. You’re either on and ready for the final push of the day, or you are absolutely 100% cooked.

This is not scientific evidence to anything, that 4 o’clock is email and telephone-calling hour in business. I don’t know what that’s about, but it always seems to be the way.

So right now it’s Tuesday. I can’t believe it’s Tuesday. Honestly, it feels like Christmas week, and what are we in—June?

I feel like I’m at the end of the year exhaustion-wise, and my body is just like, “Oh my God.”

I’ve been reaching out to the 4,000 people I have specific notes on from my business, either current or from the past.

For example, I found this note from April 26, 2004:

“Wayne. Ginny’s stylist. Talked to Lucy Sykes at Marie Claire at Plum Sykes’ book launch. Sent images. Spoke on phone.”

Apparently I kept that information for twenty-one years.

So I figured it was finally time to follow up.

I’m following up with Wayne after twenty years because he’s Ginny’s stylist.

I texted Ginny, and she’s in Spain right now.

She’s says, “I don’t remember.”

So I sent her all the details because...I just told you I am that person.

Then she’s like, “Aww, I totally remember him now!”

And all because I had that little note.

I remembered what I was wearing. I remembered a telephone line that didn’t have a cord attached to it but definitely had a fax attached to it because it was my old apartment on John Street.

Who introduced whom.

What we talked about.

Where we met.

What was happening in their lives.

The jewelry was often just the reason we met in the first place.

I mean, I did not know that someone’s college roommate, when we were all in our thirties, would turn into an L.A. superstar PR person.

I definitely did not know that an art dealer friend would end up in prison for a $6.5 million Ponzi scheme.

And I definitely did not know that I would hear back from Lauren from Sundance Catalogue, may it rest in peace because it no longer exists, and that we’d be texting back and forth about life.

And Stephanie Tran texted me back too.

Which reminds me, I need to reach out to her again because we haven’t really reconnected after our reconnection, and I wanted to see what’s up with her.

I was just writing down conversations.

My past self and my current self are super organized in terms of where we met, what we spoke about, what we were wearing, and who introduced us.

I literally have a note from Nantucket in 2005 for a couple who were celebrating their 35th anniversary and were looking at a pair of earrings.

I reached out to them.

I don’t even know. It’s twenty-five years later. These people are probably dead.

I know that’s horrible to say, but I’m laughing about it because, like, 35 years plus 25 years later... they literally could be dead.

Or here’s the funny thing.

Here’s the absolute hilarious thing.

I’m going through the list and some people on it...

Can I reach out to them?

I research it.

“Oh, they’re in prison. Can’t reach out to that person.”

“Oh, that person’s dead. Can’t reach out to that person.”

“Oh, that person’s on some horrible list of predatorial nastiness.”

But then there are people you reach out to and you’re like:

“Oh my God. Look at how their career has just blasted off.”

They’re doing so many incredible things.

Yesterday I was picking up my HRT at CVS and waiting because, of course, I got there and they were still at lunch.

So I picked up a magazine.

Who’s on the cover?

Molly Sims.

A few days earlier, I had reached out to her former roommate because I found a note in my files that simply read:

“Molly Sims roommate.”

That was the note.

That was all the information I apparently felt I needed to save for the next twenty-something years.

Kid you fucking not.

But it was enough to let me remember the conversation.

We had a conversation because I had sterling silver Namibian wire bangles, and the roommate, whose name is Lauren—I guess they were roommates in college—wanted the 18k gold version for Molly.

I was trying to convince them that the sterling silver ones were perfectly lovely.

They were trying to convince me otherwise.

That was not going to happen.

I got introduced to Lauren through my friend Lisa.

Not the Lisa I wrote about last time. The other Lisa.

I probably have twenty friends named Lisa in my phone.

There’s Molly Sims on the cover, right in the middle of my CVS run.

I definitely believe the universe talks to me through people.

I don’t think there is any such thing as coincidence.

I call it a co-winky-dink.

So I reached out again and sent the pictures.

Hopefully she giggles.

Because honestly, I think most of us are curious about what happened to people.

Not in a creepy way.

In a human way.

What happened?

What was it like?

And what’s it like now?

Because I really think we're all interested in what happened to people, whether you spoke to them twenty-five years ago about a book launch, or whether you were texting them this morning about the coffee gathering this coming Friday.

I’m calling them my seedlings.

I met them through Karolina and Ipek.

What amazes me is how much I wrote down.

It’s not really an elephant brain.

It’s note-taking.

My files from a Dell laptop from 2000 got downloaded.

Then there are Blackberry images that are so shitty they’re almost cool now.

They look like they’ve gone through some fancy Instagram filter.

Nope.

They’re just shitty Blackberry images.

And then there are all the handwritten records I found.

They’re in folders.

And I need to go through them.

So beware of what you say or do around me because ultimately it does get written down.

In the age of AI automation, I’m going to figure out how to organize all of this more easily.

I had an intern last summer who I tasked with helping me organize the administrative side of the 4,000-person list.

During the interview, he told me he was excited to design jewelry.

I told him that was not the deal.

The deal was spreadsheets.

Hopefully I can get another intern this summer because there are so many goodies in this pile.

I’m really excited to talk to everybody.

Because I’m doing all of this, I’ve realized something.

I’m realizing that I wasn’t really keeping records of jewelry.

I was keeping records of people.

I think I want to have conversations with people.

I wrote more of my About page last night, and I realized my Substack is less about physical objects and jewelry.

It’s more about what people are doing.

What happened.

What it was like.

What happened.

And what it’s like now.

For those of you who know what that means, you’ll get a little giggle out of it.

I think I’m going to start reaching out to people because I want to have conversations.

Substack is such a great way to learn more about people in long form.

So if you’re here and you want to chat, I would love it.

Not a podcast. I think I’d love to do some Lives and see how that goes.

I don’t have any clue how to do that. But I’m interested in learning.

There are some really incredible women I’ve met just by reading their long-form newsletters.

And there are other people I haven’t spoken to in twenty-five years.

I look at what they’re doing now, and I’m really interested to hear how they got where they are.

Because if the last twenty-five years have taught me anything, it’s that there is no straight line.

Not in business.

Not in friendship.

Not in creativity.

Not in life.

Because there is no linear path.

And that is what I’m interested in hearing about.

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I wanted to Google when I was there in Las Vegas. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to Google your own memory?

I knew it was 2005 because I remembered flying home in August and sitting next to a guy from New Orleans who was talking about a storm.

Of course, that was the summer of Katrina.

It was also the beginning of the end of my business.

I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t have a lot of brain cells left anymore. My first foray into jewelry was more than twenty years ago, so when I started going down this rabbit hole of memory, I found myself wondering:

What show did Cindy Edelstein curate in Las Vegas in 2005?

Thankfully, I had a major world event to help me place the date.

Hurricane Katrina.

Thank you, hurricane and mass destruction, for providing a timestamp.

So I started Googling.

And holy crap, folks.

First of all, Cindy Edelstein—may she rest in peace—was such a phenomenal person. I met her through WJA when I was a member in New York, and she was such a force for creativity and for designers making jewelry that wasn’t your run-of-the-mill commercial jewelry. She championed work that was artistic, original, and design-driven.

So I went digging through the archives.

By “archives,” I mean Google and ChatGPT.

Eventually, I figured it out.

It wasn’t a JCK show.

It was a JA Show.

It was called globalDESIGN.1

It was held in Vegas, and it was a curated exhibition that you were invited to participate in. You couldn’t simply buy your way in. Of course, you still had to pay for your booth, but it was an invite-only and highly curated section of the show, that was all Cindy.

Because when I think about the younger version of myself trying to put everything together while realizing my business was beginning to go under, “prestigious” is not exactly the word that comes to mind.

Looking back, I think it may have been a last-ditch effort to find new clients and create some momentum.

Apparently, I understood how important the show was at the time.

Today, I remember almost none of it.

What I do remember is sitting by the pool.

I have absolutely no idea how I had time to sit by the pool during a trade show, but apparently I did.

Maybe I had enough common sense left to take a fifteen-minute break.

I remember sitting there with my sister-who-isn’t-actually-my-sister—which is another story entirely.

Maybe we were just trying to catch our breath.

And I remember walking around and looking at everything.

Today, looking at all the Couture and JCK posts, photos, and reading all the Substack essays, about the award ceremonies, and all the coverage from the shows, I find myself living vicariously through everyone else’s experience.

And oh my God!

The booths, the wallpaper, the paintings, the installations.

Everything looked sublime.

And duh, of course that goes without saying, the jewelry.

I’m literally doing that Italian finger-kiss gesture right now.

Just perfection.

And is that a newer thing?

Because I feel like twenty years ago we didn’t do that.

A trade show was a trade show.

At least that’s how I remember it.

I remember it feeling much more utilitarian.

I feel like we were all in a basement somewhere.

I’m sure that’s not actually true.

Maybe the booths were always beautiful and I simply wasn’t paying attention.

Maybe I was too busy trying to figure out how to make everything work.

And yet I remember walking around internally repeating:

K.I.T.

Keep it together.

Keep it together.

Keep it together.

If you’ve never seen Bowfinger with Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy, go watch it. It’s hilarious, and you’ll understand exactly what I mean.

That’s what it felt like.

It’s wild when you start looking back through your accomplishments while trying to remember something.

My business folded in 2007 or 2008, but I knew something was wrong in the summer of 2005 because I really couldn’t get my bearings.

I remember being on that show floor in Las Vegas and not being prepared.

Well, that’s not entirely true.

I had the jewelry. I had the setup. I had a friend helping me. I had done all the things.

But I wasn’t prepared with a strategy.

I wasn’t prepared with a real business plan.

I feel like it’s different today than it was twenty years ago.

I also remember people walking into the booth and saying things like:

“I’ll take ten.”

And then realizing this was what I jokingly call “real jewelry.”

People thought it was costume jewelry. They didn't realize the pieces were sterling silver, gold, sapphires, and diamonds.

I remember neighboring booths carrying pieces in the twenty-thousand- and fifty-thousand-dollar price range.

Those designers were absolutely horrified by comments like:

“What do you mean this is real?”

Looking back now, it’s funny.

At the time, it wasn’t.

I couldn’t find records of all the shows I did back then.

There were so many.

I do have photographs of one of my booths somewhere.

I don’t know if it was at Javits or somewhere else in New York.

I don’t know if it was Designers & Agents.

I don’t know if it was JCK.

I honestly have no idea.

I never got into Couture.

I wasn’t that kind of designer.

But this reminds me of another story.

Actually, it's funny in the way that trade-show disasters eventually become funny.

I made these incredible display fixtures using deer antlers mounted onto Plexiglas.

They were fantastic.

And everyone who walked into my booth wanted to buy the displays.

Not the jewelry.

The displays.

I remember thinking:

Folks, I’m here to sell jewelry.

I find it interesting how people gravitate toward the big names.

It’s kind of like the beach in the summertime. There’s an entire stretch of open sand, acres of it, and yet somehow everyone ends up sitting on top of one another in the exact same spot.

I’ve never really understood that.

What is it about human nature that pulls us toward the crowd?

Toward the group.

Toward the place everyone else has already decided is important.

Whether they’re household names or simply the designers of the moment everyone has collectively decided are the people to see, there’s always that mentality of:

“Oh my God, I have to get to so-and-so’s booth.”

I’m actually dealing with that now.

There’s a designer everyone loves.

I do, too.

I think the work is great.

But they’re everywhere.

And without variety, I don’t think people really develop taste.

Style comes from mixing things together.

Mix your thrift-store find with your favorite T-shirt.

Mix your investment piece with a designer nobody has heard of yet.

Mix the well-known names with the obscure ones.

That’s where personal style lives.

Anyway, back to the displays.

Everyone loved them.

And I remember being in that stage of business where I was basically holding everything together with Super Glue and bubble gum.

I had paintings made of a new collection because the actual collection never arrived.

This was the first time I had attempted overseas production.

Up until then, I had made everything myself.

Some consultant or industry person—I honestly can’t remember who—had told me that if I wanted to scale, I needed to start thinking differently about production.

So I listened.

I designed an entire collection that was absolutely magical.

It was stingray with stones set into it and sterling silver details.

There were cuffs, pendants, and earrings.

The whole thing was gorgeous.

But I couldn’t find anyone locally to produce it.

And by locally, I mean New York City.

The sample costs were astronomical, and my customers weren’t buying jewelry at price points that could support those production costs.

So I decided to try manufacturing overseas.

And then everything got stuck.

A week before the show:

“It’ll get there.”

A few days before the show:

“It’ll get there.”

The day before the show:

“It’ll get there.”

And then it didn’t.

I had nothing.

That entire collection simply wasn’t there.

Instead, I had paintings of the collection hanging on the walls.

As you can imagine, paintings are not nearly as effective at generating sales as actual jewelry.

The pieces I did have were older designs, some of which I still wear.

In fact, I recently made a belly chain based on one of those original designs.

It was a paper-clip chain mixed with deerskin leather and semiprecious stones.

People loved them because they were versatile.

You could wear them as necklaces.

You could wear them wrapped around your wrist.

And now, of course, belly chains are everywhere again, especially here in Miami.

Everyone wants one with a bikini or a yoga outfit.

What’s funny is that a friend of mine later adapted that design for a major fashion company in Los Angeles, and I ended up selling something like a thousand units.

Not recently.

Maybe a year ago.

Maybe two.

Time has become a very flexible concept.

Anyway, it’s wild looking back.

You scroll through social media and see how glamorous the shows look today.

You see the incredible booths, beautiful displays, and everyone looking fabulous.

And I realize I have a completely different memory of that period.

What I didn’t remember was that I had been invited into one of the industry’s most respected curated design showcases.

That part somehow disappeared.

Maybe that’s what happens when you’re busy building something.

You remember the problems.

You forget the accomplishments.

Twenty years later, I went looking for the name of a jewelry show.

Instead, I found a younger version of myself.

Apparently, she was doing better than she thought.

Apparently, she was prestigious.

Who knew?

— Amanda

Founder, Jewelry One of a KIND

Jewelry people: what's the trade show story you still tell twenty years later? I’d love to hear your story in the comments.

