Jewelry from the Founders of Juliska
Juliska jewelry?! What?!
Ahem, allow me to explain…
Remember when you were in math class but the scribbles on your page were far more dreamy than numbers (names of crushes, flowers, galloping horses)? That’s basically what happened to me for the past 20 years of business meetings. As many of you know, my husband and I created Juliska together over two decades ago, founded out of a love for home and our desire to create togetherness and enhance human connection. Throughout those years of designing tableware, I was also secretly doodling jewelry sketches in the margins of my notebooks.
The seeds of my inspiration for creating jewelry are rooted in the past. People have been adorning themselves for centuries to celebrate their love of self, to empower themselves, or to carry a memento with them. Every piece of jewelry tells a story. My love of jewelry and fashion sprang from my childhood memories of my mother, who always wore stylish jewelry, whether it was for a wedding in Paris or a Sunday lunch at home. I remember playing with the bracelets on her wrist and marveling at the earrings on her ears and always thinking, how incredibly beautiful she looked.
Fast forward many years later, and at some point during the wild, adventurous, blur of growing our Juliska brand, we had three daughters. As they were growing up, we started to have more and more conversations about what it means to be a woman, how different types of womanhood and femininity are expressed, and the different qualities and characteristics that define a person — regardless of their gender.
Suddenly, the doodles at the edges of my sketchbook started to come into focus in a far more important way. Combining my love of jewelry and my love of storytelling (which I had been doing at Juliska for many years) with this growing conversation in my household about womanhood, self-love and various definitions and expression of beauty, grew the idea of a line of jewelry laden with symbolism to express emotionally intelligent philosophies and empowering characteristics.
I launched Capucine De Wulf with the belief that inside all of us, regardless of age or role in life, we are still little girls with dreams, at heart. Wanting to honor that 10 year old little girl, I used my maiden name for my jewelry brand, which I designed to celebrate women in all stages of being — from maiden, to mademoiselle, to madame, to matriarch. Every woman is a gem! There are so many kinds of gorgeous gemstones in this world of all different shapes, sizes, colors and textures. Whether you are a diamond, pearl, a labradorite or jade, you are uniquely glorious. Women are not just one thing — we are many things — and I wanted our jewelry to reflect all of our different facets, from casual to formal, whimsical and humorous, rustic to refined, to elegant and more serious.
You may notice a lot of the decorative motifs and themes from Juliska adorning my jewelry pieces because they were born of my heart and readily spilled out of my pockets and onto the pages of my sketchbook. Our flagship store in Charleston weaves our jewelry in amongst our Juliska collections in a lovely fusion of home and personal adornment. While you plan parties and entertaining occasions, you are thinking about what you’re going to wear and how you’re going to accessorize not only your table, but yourself! It’s hard to say which one is more fun! After all, the hostess must always look marvelous!
Years ago, I was struck by something that a female mentor of mine said. She observed that men rarely hesitate to invest in themselves, whether it’s taking an extra class or buying a nice watch, but women always put themselves second because they are so busy nurturing and investing in everyone else. So whether it is a piece of jewelry, a cup of tea in the morning, a trip to Paris or a fuzzy robe — I wholeheartedly would love to see women investing in themselves a little bit more, because when we are the best version of ourselves, it blesses everyone around us.
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