Meet Our Newest Designer, Hortense

We are so excited to introduce you to the newest designer here at our Santa Monica Jewelry Gallery, Hortense! We know you’ll love fall in love with her gorgeous yellow gold fine jewelry pieces and want to add them to your collection. Below are some questions we asked her so that you could get to know the story and inspiration behind her designs.

When did you start making jewelry and what first inspired you? 

I started back in 2008 when my daughter was born. My first challenge was to design affordable cord bracelets with 14K solid gold for less than $100. 

What inspires you now?  

I was born with this passion. At the age of 5 years old I would always ask to all my mother’s friends to show me their jewelry boxes. That was quite embarrassing for my mom… It’s in my bones. There’s no picture of me younger where I’m not wearing jewelry. I realized that I love jewelry when at 5 years old I would stare at my grandmother’s bracelet, I would pay attention to the sound of a couple of bracelets all stacked, or I would pay attention to a stack of bangles on a friend of my mom’s very tan skin and I would think, again at only 5 years old, wow gold looks so much better on a tan skin. I also find vintage designs from Chaumet, Poiray, Cartier, Mauboussin, Din Vanh all inspiring. 

What’s your personal favorite piece, do you have a special story about a particular piece?

The Majorette earrings! I was driving and suddenly I had this extremely simple idea to put 1 medium and 1 small pearl on both sides of a piece of wire. This design is super simple but the idea here was to use pearls in a modern way. This design made it and got the attention of Vogue, Elle and a lot of other magazines and got copied. Even one designer copied it and Barney’s bought her. Haha… I remember I was so hurt, but now I’m laughing because who cares… right?

How do you like to see your jewelry styled?

In a very clean and chic way and only one or 2 pieces max put together. For my pictures on IG I always add a lot of pieces just to show all the pieces, but in the reality, I like when someone is wearing a minimum. I think it is more chic.

What makes you excited about being represented by Moondance?

The adventure, trying something new! 🙂