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And I am not a fine jewelry maker. You know, it’s not really my wheelhouse. I am a jewelry maker, a wax carver, and a lover of all things silver, sculptural, and artistic, and I’ve been in the industry for a long time.

So I genuinely lost my mind recently because there’s finally all of this incredible content emerging around jewelry. And not just content for the sake of content — really good conversations. Engaging, informative, thoughtful conversations about craftsmanship, collecting, design, history, business, and the industry itself.

Which matters because “content” has honestly become such a terrible word.

There’s The Jewelry Wire Substack with Robert Bates. Then last night I listened to The Diamond Dudes podcast, which was so cool. I think it was only their second episode.

National Jeweler has a podcast now too called My Next Question, and and are knocking it out of the park. I think they’re only on episode four now, so it’s very new.

And yay.

Thank you jewelry folks for getting on the podcast gravy train because I am loving it!

I think there’s this re-emergence happening on Substack and podcasts around jewelry and the jewelry industry and history and collecting and craftsmanship and all of the things that people inside jewelry talk about constantly but publicly?

Not really.

The real conversations usually happen:
at trade shows,
during buyer meetings,
over drinks after events,
inside booths,
or at hotel bars during JCK while everybody is exhausted and eating almonds out of convention center snack packs.

So it’s cool hearing jewelry people talking on these platforms.

Not just selling.

Hold on.

I have to stop because I need to take a picture of this beautiful tree.

…

…

Okay.

Tree photograph taken.

I am walking and I am talking right now. Freeform thoughts. Then I’ll go home and edit and write, but I wanted these thoughts to come out of my brain before I forgot about them.

And recently I had an appointment at my favorite place in all of Miami.

The Standard Miami.

It’s in the old Lido Hotel on Belle Isle and one of the things I love most about it is they haven’t Miami’d it.

Like they have not over-modernized it into oblivion.

They kept old Miami intact.

There’s still this Deco feeling.
The gardens are beautiful.
There’s actual community there.

People gather there.

Which, at least to me, feels increasingly rare in Miami.

They have the best spa in all of Miami and they also have this gorgeous little shop.

So I had a meeting there recently with the buyer and she has a really great background. Young woman, but she’s been in retail and buying for a long time. She worked at Reformation and had taken a hiatus and she’s worked at a bunch of places and she’s also a thrifter like me.

So immediately we bonded over that.

Miami has this whole curated mobile flea market thing — Little River Flea and all these pop-ups that move around the city — and we both have that style vocabulary.

Like: Reformation meets Lotus House thrift.

I don’t know.

I just know how to put weird shit together.

And she does too.

So we’re sitting there talking jewelry inside this tiny hotel shop with all these curated objects for men and women and talking about pricing and customers and jewelry and originality and all of it.

And one thing that always fascinates me is how people will spend thousands and thousands of dollars on facials and hair care and supplements and magic creams and all of these things that, frankly, are not permanently changing their lives…

…but when it comes to buying a handmade piece of jewelry they’ll wear forever?

Suddenly everybody becomes financially conservative.

It’s so funny to me.

And of course the thing she really, really loved was the Amanda Collection, which are my tied wire rings that I’ve been making since my debut at the Museum of Modern Art Design Store in Soho in 2002.

And my other classic pieces the Culebra bracelet and Vertebrae Necklace.

They’re hand carved.
Hand cast.
Hand finished.

And yes, they’re a higher price point because they’re actually made by a human being. Me.

I hear that IG song in my head right now.

“It cost that much because it takes me f***ing hours…It cost that much because I don’t have super powers…”

Weirdly, one of the strangest things about being in jewelry this long is realizing how many normies genuinely cannot tell the difference anymore between something authored and something mass manufactured with really good branding.

Which sounds bitchy.

But it’s true.

And look, I don’t poo poo anybody making a living making jewelry however we do it because this industry is hard.

Really hard.

But what I see, here in Miami especially, is a massive white space for original, high-design, mid-range jewelry.

Museum-quality art jewelry.

And there is nowhere for it.

Like literally nowhere.

I’ve met a bunch of jewelry designers here doing original work and there’s no central place where people can actually discover them together.

I’m talking about the world of Ten Thousand Things, Ted Muehling, Gabriella Kiss — designers making collectible objects with real authorship.

In New York it’s a dime a dozen. In a good way.

But in Miami everything still leans:
bling,
diamonds,
status,
flash,
generic luxury.

And again — I’m not anti-diamond.
I’m not anti-fine jewelry.
I’m not anti-anybody making money or creating their own designs.

But especially in that $450 to $3,200 range I see SO much mass-manufactured jewelry disguised as originality.

And then my friends call me.

“Oh my God I bought this bracelet from this designer…”

And then:
“It broke after one wear.”

And I’m like:
Return it.

That’s what you do.

But also why are you spending $450 on a piece of shit when you have me as a friend and I can make you something that’s actually much better quality? And one of a kind.

People want originality again.

I swear to God if I see one more fucking arm stacked with generic jewelry from high-end brands all following the exact same trend cycle I am going to lose my mind.

People need originality.

Or maybe what they need is authorship.

Perspective.

Something that actually feels like a person made it.

Because everything now starts looking exactly the same after a while.

Truthfully, I think there’s absolutely an audience for collectible, artistic, museum-quality authored jewelry in that middle range here in Miami.

And Miami actually has the audience for this.

Collectors.
Artists.
Fashion people.
Hospitality people.
People with taste.
People with money.

But there’s no place to go see it all together.

There’s this beautiful fine jewelry store here called Material Good and it’s incredible.

But what still feels missing to me is the experience of walking into an artist’s studio or a design-driven jewelry space the way you do at Ted Muehling on Howard Street or at Meeka, owned by Monika Krol, in Newport, RI.

That feeling of entering someone’s actual design world. Their home and their mind at the same time. Welcomed and intrigued.

Miami has the audience for it.

And then of course we have the Miami Beach Antique Show which is less an antique show and more a giant jewelry universe.

The watches.
The stones.
The dealers from London and Paris and New York and Houston and and and and ……

I remember one year trying on an rose-cut diamond ring - my favorite cut - from the 1600s that was like two-and-a-half carats and completely insane.

And then walking into another booth filled with guilloché enamel pocket watches that truly left me speechless because they were so beautiful.

That world exists.

But the bridge between collectible contemporary design jewelry and Miami retail culture still feels weirdly absent to me.

I can feel people starting to look for it.

Which is maybe also why all these podcasts suddenly feel important.

Because jewelry people are finally talking again.

Not just selling.

Talking about:
history,
craftsmanship,
collecting,
business,
taste,
objects,
why things matter,
why objects matter.

And thank God for that.

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And if you’d like to continue the conversation — through jewelry, a future jewelry experience, a custom piece, or simply being in the room next time — I’d love that.

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And it has a very, very long history.

It really starts with Seaman Schepps. I’m actually writing this while pulling books off my shelves looking for my old Seaman Schepps catalogues because that’s where a lot of this began. I wanted a very large, thick, chunky bracelet. A real bracelet. Sculptural. Heavy. Beautifully engineered.

Seaman Schepps makes these incredible oversized link bracelets, some with rock crystal, some with wood, some coral, and they are just magnificent. Not just jewelry — engineering. Sculpture. Presence.

I was introduced to them through my mother because she loved jewelry. I actually remember going shopping with my parents on Park Avenue for earrings for her.

Jewelry was always connected to travel and memory in my family. If we went away somewhere, there was usually a charm or a bracelet or earrings some little object that came back with us. It didn’t have to be enormous or wildly expensive. Jewelry just represented experience. Memory. A place.

I’ve actually never owned a Seaman Schepps piece, but I still visit jewelry stores like theirs almost like museums. I know I’m not going to own most of the pieces I look at, but I want to see them. I want to study them. Jewelry done well is art.

And then there’s this very funny story.

I had a high school boyfriend whose mother had this gold bracelet. It wasn’t a Cuban link. It was flatter and more refined, but it was substantial. And apparently teenage me genuinely thought my high school boyfriend should somehow be able to buy me a bracelet like his mother’s.

I’m laughing writing this because seriously who was I? What was I thinking?

He gave me a little gold bracelet that he probably worked very hard to afford and I remember being disappointed because I wanted the giant bracelet his mother had. Which is horrifying and ridiculous and I was absolutely a spoiled brat.

But even then I knew exactly what I liked.

And weirdly, I was never really a bracelet person.

For my eighteenth birthday my parents gave me a beautiful gold bracelet that I really did love, but the links graduated in size. They became smaller toward the center. And every time I wore it I remember thinking, why isn’t it all the same size? Why can’t the whole thing just be large and uniform?

I’m also the worst person in the world to buy gifts for because I’m incredibly particular. I really don’t like a lot of stuff. I’m very curated, even if my apartment currently looks like a small explosion because I did laundry last night and I hang dry almost everything because silk and linen should never go in a dryer.

But anyway.

The idea for the Culebra link lived in my brain for years and years.

Then fast forward to a vacation with my parents in St. John. I was probably in college. Maybe late high school. I picked out a pair of sterling silver earrings with actual langouste claws in them, and I absolutely loved them. I think I still have them somewhere. The jeweler had wrapped the claws in wire and tied the wire almost into knots and they were clearly handmade. Not manufactured. They had this incredible organic quality to them and I wore them constantly.

That was probably the first time marine forms and jewelry really connected for me, viscerally.

Then in January of 2002 my uncle’s plane went down off the island of Culebra.

My uncle, my cousin Didder, her husband Marc — they had only been married a few months — her son Heath from her first marriage, who was five years old, and Marc’s mother were all killed.

There were funerals and memorial services and family gatherings and grief in every direction. I actually missed one of the memorial services because of my own mistake with timing getting to the island, which still upsets me to think about.

But I remember the dinner afterward.

There was a meal with langoustines.

And I collected the lobster claws out of the garbage can.

I still have them.

I didn’t know exactly what I was going to make, but I knew I was going to make something.

Everyone thought I was insane, but they also already knew I had gone to art school and was kind of a weird, quirky, “Oh that’s just Mandy being Mandy,” hippie creative person, so this behavior probably felt relatively on brand for me.

At that point I had maybe just started making jewelry, mostly wire wrapping because it was all I really knew how to do. Then I started taking classes, and I signed up for a carving class at the 92nd Street Y with a woman named Tova who was a master carver and had done much of the carving work for Barry Kieselstein-Cord.

If you don’t know his work, he was an extraordinary designer in the 1980s. Incredible belt buckles. Sculptural jewelry. Beautiful objects. He did this iconic alligator motif and these incredible sun faces.

Tova was teaching a proper foundational carving class. The kind where everyone learns the same exercise so they understand technique and proportion and structure.

But I work visually first.

She was teaching us this Gucci-esque link — which wasn’t originally Gucci, — and all I could think about was making my Culebra claw link. I didn’t want to spend time learning one thing only to later remake it into the thing I actually wanted to create.

I remember her basically telling me it wouldn’t work.

And I remember thinking: yes it will.

I could already see the finished piece.

I could see it completely in my head.

So I ignored the assignment and carved the first Culebra link anyway.

Boy, aren’t I a joy of a student.

The link was created by taking two lobster claws and joining them together. At first they almost looked like teeth, but once I started carving them they became much softer and more organic. Much more sculptural. Less literal.

That eventually became the entire collection.

Now there are tiny links, and giant oversized links. But that original carving became everything.

The clasp, however, was a disaster.

Because I’m really a sculptor more than a mechanical jewelry engineer. There are jewelry makers who deeply understand and have studied movement and mechanics and closures and functionality. I approach jewelry like an artist / object maker, not an engineer. I think about form first. Shape first. Weight first.

I decided that I did not want a clasp to interrupt the way the bracelet looked. So when I originally made it, the links folded into each other and locked through tension. You had to slide one side into the other and flip it in a certain direction because of the way one of the links folded.

Which sounds great in theory.

But imagine buying this bracelet and not knowing that.

You would try to bend it and probably break it.

Or you’d spend twenty minutes trying to figure out how to get the thing on your wrist.

It was basically one of those old metal bar puzzles where you had to figure out how to unlock the pieces except now the puzzle was attached to your arm.

So sculpturally it worked beautifully because there was no visible clasp interrupting the bracelet.

Commercially it was absolutely ridiculous because normal humans had absolutely no idea how to use it.

Which is fair because I am apparently not a normal human.

But now that it finally has a proper clasp, the bracelet has become everything I originally wanted it to be.

So more than twenty years, later I have finally solved the clasp problem.

I originally worked with someone who made a clasp that technically functioned, but it didn’t feel right. And when I say that, I mean the bracelet literally fell off every time I wore it. I am totally shocked I never lost it.

The mechanics were wrong.

It felt manufactured instead of thoughtfully made.

And there’s a massive difference between manufacturing and jewelry making.

Manufacturing understands volume.

Jewelry makers understand weight. Tension. Balance. Wearability. Human movement. Art.

So after moving to Miami it took me years to find the right mold makers and jewelers who understood exactly what I was trying to do because I see the object before I know how to technically execute it. I was no longer in New York City, the center of the jewelry industry, and I needed through pure trial and error to find people I trusted who could actually make what I needed.

And finally the relationship happened completely by accident.

I texted someone I had met who was labeled in my phone as “jewelry contact mold maker.” I texted him one morning and she got back to me immediately.

Wrong person.

But graciously, she — a diamond dealer contact — told me to talk to Emerson, who was really more of a CAD guy than a jewelry mechanics guy, and he suggested I go a few floors up to this family-owned mold maker and jeweler with decades of experience.

I spent an entire day running up and down the stairs of the Seybold Building.

And we solved it.

BOOYA.

A relationship made in Miami.

The new clasp works beautifully. It disappears visually into the bracelet while still functioning properly, which was always the goal.

I’m so excited about it because this clasp has existed in various forms in my minds eye for over twenty years.

But now that the clasp has finally been solved, I’m really excited to reintroduce the bracelet properly because it finally functions the way I always wanted it to.

I’m releasing it the bracelet in antique bronze, which has this incredible rose-gold warmth to it, and also in solid sterling silver because sterling silver was the original version and I am genuinely a sterling girl at heart.

