ABOUT US

Why I'm Letting Go of My Collection

I'm Diana, and for twenty years, I was a travel writer. I wrote for National Geographic, Condé Nast Traveler, a few others. Forty-seven countries, mostly alone, mostly the places no one tells you to go.

Wherever I went, I bought jewelry. Not the airport stuff — the little stall in Fes where an old silversmith taught me how to spot real Berber turquoise. A pearl diver's widow in Hatajima who sold me her husband's last harvest. A market in Jaipur where I spent six hours haggling over one ring, then drank tea with the seller's whole family afterward.

Each piece has a place. A person. A story.

The Cottage

I am turning fifty-six this year. My knees are done with cobblestones. I bought a small cottage in Vermont, and I move there next month.

The cottage has one closet.

I have spent two months trying to decide which pieces to keep. I cannot keep them all. So I am letting most of them go — at prices that almost feel disrespectful to the women who made them, but I would rather they be worn than sit in a storage unit somewhere.

What This Collection Is

These are not reproductions. These are not factory pieces. These are jewelry I bought in person, from women (and a few men) who make them by hand. Most are silver. Some are gold. The stones are real — turquoise from the Atlas Mountains, freshwater pearls from Japanese coastal villages, garnets and topazes from Jaipur's old quarter.

I have organized them into four collections:

The Atlas Collection — mostly North African and Mediterranean. Silver work with Berber turquoise and Moroccan tradition.

The Tide Collection — coastline pieces. Pearls, sea glass, blue stones from the Aegean.

The Heirloom Trail — antique-feeling pieces from Jaipur, Bangkok, and Istanbul. The kind that look like you inherited them.

Diana's Personal Favorites — the eight or nine pieces I almost kept.

A Promise

If you take one home, please wear it. That is the only thing I ask.

I will not be making more. I will not be restocking. When the collection is gone, it is gone — and I will be in Vermont, growing tomatoes and learning to bake bread, which I have never done.

If you have questions about a specific piece, where it came from, or who made it, write to me. I still remember most of them.

— Diana Vermont