And speaking of metal finishing, this is another rabbit hole entirely, but years ago in New York there was this incredible plating company run by a husband and wife. The husband’s name was Simon and they did the most unbelievable vermeil plating I’ve ever seen.

Not standard gold plating.

Actual heavy vermeil over sterling silver.

Most plating is incredibly thin. 1 - 2.5 microns of gold.

Their plating was extraordinary.

And for people who don’t know the difference, gold plating can be done over almost any base metal and it’s usually a very thin layer. Vermeil is a much thicker layer of gold over sterling silver. Usually around 2.5 microns or so.

But Simon’s company did eight microns.

E I G H T

It was insane.

I still have pieces from twenty years ago plated by them that still look beautiful.

That kind of craftsmanship barely exists anymore. Also I think it is incredibly toxic and the plater I went to recently here in Miami told me they would need an entirely different setup — read expensive, zoning, years of red tape — to even be able to do that kind of plating now.

And another funny story about this bracelet — years ago when I was doing a lot of press with Harper’s Bazaar, which I’ve always been much more of a Harper’s Bazaar person than a Vogue person. Probably because Bazaar gave me so much support over the years and also because I just genuinely loved the magazine.

I actually haven’t picked up a physical magazine in forever, which is kind of sad now that I think about it. I read everything digitally now through Hoopla and my library apps on my phone because I still absolutely love magazines, but recently I was going through all my old press files from the 2000s — piles of magazines, tearsheets, old editor notes, all of it — and it was incredibly nostalgic.

I’m sitting here trying to remember her name and looking over at the stack of magazines because it’s early, I haven’t finished my coffee yet, and my brain is barely functioning.

Glenda Bailey.

There it is.

Morning brain.

So I remember someone from Glenda Bailey’s office calling during holiday gifting season because they were putting together Christmas gifts and wanted to buy the Culebra bracelet. Or maybe it was for her. Or for editors. I don’t fully remember the details anymore, but I remember being completely thrilled by it because at the time that felt HUGE to me.

And now looking back, I know exactly why the purchase probably never happened.

The clasp was too “artistic.”

Which is really just secret jewelry language for:
“How the hell does this thing work?”

Which is fair.

But now that the clasp has finally been solved, I’m really excited to reintroduce the bracelet properly because it finally functions the way I always wanted it to.

The weight of it.

The scale of it.

The way it feels on the body.

Everything about it feels substantial and sculptural and alive to me.

I actually went by Mario’s last week because I was nearby and the newest version was almost finished. It still needed final assembly, but I should be picking it up this week and I cannot wait.

There will be photos and video soon.

And finally, after more than twenty years, this bracelet is ready.

And now normal humans will finally be able to wear it.

I cannot wait to release this beautiful baby because she has been waiting for her debut for so long. I get so many compliments on this bracelet and I love everything about it — the weight of it, the scale of it, the way it feels on the body. It feels substantial. Sculptural. Alive.

Now my brain is already moving into ten other directions because I’m thinking about making thinner versions of the clasp that could become charms and all kinds of other things because once you solve one mechanical problem suddenly a hundred more ideas appear.

Which is how this jewelry woman works.

Anyway.

I can’t wait for you all to see it.

Love you guys.

Talk soon.

— Amanda

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It is pouring rain in Miami, and all of a sudden it went from 90 and sunny to 70 and chilly with lightning everywhere.

It’s fabulous, my favorite part of the summer months in Miami Beach. I call it rainbow season.

I’m sitting here updating my Substack, having way too much fun doing it, and apparently Jewelry One of a KIND is now one of the rising fashion and jewelry voices on here, which means a lot of new people have suddenly found their way over recently.

So first:
welcome.

Tell me:

— where you’re from
— what kind of objects you collect
— what you’re reading
— and what brought you here

Honestly, that’s basically how The KIND Council started in the first place.

I’m still learning what half these buttons do myself, but I thought I would introduce myself a little more now that I’ve been writing more regularly over here.

I have one Substack under personally, and this one here for the brand.

Over here, we talk much more about what it actually looks like reinventing yourself as a jewelry designer after being in the industry for more than 20 years, stepping away from it, and then finding your way back while building things very differently this time around.

More intentionally.
More slowly.
More honestly.

Some posts will be longer essays. Some will be studio notes. Some will probably begin with a Miami situation and end somewhere completely different.

That seems to be how my brain works.

A lot of the longer reflections end up inside Studio Notes, which is probably the closest thing this publication has to a sketchbook — process, references, objects, archives, craftsmanship, and all the strange things that happen while making work.

And then there’s Building Slowly, where I talk much more honestly about the actual mechanics of rebuilding a jewelry house — structure, reinvention, wholesale, pricing, systems, creative labor, and doing things differently the second time around.

But also:
books I’m reading because I am always reading,
fresh bread coming out of the oven,
possibly recipes at some point,
downtown observations,
Miami and Miami Beach recommendations,
what I do and don’t do,
beautiful weird objects,
travel,
conversations,
events,
people I meet during my days and on public transportation — yes, in Miami — and the fascinating things they tell me,
and all the strange and wonderful moments in between that somehow end up connected back to creativity, objects, and building a life.

Do you like objects with stories, beautiful odd details, creative reinvention, and the lives people build around what they make?

You’ll probably feel very at home here.

I meet eccentric and intriguing people constantly, and I will tell you about all of them.

And because this is Substack, we actually get to have those conversations here instead of shouting into the void somewhere else online. The KIND Council is where a lot of those conversations continue — in between making, writing, cooking, rebuilding, wandering around Miami Beach, talking to fascinating people, and figuring out in real time what it actually means to reinvent both jewelry and the way we talk about it.

Franklin is here beside me while I write this.

Franklin is the beast.

He appears often and occasionally interrupts…everything.

He has unofficially become part of the publication already.

And I am the connectress as well as the designer, as well as the writer, as well as the person bringing you along for this ride.

So if you want to follow what it actually looks like to build a jewelry house over time — with all the stories, observations, beauty, reinvention, and all the whacky turns that come with it — I’m really happy you found your way here.

— Amanda

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Editor’s Note: This is a founder note from a week inside Jewelry One of a KIND — part studio journal, part business reflection, part memory archive. I’m leaving it close to how it arrived because that feels most honest.

May 9, 2026 — Some Time in the early hours of the Morning

Podcasts, Reinvention & Validation

Wow. Recap from this week. Holy moly.

And I’m listening to podcasts, thinking about the week, the conversations I’ve had, and everything currently spinning around in my brain.

I’m listening to Anna Sale’s Death, Sex & Money podcast on Slate right now. If you’ve never listened to it, please do. It’s excellent. It’s one of my go-tos.

And I’m also absolutely loving writing on Substack. Me and my thoughts are finally having a place to go. It’s wonderful.

I’m listening to a bunch of different people because I’ve listened to a whole bunch of them, and then I also listen to Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me! on NPR. I’ve been listening to Wait Wait since before it was a podcast, when I literally had to listen to it on the radio in real time on Saturday mornings on WNYC.

So I’m thinking about all the things — my recap of the week, all the people that I talked to, all the thoughts that I had, and all the things going on in my brain.

And it’s just wild because all of the things that I’ve thought about while listening to these national podcasts, and these people being interviewed, are literally the same things that I think about in my brain. Which makes me want to scream from the rooftops like, yay.

And it also gives me validation.

Starting Over Isn’t Failure

Two of the topics that came up were about a band she was interviewing that came up alongside all of these famous bands. They were literally in the same rooms, playing the same places, doing the same things, but they’re not a household name.

Now they’re on tour again and they’re in their 60s.

So I’m in my 50s, and I came up with all of these famous jewelry designers and clothing designers, and they’re all household names. Actually, some of them are now retired. One of them literally just closed her store, and I’m wondering where I’m going to get my bathing suits now.

But anyway, she’s reinventing herself as well.

And it really came to me — this idea of reinvention. The thought that we are never too old to start over, and we’re also never too young to start over.

Starting over is a celebration.

It is not a defeat.

I had an interview recently. I’ve been really proactive in my business lately, and people have been reaching out to me. I was filling out an interview questionnaire for a magazine that I’ll be in next month, and they were asking me what I would tell my past self, or the future generation.

And it really is this:

My experience is not something that I look back on as failure.

I look back on it as research.

Growing this brand — growing Jewelry One of a KIND — it is a baby.

And I have 20+ years of experience in retail on all levels. I have 20+ years of experience in jewelry, from making to selling and all things in between. I’m an educated GIA Gemologist. I have also designed and wholesaled and retailed and sold in 45 stores in New York, LA, and Japan.

And I have also failed miserably in so many different ways.

I think I remember more of that than I do a lot of the successes.

But I don’t remember it this morning as:
“Oh my God, I failed. I’m a horrible human. I’m a shitty business person. Why me?”

I’m not thinking about all of these big names doing so well while I was in those same rooms, those same showrooms, on those same famous people.

I’m actually looking at it this morning like:

It wasn’t time yet.

Because I was already in the rooms.

I was in the showrooms.
I was around the famous designers.
I was around the stylists.
I was around celebrities wearing my work.

I was in those spaces.

And for a really long time I think I viewed that through the lens of:
“Why didn’t I become the household name?”

But now I look at it differently.

Maybe it just wasn’t time yet.

And all of that experience was preparing me for what is going to be held in my future.

And it’s not about fame or fortune or accolades.

For me right now, it’s:

What can I do?
How can I be of service?

And I don’t mean that in a Pollyanna way.

Because the brand itself — because of all of those successes and all of those failures — made me who I am today and got me to where I am now.

I’m building a brand that is revolutionary.

There is no one that has ever made a jewelry brand that talks about financial abuse, pays their workers a living wage, creates museum-quality jewelry, and also teaches people to make what I’m making.

Period.

It doesn’t exist.

And I remember talking to somebody — I won’t mention names because this is literally just my thoughts — and they said:

“Oh my God, you can’t do jewelry experiences and teach people what you make. They’re just gonna make your jewelry and never buy from you.”

And I have decades of art school experience.

No one is ever going to create what I create.

They can create their version of something.
They can learn techniques.
They can learn craftsmanship.

But nobody else has my eye.
My experience.
My history.
My references.
My hands.
My brain.

And honestly, I think when people understand craftsmanship, they value craftsmanship more.

The whole reason for doing jewelry experiences is to create community.

You know that famous quote about people remembering how you made them feel more than anything else? I can’t remember the exact quote right now, but that’s what I want.

I want people to feel welcomed.
Seen.
Inspired.
Creative.
Connected.

Because so much of luxury right now feels cold to me.
Performative.
Exclusive.
Transactional.

And I’m much more interested in emotional permanence.

I’m interested in creating objects and experiences that people actually remember.

I’m creating a community with my brand.

And honestly, it’s in reflection to all of the narcissism, all of the “look at me, look at me, aren’t I fantastic?”

I’m so f****ing sick of it.

And listening to all of these podcasts recently, and reading all of these articles recently — I’m an avid reader. I consume media. I consume books. I consume conversation.

I really want to know the meat and bones of what you’re thinking and what you’re doing.

Not the polished version.
Not the PR version.
Not the “everything is amazing” version.

I want the real thing.

I want the conversations underneath the conversations.

And honestly, I think people are starving for sincerity right now.

Everything feels so performative.
Everything feels so polished and optimized and over-filtered.

And meanwhile people are exhausted.

People want connection.
People want meaning.
People want to feel something real.

The Table In Front of Me

One of the podcasts I was listening to had somebody talking about the 1%, the point-one percent, and their self-absorption, and why they aren’t helping other people.

And I always think:
Follow the money.

Rather than getting angry about it, I’m trying to do something about it, even in a very small way.

Because small things still create ripple effects.

And then I think about the other point-one percent that does help people, like the $7 million that was donated recently for Meals on Wheels or something similar.

There are also a bunch of news sources that I read that are literally just “good news,” and that makes me hopeful.

Anyway, I digress.

It’s Saturday morning.

I’m sitting here in front of a table. It was my childhood dining room table, and now it’s my office table. It’s my jewelry workshop table.

When it’s cleaned off and beautiful, it becomes this gorgeous presentation table in my apartment with a beautiful tray and gorgeous glass globes that I collect, and Lalique birds that I’ve collected over the years.

But right now it is an absolute mass of boxes and containers and bags and egg cartons and trays and old coffee cups and nail polish and pencils and jewelry-making junk.

Honestly, it looks like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, except this patch is filled with sterling silver, gems, tools, congealed coffee, and organized chaos.

Egg cartons.
Wire.
Tape.
Half-finished ideas.
Jewelry scraps.
Containers.
Old notes.
Coffee cups.
Nail polish.
Pencils.

And somehow I know exactly where everything is.

I think that’s probably the brain of an artist and founder at the same time.

Because I’m making and cleaning as I go.

I’m having a creative morning making this candy collection of charms. They’re keychains or bag charms and they’re super fun.

And I’m listening to podcasts, reminiscing about the morning, reminiscing about the week.

Coffee With Sharron — Pom Pom’s Brother

Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet with a friend’s brother who has been in partnerships for 30+ years. He happens to live across the street from another friend’s brother, and the two have never met, and I think they absolutely should.

So I was meeting with one brother to talk about introducing him to the other brother because business-wise they should definitely meet.

And honestly, I consider myself a connectress.

I love introducing people.
I love seeing how human systems overlap.
I love hearing how people build things.

But selfishly, I also wanted to talk to him because he has so much business experience and he’s super successful. I wanted to hear how he started, what he did, and ask his opinion about what I was doing.

He was so generous with his time.

And we’ll see where that goes.

But Miami Beach is such a small town in a big city.

I was at Whole Foods and I’m such a car nerd. I know nothing about cars, but I love the way they look, especially new cars that look old or old cars in general.

And I know that comes from my father, my grandmother, and my grandfather’s love of cars.

I literally grew up on a stock car racetrack.

My grandmother was the only woman in NASCAR history to build, run, own, and promote a stock car racetrack for over 50 years.

And it’s still a working track in New Jersey.

She was an entrepreneur and a revolutionary.

She did that before women could even really own property or get credit cards.

I think the track was built in 1948 and opened in 1950.

So I ran into him at Whole Foods not because I saw him — I saw this unbelievable car.

The top was going down. It was a hard-top convertible racing car with a number on it.

Grey and white with a black number.

Oh my God.

It was absolutely gorgeous.

A Porsche.

The kind of thing that literally stops you in your tracks.

And then I realized:
“Oh my God, that’s Pom-Pom’s brother.”

I call my friend Pom-Pom because when I first met her she had little pom-poms all over the end of her dress, and every time I see her she has pom-poms on something.

So that became her nickname.

And I went over to talk to him and he immediately said:
“Oh my God, I was thinking about you. We need to have that coffee we planned months ago.”

And it’s amazing how we all get caught up and forget.

So we did.

And it was wonderful.

We talked about partnerships, introductions, hospitality, long-term relationships, and how people build things over decades.

And selfishly, I really wanted perspective.

What was really validating was hearing him understand what I was saying almost immediately.

The economics side.
The experience side.
The partnership side.
The long-term relationship building.

Because sometimes when you’re building something that doesn’t fit neatly into one category, it can feel like you’re constantly explaining yourself over and over again.

And it was nice not to feel like I had to over explain.

Everyone is connected through somebody.

Everyone knows somebody’s brother or somebody’s business partner.

And somehow all of these conversations overlap.

And I love that.

I think that’s part of why I love partnerships so much.

I’m fascinated by human systems.

The Women in Legacy Event

And as I’m leaving the coffee shop to come back home and ride my bike, I hear:
“Hey, were you at the…”

And I look over and there are these two women sitting outside the coffee shop I had just left.

And she says:
“Wait a minute, weren’t you at the event last night?”

I had gone to a Women in Legacy event.If you read my Substack from the other day, there were women there from every age and every stage of their career. Some had created empires and are now moms, some had created empires and are now reinventing themselves, and some were really young people creating brands while also working full-time jobs.

Everybody that spoke was doing like five or six different things.

Including me.

Some people had hit it big, some maybe hit it bigger, who knows, but the way it was presented was that it was a very accomplished room.

And honestly, that felt weirdly comforting to me.

Knowing that yes, I too am accomplished.

And it doesn’t need to be judged around my bank account or success or the number of followers I have or the number of zeros behind my name.

You know what I’m trying to say.

I think for a really long time I thought everybody else somehow knew what they were doing and I had missed the meeting.

But being in that room made me realize:
oh… everyone is evolving in real time.

Everyone is balancing ambition and exhaustion and creativity and family and survival and reinvention all at once.

Including me.

And I think that’s why I was so happy I showed up to the invitation.

Not because it was some giant networking thing.

But because I recognized myself in a lot of the women there.

And it was a woman, Gisele, who I had met at the event, and I was so happy she said hello to me.

We sat down and she was there with a friend from the DR, and of course this woman had this amazing brand, so we all chatted.

And what I really loved was that everybody was building something completely different.

Different ages.
Different industries.
Different stages of life.

But everyone was making something.

And everyone was trying to figure out how to build a meaningful life while also building a business.

And that’s the thing I keep noticing over and over again lately.

So many women are reinventing themselves.

Not because they failed.

Because they evolved.

And honestly, that feels really hopeful to me.

The Smell of Geranium Leaves

But she makes perfume — no, no, no, I’m sorry, she doesn’t make perfume.

She makes hormone-regulating oils and she uses geranium.

And there is a farm that I used to go to as a child.

My mother was a master gardener. My grandmother was a master gardener. My uncle is a master gardener. My grandfather was a master gardener.

Gardening is in my blood.

My mother knows everything in Latin. My uncle knows everything in Latin.

The gardens at my grandmother’s house, at my dad’s mom’s house, at my mom’s house — it really is part of my atoms, my molecules.

And we used to go to this place — I can’t remember the name of it — but it was a geranium garden.

And I can still smell the geranium leaves.

Geraniums were one of my grandmother’s favorites. We called her Nami.

And when this woman was telling me about her geranium oil, and she had some on the table because she was giving it to her friend, I smelled it and it really brought me back.

So I said, “Oh, do you know about the geranium farm?”

I’m from New Jersey. I can’t remember if it’s in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, but it’s somewhere around the Delaware Water Gap area.

And she said no, so I immediately found the article and sent it to her.

They have hundreds of different variations and, don’t quote me, but I think they’re the only place on the planet that has that many and is able to maintain them.

And it’s family-run.

I think it was passed from the father to the son and then to the grandson.

It’s just an incredible place.

And I have such happy memories of going there and going to other gardens.

Believe it or not, New Jersey is a beautiful state.

The food and the gardens, whether produce or flowers, are magnificent.

So I ride my bike home with all my little stickers on it and come home and write for the rest of the day.

I finished that article and I don’t know what else I’m thinking about right now.

Maybe I’ll continue this later.

But I just wanted to speak to the podcast I was listening to.

It is now 12:43, so maybe I will write more later.

It’s Saturday.

I Was Making the Right Jewelry for the Wrong Era

So if anyone remembers the early 2000s in the jewelry industry, it was all very delicate. Extremely. There were a lot of beads.

Oh my God, there were a lot of beads.

And I was doing very large chunky jewelry.

I also really loved Me & Ro, Jill Platner, and Ted Muehling. I loved the heaviness of it. Not visually heavy — physically heavy. The kind of jewelry with actual heft to it, where you could feel the quality not only visually, but in the weight of it in your hand. Heavy metal. It was all hand done.

Me & Ro is much more tribal almost, but my jewelry was heavy and super expensive to make and it also wasn’t mass manufactured.

And I remember getting a call from Patricia Field. She was doing a billboard for Sephora and she wanted something literally that night so she could shoot it.

And this was the era of fast fashion where you had to have a collection almost every two months.

I think there was this expectation that mid-range jewelry houses were mass-producing things.

The name of my business at the time was Amanda Nicol Fine Art and Design, and I was in showrooms alongside other designers that were mass producing things.

And honestly, I was just in the wrong place.

So I remember giving Patricia something really heavy that I made by hand for that shoot.

It was agate and sterling.

And I don’t even think she gave me a lookbook or a mood board to go by. She just said, “What do you have?”

And I think the assumption was that I had gobs and gobs of inventory.

And like I do now, the inventory that I have is very small because I am a sustainable brand.

And what that means now is part of a worldwide conversation, but back then it really wasn’t something anyone understood.

I think it looked like I was unprepared.

There was no language around it.

I didn’t even know that’s what I was at the time.

And I was so young.

Hello, Patricia Field is calling you and wants something right now, so rather than ask more questions, she says jump and you say, “Okay, how high?” in hopes you get the campaign.

So the quote “youth is wasted on the young” is definitely true.

Not being able to capitalize on what I had done was literally the definition of being young.

How do you navigate that part of the business when you’re that young?

People want you to innovate, but only enough for them to understand the innovation.

That’s literally what was being said on the podcast I’m listening to right now.

And it’s apropos for every industry.

Thursday, May 14 — 3:34 AM : Insomnia & Founder Brain

Franklin is purring so loud that I can’t hear.

It’s 3:30 AM.

I don’t know what I have.

Do I have menopause?
Do I have old age?
Do I have insomnia?
Do I have entrepreneurial “oh my God what do I have to get done” brain?

My brain is ready to explode.

But I should be sleeping because I need to get up at 6:30.

Does anyone relate?

I’m also thrilled with so much excitement and joy, and I don’t know if I’m proud of myself or blown away by what I accomplished in the early 2000s.

So when I met with my friend’s brother Sharron for coffee, we had such a great conversation and he said, “Do you have a deck? Or just send me your website.”

And I thought:
I really need to redo my website.

Which is wild because it was just done in November 2025 and it already doesn’t feel like the brand anymore.

I mean yes, it has my jewelry on it, but we evolved so quickly.

And where we are going is a completely different trajectory.

I don’t feel like the messaging matches the conversations I want to be having when I sit down with someone.

The Archive Closet

So I decided to do a deck for him based on what we talked about, which were really two separate subjects.

Part of it was the history of me and the brand and my capabilities, less in a corporate sounding way and more about who I actually am and what I’ve accomplished. My story.

So I went into the archives — meaning the closet — and opened up the drawers and pulled out what was probably three feet high of press, magazines, catalogs, drawings, notes, and pieces of my brain that I’ve kept as an archive.

All of the things we accomplished.

Press releases from movie stars wearing my jewelry on red carpets, conversations back and forth with magazines like Vogue, Shape, Lucky, Women’s Wear Daily, stylists we worked with, fashion shows we were part of.

But also things I completely forgot about, like the copyright and trademark conversations around the Namibian wire ring.

And now that I’m older and wiser, and I think the industry has changed a lot around design and handmade objects, I definitely want to revisit that.

Design is extremely difficult to copyright.

At least that’s what I remember from back then.

And I’m not a lawyer and I’ve never done this, but it’s definitely something I want to look into.

Because I remember all of these major labels and jewelry houses that we all know — from Fifth Avenue to fast fashion to high fashion — “borrowing” from others.

And now with Instagram, Pinterest, and visual platforms, it’s much easier to document what you’ve created — and much easier for larger companies to “pull inspiration” from smaller designers.

I think we’re all influenced by each other.

But when major corporations take from smaller people, that’s different.

That’s social capital.

That’s huge corporations taking livelihood from people.

But I digress.

Because it’s 3:30 AM and I’m just dumping a major amount of what’s going on in my brain.

The Questions I Didn’t Know to Ask

So when I was going through all of this, I also saw all of the hard work that was put into it.

There was a whole private label project that I did that didn’t get accepted by a major women’s fashion designer, Nicole Miller.

And I literally remember being in her office. I don’t remember who else was there, but it was me, her, and one of her executives saying something like, “What’s going on with us? I need to call the Wall Street Journal.”

And I just remember being super young and super green and not knowing how to handle the situation.

Looking back at it now, it feels very intimidating.

And it’s so important to have people that mentor you and can point you in the right direction.

And I know now that even though I didn’t get the financial and fashion opportunity, I did get the experience.

I learned what not to do.

I learned how to handle myself.

I learned what questions to ask while you’re in the room.

Because honestly there’s no reason to be intimidated by anyone.

Clarity is the most important thing.

“Can you repeat that?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Can we rewind?”
“I have a lot to digest. Thank you very much. Let me get back to you with a thoughtful reply.”

Those are all things that I’ve learned.

I can pause.

I can go back.

And looking through all of this, I also realized how young I was.

Who knows.

There are always these “30 under 30,” “40 under 40,” “20 under 20” people on magazine covers.

So who knows.

Anyway.

Built Slowly on Purpose

So I decided to put together the deck and I did.

And honestly it was so much fun.

There was also a huge amount of contacts and information I still haven’t even gone through. An ephemeral gold mine.

The brand itself — Jewelry One of a KIND — was born in September 2024.

And when I say born, I mean that it presented itself onto Instagram.

And now it has really evolved.

And the beauty of having 20+ years of experience in an industry is knowing that this is a marathon.

It is not a sprint.

And it is okay to do things thoughtfully and slowly.

So I went to an appointment with a buyer who was interested in the Amanda Nicol collection, which is the more expensive part of the collection.

She has very good taste, I write with a smirk, but I immediately knew it wasn’t the right fit for her store.

Not because people don’t have the money.

It’s just not the vibe.

A thousand-dollar necklace is not going to move in that environment.

And being able to walk into that meeting as an adult, prepared, knowing exactly what I wanted from the conversation, felt very different from when I was younger.

I went in asking:

What does she need today?
What does she need in the future?
How can we work backwards from her price point?

And also:
How do I educate her about who we are and how we work?

The Emotional Cost of Small Business

She also asked if I would be interested in doing a pop-up.

And I said yes initially, but then we started talking about the dynamics and costs of doing pop-ups.

And honestly, we don’t really do that anymore.

We don’t pay to do experiences.

It’s a lot of time.
A lot of energy.
A lot of setup.

And in my experience, not always a lot of reward.

There’s physical labor, emotional labor, staffing, setup, breakdown, follow-up.

And you’re never guaranteed anything.

Because of how we are positioned as a small-batch company, I don’t carry inventory.

Everything is made to order.

So for a pop-up I would have to hire staff and manufacture inventory for something that may or may not result in transactions.

And at the end of the day, this is still a transactional industry.

People need to buy things for us to exist.

So the way we do our jewelry experiences is different.

We work with hospitality groups, museums, stores, and institutions where there is a shared financial model.

Everybody participates.
Everybody benefits.

And there isn’t such a massive physical, emotional, spiritual, and financial toll placed entirely on the small business.

We are intentionally lean.

That lean model is intentional for our wellbeing and also the wellbeing of the people we hire.

As a survivor and also just as a human being, I’m extremely aware of what comes in and what goes out.

Emotionally.
Physically.
Spiritually.
Financially.

That awareness is very intentional.

And honestly, I want experiences to leave people with a feeling.

A collective experience.
A community connection.
Something memorable.

And ideally repeat experiences.

That feels much more sustainable.

Small Business Conversations in Miami

As I’m sitting on the sofa talking to the buyer, another woman comes over with all of these beautiful things.

And I realize:
“Oh my God, I follow you on Instagram.”

She’s a Miami designer and she creates these incredible silks dyed with Miami flowers.

Completely sustainable.

Her mother started the business in the ‘80s and now she’s taken it over and reinvented the designs for a younger generation.

And they’re amazing.

She has like 100 ways to style a scarf.

It was just so cool.

And we started talking about what it’s like being a small business owner in Miami.

What it’s like building something here.

What it’s like inheriting a business and evolving it.

And I realized that lately so many younger designers have been asking me about wholesale.

Nobody Teaches Young Designers Wholesale

And I realized that I’ve done wholesale for over 20 years.

And currently there really seems to be a white space around educating younger fashion and jewelry designers about wholesale.

Because this has probably been the fifth or tenth young designer recently asking me about it.

So maybe I need to do a subscription Substack about wholesale.

Or interviews.
Or lives.
Or conversations.

Because when I had my first brand, I remember feeling like that duck calmly floating on the surface while underneath the legs are moving a million miles an hour.

I needed help.

I didn’t know where to go.

I didn’t know the jargon.

I didn’t come from the jewelry world.

I came from fine art.

I worked in art galleries for years.
I studied fine art photography.
I took a jewelry class in art school and honestly hated it because it took too long.

But I always loved jewelry.

And it wasn’t until I got older that I had the patience and the wherewithal to learn how to make it.

And I learned it very well.

But early in business, I sort of faked knowing what I knew.

And I dove deeply into working with other people to learn everything I possibly could. The lingo.

I worked for other designers.
Fashion.
Jewelry.
Showrooms.

I learned how to write orders.
I learned the jargon.
I learned systems.

And I did that for a very long time while building my own brand.

Because experience, to me, is the most important form of learning.

I can read about something until the cows come home, but unless I experience it, it doesn’t fully register in my brain.

And I think a lot of people are like that.

They just might not realize it.

So the experience I want to give to other people is helping them avoid mistakes.
Helping them ask better questions.
Helping them understand systems.
Helping them understand efficiency.

And honestly, a lot of business is simply making things easy for the other person.

I showed up to that buyer meeting knowing exactly what her store looked like, what the colors were, what the clientele was, what the price point was.

And that’s what I showed up with.

Not what I wanted to sell.

What made sense for her.

And that just takes experience.

She literally told me that she loved all of the collection that was too expensive, and I didn’t bring any of that because I already knew it wasn’t right for her store.

I knew what the store looked like.
I knew the colors.
I knew the clientele.
I knew the price point.

And that’s what I showed up with.

I was wearing the more expensive pieces, and she admired them, but I understood that those weren’t the pieces that belonged in her cases.

And I think that’s part of maturity in business.

Understanding the difference between what you emotionally want and what actually makes sense for the other person.

Because at the end of the day, a lot of business is simply empathy.

What does the other person need?
What makes their life easier?
What helps them do their job better?

And honestly, that took me a really long time to learn.

She kept admiring the more expensive jewelry I was wearing and saying:
“This is the big girl jewelry.”

And she loved it.

But I also understood that those weren’t the pieces that belonged in her store.

Make It Easy for People to Buy From You

And honestly this is one of the things that frustrates me the most. And I know we are not doing it well. That is part of my frustrations.

A major brand will run an Instagram ad with a beautiful piece of jewelry and I’ll click on it and it won’t even take me to the product.

And I’m like — how does that even happen?

I literally call my Instagram my porn because I follow jewelry, music, and art.

That’s basically my entire algorithm.

And I just think:
Make it easy for people.

I had another experience recently where I needed to order a custom jewelry stamp for my business.

It was only like a $250 order.

We had multiple conversations.
They called me twice.
I sent everything over.
I followed up.

And then nothing.

No response.

And all I could think was:
How many people are they doing this to?

Because yes, maybe it’s only a $250 order.

But how many of those small missed opportunities become thousands of dollars? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands over time?

Because somebody just didn’t follow through.

And we try really hard at Jewelry One of a KIND to make things as idiot-proof as possible.

And honestly, one of the things driving me insane right now is the hamburger menu on my Shopify site.

Those three little lines at the top.

For some reason it doesn’t work properly on iPhones.

I’ve literally tried rewriting code myself.
I’ve contacted everyone.
I’ve tried everything.

And I honestly think I may need to buy an entirely new Shopify template and rebuild the whole thing.

Because user experience matters.

It really matters.

And I know I’m losing opportunities because of something as simple as navigation.

And anyway, I’m not a perfect human being.

There are a million things still happening all at once.

And now it’s 4:04 AM.

I’ve been writing for a while.

I think I’m going to take a little nap now.

— Amanda

Visuals from the studio on Instagram →

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I was asked to lead one of 10 signature experiences for #10DaysofConnection — an annual event that takes place the first 10 days of May across Miami-Dade and Broward, a kind of progressive dinner party across organizations and spaces.

And the event was last night.

The anticipation of leading this experience, and then the actual event — dynamic, explosive, anxiety-ridden, powerful, exciting.
It wasn’t just one thing. It was all of it at once.

So I made cards with quotes that I’ve said — in interviews and in the Substack I’m writing — and one of the quotes was:

FOMO is expensive.

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What that means — what that feels like for me — is the emotional and physical tax on ourselves.

The things we say to ourselves as self-flagellation.

“Oh my gosh, I need to go.”
“Oh my gosh, I didn’t go.”
“Oh my gosh, I went but I didn’t do XYZ while I was there.”

I am experiencing expensive FOMO right now at 4:50 AM.

I’m running through that laundry list of all the things that can go better the next time around and all the things I need to write down and literally what I didn’t do at my own event last night.

I just unpacked some of the bags. I’ve been up since 4 am because that anxiety woke me up.

And how I work through that — those feelings — is I write and I talk to Harold, my higher power, and I rejigger my brain so that it is not so I don’t know it doesn’t isn’t so explosive and I’m more gentle on myself.

And so now I’m able to think about the evening.

And the evening itself was about connection.

And I was really surprised by who was able to come because Miami traffic is a real thing.

One of the women I was really looking forward to making it got caught in an accident — I think she had to witness it. I got one of her messages, and she had to turn around and go home.

It was that physical and mental moment of — “I can’t get there, it’s going to take too long.”

And she made the smart emotional choice to go home.

She chose herself.

And I just thought — literally:

FOMO is expensive.

The evening was an exercise around money and jewelry making.

We did three intentional writing prompts. The point was this:

Money isn’t just about the physical currency that we exchange for goods. It touches our emotional, spiritual and physical well-being more than we are aware of.

“I’m going to give you three short prompts. Just write — don’t overthink it.”

-What is one thing around money you’ve been avoiding?
-If you didn’t avoid it, what would the next simple step actually be?
Keep it small.
-What would it look like to stay with it just a little longer than you usually do?

We all shared.

The entire room was women.

People in their 20s, people in their late 60s, maybe early 70s, some with children, some without, some that may be you know they were literally 21 with their brains still developing.

And still — the same thing.

Money.
Inequality.
Emotional tax.

The room was accepting.
The room was vibrant.
It wasn’t accusatory.

It also wasn’t a room of “these are my problems.”

It was a room of — what do we do with this.

At the end of the evening a woman came up to me and said thank you and gosh I wish I wrote down wrote down exactly what she said.

But I got goosebumps.

From her comfort.
From her safety.
From the way she felt in the exercise.

And that is what I’m holding onto.

Rather than my anxiety and the thoughts of putting on an event for 45 people I think about 25 showed up and not being enough.

Because honestly — that was the theme of the evening.

We are enough.

It wasn’t about perfection.

It was about presence.

Another woman gave us a quote for the evening:

A joyful spending account.

Not holding onto everything. Not saving forever.

What if we joyfully spend?

And I realized I already do this.

Flowers.
$8.99 a month.
Spiritual category.

Because I know what lasts. I cut them, I change the water.

That’s my joyful spending.

But what would it look like to make that intentional and abundant.

Art.
Jewelry.
Travel.

Joy — on purpose.

Avoidance is expensive. Clarity is cheaper.

And the other theme was audacious goals.

That they can happen. We have to say them outloud or write them down for them to happen — to let the universe hear them, and then meet us there.

And the reason I was able to be the signature event, to be paid well, and to connect with incredible women - is because I have this audacious idea:

That conversations about financial abuse and money equity can exist inside a museum-quality jewelry brand.

And that sounds like — why are those even in the same sentence?

But the world is shifting.

And the places in which we normally — and I say that in quotations — thought we should be speaking about certain subjects…

We can speak about them anywhere.

And this is the part I keep thinking about.

What I didn’t fully say.

We strung beads onto a keychain.

It was really difficult.

I had beads with really big holes.
I had thin string.

People still struggled.

That is not a criticism of anybody.

Just truth.

Because when we purchase something handmade we don’t really think about where it’s manufactured.

We don’t really think about where it comes from.

And I want to change that.

Because what they made last night took time
took effort
took their own equity

Time is money.

I am a woman that makes jewelry.

I’m an artist.
I’m a maker.
I’m a creator.

It takes startirting.
It takes 20 years of practice.
It takes a GIA certification.
It takes education around pearls and colored stones and diamonds.

I teach women to make the jewelry.
I hire people.

Casters.
Polishers.
Mold makers.

They’re paid more than a living wage.

They’re paid well.

They deserve to be.

What felt simple wasn’t simple.

That’s the point.

And even if I didn’t say everything —

it was still enough.

If this made you think — share it with someone who needs it

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It’s an incredible, incredible opening main stage experience. They had a violinist, there were fireworks, there was a karaoke experience to dance—and everyone sat in

No one danced. So I did.

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I got up. I danced. I was sweating. I was enjoying myself. There were young people around me, there were older people around me, and people were embarrassed to express joy and community in the dark—which I just thought was very sad. It also speaks a lot about what’s going on in our society.

What I think about is, you know, you literally can’t save your ass and your face at the same time. And you also lose a lot of yourself by trying to conform to what you think others should see or feel or do.

I was in the way, way back of the room, so I couldn’t exactly see what was going on up front. I didn’t really look around and see that many phones recording either, so I don’t think people were in their phones. I engaged with people around me—like, come on, dance, get up, please, this is wonderful—and I was not afraid to express joy.

That’s the thing—I’m not afraid to be seen, even in the dark. And most people are.

So as I’m experiencing this in the dark—because it was huge, it’s at the Miami Convention Center, and it was definitely a production, it was incredible—out of the corner of my eye I see this man who looks very familiar. Literally like a split second, and I realize it’s someone I went to high school with.

So I screamed out his name. He keeps walking, but like, you know, you can tell he hears something. I scream out his name again, because I’m not embarrassed to yell in a crowd for someone I went to high school with a long time ago. He mouths and sees me, joy in his expression, and mouths, you know, “text me,” because obviously he’s running to meetings—we’re at a conference.

It was wonderful to run into someone from when you don’t expect to see them. That brought me joy. And also the experiences we had as high school students and college students—because we went to the same college for the first year. He stayed, I left.

The other thing that I was thinking about this morning was this: I’m at a tech conference. I’m a jewelry designer.

But also—I build a business through jewelry. So I go where business is happening

I have what I think of as a light tech background, but I’m a very inquisitive person, and I am extremely interested in what is going on in all realms—whether it’s art, whether it’s jewelry. I’m extremely interested in what’s going on in technology.

I’ve really been immersed in the AI field, the technology field, the entrepreneurial field for pretty much over 20 years. I follow it, I read it. I say yes when I’m invited to a tech conference. I say yes when I’m invited into a startup community in New York City in the 2010s. I say yes when I’m asked to mentor at the engineering school at Princeton for their ELA.

I remember being at a cocktail party—literally like 2011—wondering why they would want a jewelry designer. And they explained to me: you are a business owner, you are an entrepreneur. Not everyone is going to have a digital platform or a technology.

And now what I think is—there needs to be human in the loop with everything that is going on with AI.

Which brings me to this: a jewelry designer—someone we think of as very much involved in art and craft—going to a science, technology, fintech conference.

And this is what I’ll say: it was extremely extraordinary.

One of the experiences I had was at a booth in the way, way, way back. Very small booth, but they had a juice bar—and of course I thought that was brilliant because I wanted juice.

The best booth at a tech conference? A juice bar run by a bank.

So I’m drinking celery juice, drinking whatever they have—terrific cold press—and talking to the women at the booth. It has these orange, happy colors.

Turns out, it’s a bank. A financial institution. A bespoke bank.

We engage in conversation, which is exactly what’s supposed to happen at a conference. It turns out I’m talking to the person who does partnerships. They’re putting on an event. She says, what do you do? She’s looking at my jewelry, she’s loving it. I’m looking at her dress, I’m loving it. We’re doing that peacock thing women do—checking each other out, telling each other how much we love what we’re wearing.

It’s wonderful. It’s engaging. It’s heartwarming.

I tell her that I create experiences that generate revenue for corporations through jewelry.

(Saying it out loud like that—even I was like, yes, that’s exactly what I do.)

She asks, tell me more. She says, why don’t we schedule a meeting? And I say, we’re here—why don’t we talk now?

So we do.

She brings someone else over from the booth. I’ve had enough experience with human beings and trade shows—I’m pretty savvy with empathy, knowing what it’s like being on the show floor and wanting to engage as many people as possible. So when a man in a beautiful suit walks up, I compliment him and ask if he needs to jump in. I’m trying to be cognizant of their time.

But the point is: I’m walking a tech conference floor, building business in real time, through conversation.

I see so many people I know—my community, my neighbors, my cohort from ScaleUp at Miami Dade College, my high school friends who are now in VC and robotics.

Then I pass another booth. They have this mold—not mold like something growing in your refrigerator—but a polymer. Extremely interesting. I want to know what it is.

The woman starts talking to me. They do military helmets, metal castings—there’s a big military presence this year. Technology, military, AI—it’s all intersecting.

And it occurs to me: this substance might be something I can use for jewelry.

We start talking. She says yes, absolutely. “Send me your information.” And I do the same thing—I say, can we sit down now? We clear space, we make drawings, we have a real conversation.

The best conversations don’t get scheduled. They happen because you sit down.

She says, “Zak—he’s the one you should talk to. He dabbles in jewelry too.” He’s with a customer. I wait.

We keep talking. I ask how long they’re in Miami. A week. So I give her the full download—music, venues, food, where to walk, what to see.

Zak comes over—and I realize it’s a father-daughter business. Small business—but small meaning five to ten million.

They are creating this polymer that I can maybe use.

This is where it gets interesting for me.

I have a link that’s too heavy for most people. I love heavy jewelry, but a lot of people don’t. It’s hand-carved, hand-cast in sterling silver. Sterling was $20 something now it’s at $70 something! Gold has reached $5,000. It’s heavy, it’s expensive.

I’ve worked with mass manufacturers—they couldn’t meet my standards. Yesterday I wore one of the pieces and it broke. The links literally came apart.

Years ago—maybe 20—I had something electroformed, hollow. It also breaks at the smaller points, but I still have it, I still wear it. So I know there’s a path.

But minimum orders, thousands of units—that’s not something I can do.

So what can I do?

This polymer—it’s sustainable, lightweight, can be in all colors.

Which means:
— lighter pieces
— lower cost
— more accessibility
— without losing design

I’m excited.

We write things down, take photos, send emails. I give them my link because I’m physically there. We’ll see what happens. But I’m imagining—a convertible necklace, ear cuff, bracelet—I’ve been wanting to create this for years.

That was extremely exciting.

Right now the sun is rising here in Miami. Tim Tebow is speaking this morning at the conference. I really want to hear him. I know he does a lot of advocacy work, and he’s one of the main stage speakers. I’m interested in hearing him, maybe even speaking to him.

I think what stood out across all of this is how surprised people are when we actually connect—when we talk across industries, across aisles, across business models.

That’s the beauty of this economy.

That’s the beauty of the business model I’ve created.

I ask for help in places where I wouldn’t normally show up. I’m not preaching to the choir. I’m not at a conference filled with people like me.

I go where I don’t “belong.”

Because that’s where the ideas are.

I’m going outside the box—to see what I can do with my business, to get different ideas, different opinions, and learn what other people are doing in very scalable, highly competitive industries—

and how I bring that back into my own.

Where have you gone recently that made you think differently about your work?

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You plan for it. You put it on your calendar. You sign up. You commit to it in advance as if your future self is definitely going to be that person who wakes up energized and ready.

And then the day comes.

And you’re tired.

Not just physically tired, but mentally questioning everything—time, efficiency, return, energy. You start thinking like a founder instead of a participant. You’re not just asking “Do I feel like going?” You’re asking, “Is this actually the best use of my time right now?”

That was me this weekend.

Have you ever skipped something important?

Because that’s what this felt like.

I had planned to go to the Emerge hackathon. And not casually—I had a real reason to be there. I have an idea that I’ve been building for the past one to two years. It’s thought through. It’s not hypothetical. And the goal was to show up, get matched with people, maybe find coders, maybe find a team, and actually build something in real time.

There was real potential in that room.

And then Saturday came.
6 AM came.

And I had to make a decision that felt much bigger than just whether or not to attend an event.

Was I going to spend the day in a room of maybes—maybe who I got paired with, maybe how the energy felt, maybe whether the right people showed up—or was I going to use that same block of time to work on something that wasn’t a maybe?

“I’m realizing I default to building systems over betting on rooms.”

Because the reality is, it wasn’t just “going to an event.”

It was getting up, getting ready, commuting, being there for hours, committing energy, committing focus. It was a real investment in time and energy.

And I didn’t feel clear that the return was guaranteed.

I kept coming back to one thought: I want to walk away with something tangible—not just explore ideas.

So I didn’t go.

And it wasn’t a clean decision. It wasn’t 100%. It was probably 60% I shouldn’t go and 40% I should.

And now it’s 100% FOMO.

Be honest—would you have gone?

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Part of what influenced my decision was something small, but telling. I had reached out beforehand with a question and didn’t hear back. And it wasn’t about expecting anything—it just made me pause.

Because as a founder, I pay attention to systems.

If communication already feels a little unclear or overloaded before something even starts, I start thinking about what that experience is actually going to feel like once I’m in it.

And it also made me think about something bigger—this is literally one of the problems I’m interested in solving. The way communication breaks down. The way outreach becomes overwhelming. The way things get lost even when intentions are good.

That matters to me, because what I’m building isn’t just one thing.

I create jewelry. I create community. And I’m building a business that talks about financial abuse, money, and power—through both.

And I also know something very clearly right now: I need help.

A co-founder, a technical partner, an agency—something beyond just me.

I’ve been in this position before, trying to do everything myself, and I know exactly how that ends.

“If I’m building a business about financial independence, then how I spend my time is part of that design.”

So underneath all of this, the real question is: did I skip the room where that help might have been?

That’s where the FOMO is coming from.

Because maybe that was the place where the right conversation could have happened.

Or maybe it wasn’t.

And I chose not to find out.

So what did I do instead?

Instead, I spent about five hours doing something I’ve been putting off for years.

“I chose spreadsheets over serendipity, which might be brilliant or might be a personality flaw.”

I rebuilt 20+ years of contacts into one system in about five hours.

Wholesale, retail, experiences—everything.

Thousands of contacts that I’ve been collecting since 2000, spread across probably 20 different lists, all disorganized, duplicated, outdated, overwhelming.

And I made a decision to reset it.

I deleted what didn’t matter. I consolidated what did. I built one master system that actually makes sense and is usable.

And if I’m being honest, that might matter more for the business right now than any single event I could have attended.

And then the rest of the weekend… I did nothing.

Which, for me, doesn’t actually mean nothing.

It means I fed myself properly. I cleaned my space. I organized a few small things for what’s coming up. I finished my book. I napped. I watched Netflix.

But even in that, the noise was there.

All the things I SHOULD be doing. All the places I could be.

You can choose what seems like the right use of your time and still question it.

“You can make the right decision and still feel like you missed something.”

And I think that’s the part that’s hardest to sit with.

I can make a decision that is logical, even productive, and still feel like I am missing out on something important.

I think that’s part of building anything real.

I am constantly choosing between things that look like opportunity and things that actually move the work forward.

This weekend, I chose to stay back and build something that would actually produce a result.

I think what I’m learning—little by slowly—is that building something real isn’t about making perfect decisions. It’s about making decisions I can stand behind.

Because I can see it now:

I default to building systems over betting on rooms.
I default to creating structure over chasing opportunity.

And that’s probably not always right.

But it is consistent.

And consistency is what builds something.

If you’ve been in this position—choosing between showing up and staying back— I’d genuinely love to hear how you think about it.

Leave a comment

Because I have a feeling this is one of those decisions that never really gets easier…
we just get better at living with it.

Amanda —

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A day of movement—doctor visits, the jewelry district, unexpected conversations, and the quiet building of something bigger.

The story continues—but first, we need to talk about yesterday.

The Setup: Why Yesterday Mattered

I packed a bag the night before because I got a notification: ultrasound, first thing in the morning. What that really meant was proximity—to the jewelry district.

And that changes everything.

If I’m near the district, I’m not just going to the hospital. I’m moving product. I’m solving problems. I’m stepping back into the world of Jewelry One of a KIND.

So into the bag went scrap silver and gold—ready for my scrap guy. Cash flow. Movement. Circulation.

Also in the mix: the Culebra link bracelet. One of my signature pieces. Hand-carved, hand-cast—2002, maybe 2003. It just sold (to one of my all-time favorite clients, Alicia—shout out). She has been collecting my work since 2001/2002. Truly OG status.

And the clasp? Needs to be redone.

Because here’s the truth: I’m a sculptor. I work in wax. I create form. I am not an engineer. I don’t build mechanisms—I imagine them. So now I need someone who can make it function without disrupting the integrity of the piece.

That’s the mission.

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Bus Talks: Psychology 101

The morning starts simply enough. Alarm. Clothes. Bus.

I sit down, and a young man sits next to me. And because I am who I am, we start talking.

At some point I literally lift my hand like a microphone and say, “Welcome to Bus Talks: Psychology 101.”

He asks me—very sincerely—about dating. Young women vs. older women. What’s the difference?

His friends are dating their own age and discovering… everyone’s immature. Groundbreaking.

So I tell him the truth: older women have experience. And with that experience comes self-esteem. Clarity. Less tolerance for nonsense.

We ride the #20 together, talking the whole way. We exchange numbers, hug goodbye. He tells me he wants to be a musician—but he’s also thinking about a trade.

Smart.

Because AI isn’t fixing your toilet. It’s not making a perfect custom clasp. It’s not doing fine jewelry with soul.

Electrician—that’s what he’s leaning toward.

Even smarter.

Inside the Body / Inside the Image

At the hospital, I have the ultrasound

.

And I’m reminded—again—how visually surreal the human body is. Black and white. Cloud-like. Abstract.

I studied photography. I see things like that.

I’m wearing my Kim Keever scarf—his work literally looks like atmospheric clouds suspended in liquid. As I’m watching my own body on the screen, I’m thinking about his art.

That overlap—science, body, image, art—it stays with me.

Back in the Jewelry District

Then: the jewelry district.

Seybold Building. And suddenly—I’m 30-something again in New York.

Same energy. Same hunt. Same feeling of this is where I belong.

I start asking around about the clasp. I meet Emerson—he points me to Mario. Mario turns out not to be Mario. Mario is the father in-law. Luis is the son-in-law. Luciana is the wife.

A full old-school jewelry family operation.

We talk through the mechanism. It’s simpler than I thought—but requires precision I don’t have.

They can do it.

“Two weeks,” they say.

Which in Miami means… four.

Still—I’ll take it.

Coffee, Style, and Unexpected Connection

Somewhere in all of this, I realize: I haven’t had coffee.

This is a problem.

I’ve already done a full day—bus, deep conversation, hospital, jewelry district—and it’s barely 10 a.m.

So I start hunting.

Instead, I find a moment.

So I start hunting.

Instead, I find a moment.

A woman at a café locks eyes with me and gives that subtle “I see you” gesture. I go over—obviously. She’s sitting with her father, and they are both impeccably dressed. She has a fabulous bag, incredible jewelry. Her father—scarf at the neck, perfectly worn beard—effortless, elegant, unmistakably French. They’re architects, designers, just… living in that aesthetic without trying.

And then the friend arrives.

Full presence. Full look.

Neoprene meets haute couture with a rock-and-roll edge. Sculptural, directional, completely self-possessed. The kind of style that doesn’t ask for attention—it just takes it.

Suddenly the whole table shifts. It becomes a scene.

One of those New York moments—except we’re in Miami. French, Latino, fashion, architecture, energy—everything layered in the most natural way.

We talk. We connect. We exchange information. I invite them to my May 4 Jewelry & Money experience. ( You should come too if you are in Miami )

One of those completely unplanned, deeply human exchanges.

Discipline in the Details

Back to the mission.

Food becomes urgent. Supplies too—I need findings for a jewelry-making exercise for the event.

I stop at Bali—my go-to restaurant in the jewelry district. Big bowl, noodles, broth, vegetables. No coffee. Still, it fills my soul and warms me up.

After hours on the bus and in the AC at the hospital, I need to warm up from the inside out.

Miami is colder than some winter destinations.

Then I hit the supply store.

It’s massive—floor to ceiling. Beads, stones, silk, findings. Total heaven. All colors, all shapes, all sizes.

And I have to literally coach myself: stay focused.

Blinders on.

Findings. That’s it.

Of course, within seconds, I’m elbows-deep in a bin, digging through inventory like it’s mine—until I hear:

“Hey—what are you doing? Don’t touch that.”

I look up. Busted.

Maria.

She’s not wrong. Those are the back bins, not for customers. If I want something, it’s neatly packaged, priced, and hanging right in front of me like a civilized human would use.

I laugh immediately. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”

She laughs too—thankfully. Not mean, just… very clear.

And then, like always, we start talking.

She and her sister bought the business a few years ago. We get into it—how hard the jewelry industry is right now. Even in Miami, even in the Seybold building, which technically makes this the third-largest jewelry market after New York and LA.

And still—everything is shrinking.

Fewer suppliers. Fewer makers. Fewer people who actually know how to do the work.

So I reset. I get what I actually came for.

And I leave the stones behind.

Even though they are incredible.

Even though I could easily disappear into that world and spend money I didn’t come to spend.

No.

This is about discipline.

And today, discipline wins

Not Going Home

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, I remember Luma.

I had been scrolling earlier—it’s such a great app for seeing what’s actually happening in a city. Fashion, tech, food, everything. Way better than Eventbrite, better than Partiful. It just feels… alive.

I see an event: fashion, tech, and mindfulness.

I sign up.

Later, it hits me—I check the time.

It’s tonight.

Of course it is.

And I look at myself: jeans, loafers, bandana, glasses. I look good—but not “fashion networking event in Miami” good.

It’s around 2:30. I’m exhausted. I’ve already lived a full day.

And I know one thing—if I go back to the beach, I’m not coming out again. It’s over.

So I make a call, stay in Miami.I look up CitizenM, realize I’m close enough to walk, and head over. Lobby, computer, a place to land for a minute.

I sit down, get focused, and just start working.

By 5 p.m., I have been engrossed in work and realize it is time to go!

Showing Up Anyway

I realize I have to head back over to the networking event.

And then I catch a glimpse of myself.

I look like a wet dog.

It’s been a full day—bus, hospital, jewelry district, running around—and whatever version of me left the house this morning is… no longer here.

And this is the moment every woman knows. Every city, every suburb.

You’re out. You can’t go home. But you have somewhere to be.

And you have to pull it together.

Operation: find a Sephora.

Thank God they exist everywhere.

There’s one around the corner, of course. There’s always one when you need it.

I walk in with purpose.

Handkerchief—sprayed with perfume, back on the head.
Face—reassembled.
A little makeup, a little glow, some kind of dewy, slightly sparkly situation that says I’m alive, I’m fine, I belong here.

It’s not perfection.

It’s event-ready enough.

And every woman knows exactly what that means.I walk over.

I arrive.

I’m the first one there.

Because—Miami.

The host is not who I expected.

She’s better.

Istituto Marangoni— Built and exited an AI fashion tech company before it was even a thing. Now she teaches. Now she’s working in mindfulness after seven intense years of building.

We start talking.

And then, slowly, the room begins to fill.

A Rare Room

And something rare happens: a networking event that isn’t transactional.

People listen. Share. Ask for help honestly.

It’s small. Intentional. Human.

Exactly what I needed.

I connect with incredible women. I even get a ride home with Lisa, who has a shoe line womads.co.

The Realization

And somewhere on that ride home, it lands:

This wasn’t just a productive day.

It was a full day.

Movement. Creation. Conversation. Problem-solving. Beauty. Random connection. Old worlds colliding with new ones.

This is what building a jewelry business looks like.

This is what creating community in Miami feels like.

And more than anything—it’s the feeling that I am supported.

By something bigger than me.Jewelry One of a KIND Journal is where I write about collectible jewelry, craftsmanship, collecting, Miami, hospitality, beautiful objects, emotional permanence, and whatever strange design spiral I happen to disappear into next.

If you made it all the way to the end, thank you. Maybe you know someone else who would too. Send it to your people.

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The day before #PowerofthePurse , I was at Lotus House Thrift.

Not shopping for anything in particular — just taking a breather after two straight days of doctor’s appointments. The Lotus House Thrift store is my happy place, and it happens to be a few blocks from the hospital campus.

Those appointments are the routine maintenance that comes with chronic illness — the kind that settles into my body after years of surviving abusive relationships.

That’s not a small thing to say. I’m saying it anyway.

And there it was.

A sunflower-yellow dress. The exact yellow of the Women’s Fund Miami brand colors. $10. Stunning. Not my size — made for someone taller — but I took a picture and texted it to Marya Meyer, CEO of the Women’s Fund Miami.

Hey there — I’m bummed I’m not going to make it to #PowerofthePurse. I can’t afford a ticket right now.

But I just saw this dress at Lotus House Thrift and immediately thought of you and all your fabulous yellow. It’s $10, extra large. If anyone needs a last-minute dress I can leave it at the desk for you to grab.

A group text back almost immediately, connecting me with three women at the organization.

Make sure Amanda is our guest.

That’s women showing up for women. It’s also how I ended up at one of my favorite events in Miami the next morning — ironing my dress and doing my makeup during a Zoom therapy session I almost canceled, because honestly, sometimes you just need to talk before you walk into the room.

There’s a reason the Women’s Fund color is yellow. Suffragists wore it in the late 1800s — yellow roses, sunflowers — to symbolize the fight for women’s right to vote. Optimism. Energy. A golden stubbornness about the future women are building. That color has never stopped meaning that.

I got on the bus. It started to rain. I had no umbrella. My neighbor was getting off at the same stop. She handed me hers without me asking.

When I walked in, it looked like a field of sunflowers had grown inside the building. Huge bouquets everywhere. The Women’s Fund yellow, impossible to ignore. Even the bathroom counters were lined with sunflowers — the whole room briefly felt like a greenhouse.

The lunch tables were different. Instead, each table held a pedestal chocolate cake, glossy and perfect, with a gold W resting on top. Elegant. Intentional. A reminder of why we were all there.

At my assigned table, I quickly realized I was facing the wrong direction. I’m disabled — I don’t look it — but sitting twisted for two hours wasn’t going to work.

There were empty seats at a better angle at my table. I went to sit down.

A man, at this women’s event, told me his colleague was coming.

So I went back to my original seat. Uncomfortable. Resentful. In pain. Holding space for someone who wasn’t even there.

For a minute I stayed there.

Then I thought: no.

I picked up my plate and went back.

I said, your colleague can sit in one of the other open seats. I’m going to sit here.

He said okay. Didn’t even look up.

It was all in my head. It almost always is.

That’s what years of being told to make yourself smaller does — it doesn’t stay in the past. It shows up at a lunch table at a women’s fundraiser when you’re in pain and just trying to see the stage.

That person showed up an hour late and left before the keynote ended.

I would have been miserable for nothing.

I’d thrifted a bag at Lotus House before the event — $5, looked like a baroque pearl, matched half my collection. Very much a jewelry purse. I had to have it.

At my new seat, I started talking to the woman next to me. Sandy Skelaney — COO and Head of Partnerships at The Parasol Cooperative.

Then I noticed her necklace. Half watch chain, half sculpture — heavy gold links holding a carved green alligator pendant. Incredible piece. That necklace started a conversation I’m still thinking about.

The Parasol Cooperative builds #Tech2Protect — tools grounded in the lived experience of violence survivors and advocates, combined with the expertise of technologists. Radically empathetic and technically robust at the same time. Their flagship tool is Ruth — the world’s first trauma-informed AI chat built by and for survivors of violence. No login. No download. No personal details required — because when someone is in crisis, the last thing they need is a barrier.

Sandy talked about digital violence, trafficking, and what technology is doing to expand the reach of abuse — and what technology, built with intention, can do to fight back. I wished I had taken notes. I’m still turning it over.

She also told me how Kristi House got its name — during a hurricane, a nine-year-old girl was found, pregnant, a result of incest. There was no system in place to help her. Now there is. Her name was Kristi.

I almost couldn’t breathe.

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Miami is ground zero. And we need to talk about that.

As Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle spoke, the room stayed very quiet.

This is the Magic City. It draws brilliant, fabulous, creative, powerful people from everywhere in the world — Art Basel, the Super Bowl, Formula One, Ultra. The energy here is real, and it is extraordinary.

And predators know that. They plan around it.

Miami-Dade County ranks first in sex trafficking in Florida — a state that ranks third in the nation. About 40% of victims are children, and most of the rest are young adults between 18 and 23. Every major event that brings an influx of money and visitors also brings an influx of people looking to exploit the most vulnerable people in our community.

She put it plainly: the bad guys come when the good guys come.

More than a decade ago, her office created the Miami-Dade Human Trafficking Task Force, building coalitions across law enforcement, nonprofits, and survivor advocates — from the FBI and U.S. Marshals to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Most recently, more than $1 million in new funding was secured for Miami-Dade’s Human Trafficking Center, expanding enforcement and support around the very events that make this city so magnetic.

The Women’s Fund Miami runs public awareness campaigns across billboards, bus shelters, Metrorail stations, and digital platforms — on sex trafficking, equal pay, extreme heat, and gun violence — because these issues live on the same spectrum.

Their Freedom From Violence pillar brings together law enforcement, nonprofits, and community organizations so no one is working in isolation. The equity tracker they’ve built for Miami tells us what many of us already feel: the numbers for women are low. And you cannot move numbers you aren’t watching.

This is what was being said on that stage.

Around me, people had stopped eating.

And it matters that it was being said in a room full of people who showed up — not just to listen, but to act.

Here’s what doesn’t get said enough — and what needs policy, not just awareness.

Violence doesn’t just leave bruises. It leaves financial damage.

There’s a story we tell about financial abuse that goes like this: the abuser controls all the money, the victim has no access, and that’s the trap.

That’s true. And it’s also incomplete.

As an adult, I was not financially dependent on my abusers. But money was still used as a weapon — in the form of having more of it than me. Earning more. Holding more. That disparity is its own kind of control. You don’t have to take someone’s wallet to make them feel small. You just have to remind them, quietly and constantly, that you could.

I take full responsibility for my own financial journey — the mistakes, the immaturity, the learning curve. That’s a whole other article. But that’s not what this is about.

This is about what exists beyond the personal — the systemic, the structural. The part that doesn’t get fixed by one woman getting her act together, because it was never about one woman.

I can see it from two places at once: lived experience and learned perspective. I am not a victim in the sense of poor me — pun very much intended. I am a survivor who has watched this system long enough, and closely enough, to understand how it works and who it is working against.

And it is working against us by design.

We live in a society that underpays women structurally. That has no real safety net for women experiencing abuse. That has almost nothing for women who are chronically ill because of that abuse.

Women who are underemployed not because they lack skill or drive — but because physical abuse did things to their bodies that made consistent, traditional employment harder to sustain.

Chronic illness doesn’t announce itself. It accumulates. And at some point it catches up.

That is systemic financial abuse. It doesn’t require a single abusive partner holding your wallet. It is built into wage gaps, healthcare gaps, housing costs, the absence of paid leave, the scarcity of trauma-informed employment support, and a legal system that still treats financial harm in abusive relationships as secondary to physical harm — if it treats it at all.

The body keeps the score. But so does the bank account.

Sex trafficking is the furthest, most brutal end of this same spectrum. It is not separate from economic vulnerability — it is economic vulnerability, exploited. The on-ramp is almost always the same: a woman or girl who has been made financially, physically, or emotionally precarious enough that someone can offer her something that looks like a way out.

This doesn’t get fixed with awareness campaigns alone. It gets fixed with policy. With wages that reflect the actual cost of living. With healthcare that treats chronic illness from abuse as the workplace injury it functionally is. With legal frameworks that name financial abuse as abuse — not a footnote. With employers who understand that a woman who has survived violence may not fit neatly into a 40-hour, no-gaps-in-resume box — and that this is not a character flaw. It is a consequence of systemic failure.

One person can change things. But one person cannot fix a policy. That takes all of us, in rooms together, saying the thing out loud.

I’ve spent years watching how violence, economics, and policy collide in women’s lives. This is also why I do what I do.

Jewelry One of a KIND is not a charity. It’s a survivor-led jewelry house built on one belief: healing work should be paid work. It’s a for-profit, survivor-led jewelry house — because economic independence isn’t a bonus outcome for women who’ve survived abuse.

That’s the point. Every clasp is a paycheck.

Every piece sold is one more degree of separation between a woman and the conditions that tried to keep her broke, small, and still.

When the program ended, guests were invited to take the flowers. I grabbed a huge bouquet of sunflowers from the bathroom. Bright yellow. The same yellow as the dress I’d seen at Lotus House the day before.

I got home and started putting them in vases. One on the kitchen. One on my entry hall desk. One on my coffee table. By morning my apartment was full of yellow.

Collective impact doesn’t always start in a boardroom. Sometimes it starts with a text about a yellow dress.

The relationship I have with the Women’s Fund Miami — and with so many of the organizations and people not even mentioned in this article — didn’t begin with a formal partnership or a signed agreement.

It began the way most real things begin: one person talking to another. A text. A seat at a table. A necklace worth asking about. A ride home in the rain.

That’s how a ripple starts. And when hundreds of us are doing that — simultaneously, in our own rooms, on our own buses, at our own tables — it stops being a ripple and starts being a wave.

We are not waiting for one hero. We are the infrastructure.

I never bought the yellow dress. But somehow the yellow followed me home anyway. And today my house is full of it.

#OneTeam

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Resources & Organizations mentioned in this piece:

The Parasol Cooperative | Women’s Fund Miami | Kristi House | Miami State Attorney’s Office Victim Assistance Programs | Women’s Fund Data + Research

📞 To report suspected human trafficking in Miami-Dade: 305-FIX-STOP (305-349-7867)

That’s the average financial cost of intimate partner violence in the United States.

Not emotional cost.

Financial cost.

Medical bills. Lost wages. Legal fees. Housing instability. Credit destruction.

And yes — I know that number is probably low.

If you start adding compound interest on lost savings, missed promotions, lost housing stability, and long-term medical care — not to mention what many survivors experience, myself included: decades of disruption from childhood into adulthood, multiple partners, jobs, and starting over again and again — the real number becomes much larger.

Which is why $100,000 per incident — or per partner — actually feels conservative.

But for now, this is the number we have.

$104,000.

Sometimes one number is enough to start the conversation.

Why I Said Yes to a Grief Podcast

This week my episode on the Grief and Light podcast with Nina Rodriguez went live.

Listen to the episode

Watch the conversation

Subscribe

When Nina invited me on, I said yes immediately.

Because what I do with Jewelry One of a KIND is, in many ways, a grief conversation.

Every piece I make is named after a real woman.

Some survived. Some did not.

Every name on my website belongs to a human being.

Jewelry has been how I process grief my entire life.

Culebra Claw bracelet

One of the pieces I talked about in the episode — the Culebra Claw bracelet — came from a moment that changed my life.

After five members of my family died in a plane crash in Puerto Rico, I was at a memorial gathering on the island of Culebra.

At some point I found myself pulling langoustine shells out of a garbage can.

My family thought I had lost my mind.

But in my mind I could already see the bracelet.

Years later I carved the piece in wax and cast it in metal.

That’s the model.

Not metaphor.

You take what shattered you. You work with it by hand. You make something worth keeping.

What FreeFrom Taught Me

Organizations like FreeFrom do an extraordinary job reframing this conversation around economic justice and entrepreneurship.

When I created Jewelry One of a KIND, I honestly had no idea there were other people working on the economic side of this issue.

It was only later — when I started doing research.

What most people call competitive analysis, I think of as understanding what my community is building.

Because we are not competing with each other.

We are building together.

Research from FreeFrom and the Women's Fund Miami-Dade Gender Equity Dashboard makes something very clear:

The biggest barrier to safety for many survivors isn’t courage.

It’s money.

And that insight is exactly why Jewelry One of a KIND exists as a for-profit jewelry house — not a charity.

The artisans who work with me earn $27–$30 an hour.

Real money.

In their pocket.

Because safety often begins with a paycheck.

Read FreeFrom's Insights

The Question Survivors Hate Most

There’s a question survivors hear all the time:

“Why didn’t you just leave?”

Here’s the easiest way to think about it.

Why don’t you just leave your job?

Your job is tied to your income. Your housing. Your healthcare. Your routine.

Leaving means destabilizing everything at once.

Now imagine that the place harming you is also the place your survival depends on.

That’s the architecture of financial abuse.

It’s not a footnote.

It’s the system that keeps people trapped.

Jewelry has always carried memory.

This time the memory is survival.

Design worth keeping. Integrity worth collecting.

— Amanda

What You Can Do Today

If this conversation resonates with you, here are a few ways to engage.

Listen to the Full Episode

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If you made it all the way to the end, thank you. Maybe you know someone else who would too. Send it to your people.

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And if you’d like to continue the conversation — through jewelry, a future jewelry experience, a custom piece, or simply being in the room next time — I’d love that.

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One about women who killed their abusers and are still fighting for mercy under Oklahoma’s Survivors’ Act

One about the more than 113,000 reports of child sex trafficking filed last year— and the reminder that “the real number is absolutely higher.”

And one about an actress who wears a silver ring on a chain because the woman who gave it to her told her it was magic — and that no one else can touch it.

Justice. Tenderness. Memory. — All in the same week.

And in weeks like this, I find myself thinking about something small:

What we choose to wear when the world feels unstable.

If this resonates, subscribe for essays on craft, lineage, and building things people don’t throw away.

Years ago, at the end of a memorial dinner, I was pulling langoustine shells out of the garbage can. My family looked at me like I’d lost it. But I knew I was going to make something from them. I couldn’t let them go.

The dinner followed a plane crash that took five people in my family — my uncle, my cousin, her husband, her five-year-old from her first marriage, and her mother-in-law.

Grief didn’t need explanation. It needed weight. I wanted something I could actually touch.

I could see it clearly in my mind: a claw-shaped link. Strong. Slightly dangerous. Rock-and-roll. A bracelet that wouldn’t break its line with a visible clasp. I didn’t want interruption. I wanted continuity.

So I went to the 92nd Street Y.

I studied wax carving under Tova — a master carver who had carved for Barry Kieselstein-Cord. It was life-changing. Career-changing. I’m not a great drawer, but I can see forms in my mind. Once I learned how to carve them, there was no going back.

The Culebra Claw bracelet became an immediate heirloom.

Not because of price.

Because of what it carried.

I’m a survivor. Abuse lives in the body long after headlines move on. I think that’s part of why I feel the news differently — and why I’m so connected to what I wear and what I make. Objects can steady you when nothing else does.

Jewelry, for me, has never been only about adornment.

It’s memory.
It’s both my grandmothers.
It’s holding space for the women and men who came before me — and the ones who handed me something that now lives in my history.

There’s a ring my great-grandfather bought in Castelvetrano, Sicily for my great-grandmother. She gave it to my grandmother. My grandmother gave it to my mother. My mother gave it to me.

It still lives in the same small box and only comes out on special occasions.

In the fine jewelry world, it wouldn’t be considered extraordinarily valuable.

To me, it’s priceless.

It carries four generations of hands. Some days that feels heavier than gold.

Jewelry carries lineage — even when we don’t say it out loud.

It also carries the fingerprints of the people who trained my eye. You can see it in the way I build a piece.

The Seaman Schepps chain bracelet I studied for years — the weight of it, the confidence of it — lives inside the Culebra Claw bracelet I eventually carved.

Lineage isn’t just who I’m related to.

It’s craft passed hand to hand.
Who taught me.
What formed my taste.
The designers and artists whose work echoes in mine.

Heirlooms aren’t about rarity. They’re about connection, honor, and what we choose to carry forward.

When I read about the actress and her “magic” ring, what struck me wasn’t superstition. It was the relationship. The bond with the woman who gave it to her. The trust in passing it on. The quiet understanding that this object holds love, memory, and responsibility.

That’s what gives a piece weight. We don’t keep jewelry because it’s expensive. We keep it because it carries something we’re not willing to lose. There’s also something structural here.

We are living in an era built on replacement. Fast fashion. Algorithmic trends. Objects designed to be replaced.

But heirlooms operate differently.

They don’t compete on price.
They compete on meaning.

They are slower.
Heavier.
More deliberate.

And in business terms, meaning builds durability.

In 2025, when I tested direct-to-consumer sales, wholesale outreach, and workshops, I saw something clearly:

When someone participates in the making — when they sit at a table, shape metal, close a clasp — they value the piece differently.

Participation creates memory.
Memory creates attachment.
Attachment creates longevity.

That’s not sentiment. That’s structure.

I create heirlooms.

Not the kind you lock in a safe.

The kind you live in.

Every piece begins somewhere personal — in memory, in story, in something that needed to be shaped into form. But once it leaves my hands, it becomes something else entirely.

From the maker, it carries intention and craft.

From the wearer, it absorbs life. It witnesses weddings, funerals, promotions, breakups, births, reinventions. It becomes a talisman.

And I don’t get to decide what memory it will hold next.

That’s the privilege of adornment.

That’s the responsibility of making it well.

I don’t want to make things people replace. I want to make things people carry.

That’s what I’m building toward — in metal, in memory, and in experience.

Structure first. Then meaning. Then legacy.

If you’re building something physical — or designing experiences around product — I’m curious how you think about longevity.

Structure Before Scale is a monthly newsletter about building creative, ethical businesses that last — through systems, experimentation, and the kind of work people don’t throw away.

Amanda —

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I didn’t just make jewelry last year.
I made structure.

I’m sitting here in my little corner writing chair — heating pad on my shoulders, COL (cat on lap), coffee, water, journal, and Franklin’s brush (because of course that comes first — my beast) next to me — thinking about 2025. I took the “time off” between Christmas and New Year’s because Harold, who I call my higher power, not so gently made me acutely aware of how fried I was. If I didn’t rest, a trip to the hospital might be in my future.

My body was literally vibrating from stress and burnout.
Anxious. Grateful. Exhausted. Relieved.

This isn’t a burnout story, though.
It’s a build story.

The Foundation Year

2025 was the year I built the bones of Jewelry One of a KIND. It was unglamorous, sweaty, exhilarating, and worth every late-night spreadsheet, bus ride to class, Zoom call, and even the day I received the giant ceremonial check congratulating me on a grant from MDEAT. You know the kind — like the lottery winner checks

Miami being a car culture, no one thought I might be taking public transportation. So that check came with me everywhere that day. It even walked a trade show floor with me.

I had the unbelievable gift of support from Miami-Dade County, Commissioner Eileen Higgins (now Mayor), and The Idea Center at Miami Dade College. They opened doors — literal and metaphorical.

I took every class they offered: AI marketing, business Scale-Up, strategic growth. I said YES to help, which might be the hardest thing for a second-act entrepreneur to learn.

At a small business meet-up at MDC, I literally ran into Eileen Higgins. She told me to apply for The Idea Center’s ScaleUp Program.

I did.
They said no.
“Your business is too small.”

And here’s where survivor training — and my “New Jersey” — kicks in.
No can mean “not yet.”

So I asked questions. I shared what I’d already built and my experience: partnerships with Lotus House, LEAP, and the Miami-Dade Public Library System; twenty years of jewelry experience scaling my first brand into 45 stores; a clear mission rooted in fair pay and ethical craft.

They listened.
And I got in.

That program gave me the clarity I needed:

• We pay survivors $27–30/hour to make some of our collections, including pieces named in remembrance of femicide victims and resilience-focused collections honoring IPV survivors.

• We earn through four pillars — e-commerce retail, wholesale, workshops (experience gifting), and partnerships.

• We create empowering experiences, financial pathways, and long-term foundations for the communities and survivors we plan to hire.

It also gave me systems, language, and focus. There weren’t many photos for the gram — but the growth, foundation, and community-building were priceless.

AI, Interns, and Infrastructure

This was the year I became the kind of person who says, “I built that with the help of AI tools.”

AI changed my workflow — what used to take months now takes hours.

We built new systems for tracking inventory and SKUs, introduced human-in-the-loop AI efficiency for contact management, and built an entire Shopify site (still tweaking, always tweaking — Shopify and I are in counseling).

I also hired several paid interns through two separate programs, including an incredible high school intern through Miami-Dade’s paid internship program. He thought he’d be making jewelry. During the interview, I explained I needed a box of analog contacts — digital files from the early 2000s to the present — emails, Excel sheets, and other forms of mass-contact chaos organized.

And he delivered.

He organized two decades of contacts — from MoMA buyers, to loyal clients who’d been asking for years when I’d make jewelry again, to boutique owners in Japan — into one beautiful spreadsheet.

If you’re one of those people reading this now:
hi there.
Welcome back.
I’m back too.

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The Workshop That Almost Wasn’t

Getting to my first workshop of the year was its own kind of test run.

The bag was bigger than me — a full suitcase packed with pliers, brass wire, and enough tools to set off airport security. Bus to metro line to confusion. Every other person kept saying, “Honey, the airport’s the other way.”

They weren’t wrong. I probably looked like a tourist attraction.

I gave myself two hours to get to a location that should have taken 45 minutes. I kept getting lost.

By the time I finally rolled into the museum, I was done with the cute idea of how easy public transportation in Miami is. I had surrendered. My suitcase had opinions. Thankfully, I was greeted by a sign — and a very cheerful, chatty young museum attendant who graciously took over suitcase duty.

I was immediately energized by teaching, by seeing creativity spark, and by hearing the women’s stories.

We laughed.
We made jewelry together.

Resilience doesn’t always look glamorous.
Sometimes it looks like sweat and a suitcase the size of a toddler.

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Workshops, Feedback, and Finding Joy

The workshops this year — from the Coral Gables Museum to community libraries — reminded me why I love this work.

One January event had attendees from age 20 to 85. One man came with his mother; another brought his grandmother. Everyone left with something beautiful — jewelry, but also joy.

One organizer, Manny, gave me honest feedback:

“Mark your tools by color.”
“Keep an eye on the clock.”

He wasn’t wrong.

That’s what I love about this work — it keeps me teachable.

And I learned something else this year:
I love teaching.

Watching someone realize they can make something from nothing — and giving them the confidence to keep going — never gets old.

Learning to Ask for Help

2025 taught me how to delegate — and how to protect my creativity.

Right now, I live in my studio, my office, and my home all in one small Miami apartment — my little jewel box. I love it, but it’s time to expand. I’m manifesting a proper studio this year — a place where I can carve wax, cast metal, and breathe without having to put everything away and keep it neat and tidy 24/7. Because it’s not.

I’ve also learned that feeding my creative soul means daily rituals: yoga, Pilates, brushing Franklin on the balcony, and journaling with The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad.

It’s not a book you read; it’s a book you experience.

Every morning I write through her prompts. Some I love. Some I argue with. All of them remind me that creativity and healing are muscles — you have to work them.

I read over 40 books in 2025, mostly nonfiction and historical fiction. I know now that my love of reading is what started me on this writing journey.

The Collections

2026 will bring three layers of the Jewelry One of a KIND universe:

Beaded & Brass
Created by me and our survivor-artisans at Lotus House and LEAP.

The Amanda Nicol Collection
Hand-carved, hand-cast, museum-quality pieces. Limited-edition sculptural designs made to order in sterling, brass, and occasionally 18K gold.

Custom Work
Designed with and for the boutiques and hotels we partner with.

We’re not “fine jewelry.” Diamonds and channel-set gold.
We’re museum-quality heirlooms made from brass and sterling — accessible, intentional, enduring.

I don’t follow trends or chase fashion cycles, but I’m always influenced by what I see. I keep a small sketchbook with me at all times — for something spotted in nature, a film, or a fleeting thought that wants to become form.

I remember Tracey Emin once saying that making art is like breathing — she has to do it. That resonates deeply.

Right now, I’m reworking my Dogwood line and developing a heart-shaped chain and charm that have completely consumed me. The cheeky thing about this business is that everything costs money to make — so slowly, deliberately, these creations will emerge.

2026 is about benefactors, partnerships, and deepening relationships with people who want to build alongside us.

Owning the Story

Yesterday, I read a New York Times piece about survivors reclaiming their own stories online — turning pain into something powerful. It made me pause.

That’s what we do here.
We tell our stories with fire and metal instead of filters.

Every clasp is an act of authorship.
Every paycheck, a paragraph.

In 2026, I want to explore how storytelling and advocacy can coexist. I’ve been in conversation with organizations and individuals doing similar work, and I’m excited to see where Harold leads me — in workshops, on TikTok, and around real tables where jewelry meets honesty.

Advocacy doesn’t have to be heavy.
It can be shared, sparkly, and a little sweaty from the Miami sun.

What’s Next

2026 will be about expansion:

• In-person activations with hotels and museums

• Scaling wholesale partnerships

• Launching The Amanda Nicol Collection

• Building our new studio home

• Bringing our storytelling into digital and community spaces

It took two hours to go five miles, twenty years to rebuild a business, and one stubborn heart to keep saying yes.

Structure built.
Soul intact.
Bench ready.

Author’s Note

If you’ve been following this journey — thank you.

Jewelry One of a KIND isn’t just a brand.
It’s a blueprint for what survivor-led business can look like when artistry meets integrity.

See you next month — hopefully from a bigger studio, with less home clutter, and more jewelry bench organization.

If you made it all the way to the end, thank you. Maybe you know someone else who would too. Send it to your people.

Share

Jewelry One of a KIND Journal is where I write about collectible jewelry, craftsmanship, collecting, Miami, hospitality, beautiful objects, emotional permanence, and whatever strange design spiral I happen to disappear into next.

Visuals from the studio on Instagram →

Explore Jewelry One of a KIND collection

And if you’d like to continue the conversation — through jewelry, a future jewelry experience, a custom piece, or simply being in the room next time — I’d love that.

Leave a comment

For fifteen years, everyone kept saying,

“Amanda, you’re so talented. Why aren’t you doing this again?”

And I’d laugh, roll my eyes, and say, “Nope. I’m done.”

But the truth? I missed it.

I missed the hum of creating, the rhythm of design, the quiet click of a clasp coming together.

After surviving years of intimate partner violence, I thought the jewelry world — and that version of me — were both gone for good.
But art has a way of calling you back home.

Jewelry One of a KIND didn’t start with a business plan or a mood board. It started with a whisper:

“What if I tried again?”

Now, I’m back at the bench — pearls, pliers, brass, and stories.
Each piece is part of my second act — and, hopefully, yours too.

This is a journal for survivors, collectors, and makers who believe beauty can carry a backbone.

You don’t need to know how to solder metal or knot pearls to belong here.
You just need to believe that art can be both healing and high-end — that luxury and integrity can clasp hands.

Here, you’ll find:

• stories from the studio — the messy, real, raw kind,

• small-batch collector editions,

• quiet lessons from rebuilding a life through craft,

• and reflections from other survivor-artisans rewriting their own second acts.

It’s not about perfection.
It’s about persistence — the kind that shines.

The Jewelry One of a KIND Journal will land in your inbox twice a month.
Each issue will include:

💎 Studio Notes — short reflections, photos, and design process.
🕯 Collector Stories — people and pieces worth keeping.
🛠 Survivor Spotlights — how craft becomes economic freedom.
🍽 Table Talk — what happens when creativity meets community (and food).

Free Subscribers: stories, studio photos, and journal entries.
Paid Subscribers: early access to Collector Editions, private posts, and special behind-the-scenes drops.

Right now, you’re reading the shortened version of my first story — “I Swore I’d Never Make Jewelry Again.”
The full version, with photos, studio notes, and what really changed everything, will be available to subscribers next week.

Subscribe to read the full story →

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

If you’ve ever had to start over — again and again — I made this space for you.

Because this isn’t charity.
It’s legacy, handcrafted.

Our luxury has backbone — and I shine without losing my edge. 💛
Come shine with me.

— Amanda Nicol

If you made it all the way to the end, thank you. Maybe you know someone else who would too. Send it to your people.

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And if you’d like to continue the conversation — through jewelry, a future jewelry experience, a custom piece, or simply being in the room next time — I’d love that.

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