Do you remember the first piece of jewellery created under the 27Jewelry brand?  

Not at all! (laughs) In the beginning, it was mainly experiments. I already had the name in my head, but developing the style and then the collections was a long process. Moreover, when I started to present myself under my brand, I hadn't worked with gold at all. I had yet to learn the whole goldsmithing thing. I started with glass, while slowly learning silver and then moving on to gold. So the first was some glass jewelry. I was creating more for myself and people became interested in it, so that drove me on.  

Gradually you got into custom work and high jewellery making. What is the interest in handmade bespoke jewellery here?  

At 27Jewelry, seventy percent of the production is custom-made for the client. Speaking generally, there is a growing interest in handmade and individual attention, although of course I have a biased view of it - my brand is evolving, growing, and I'm adding clients, so I automatically feel like the interest is growing. I definitely live in a bubble of selected people. If I go anywhere else, nobody knows about jewellery, they have no idea that you can actually do something like this. Jewelry still needs education. People have gotten pretty used to the idea that they can have a suit tailored, but the idea that they can have a piece of jewelry made to fit them isn't exactly the first thing that comes to mind. 

Luckily, I'm actually very good at creating like that because I try to have a strong profile from the beginning and I don't let myself break my fingers too much - I wouldn't do something to someone's picture - and I try to stick to my line. Thank God people like my work. I don't struggle anymore with someone wanting something explicitly different. Clients deliberately come to me because they know they want a piece of jewelry from me. That way, they give me free rein. I listen to their story, what the jewelry is for, how they want it to feel, what the occasion is, and if there are stones, what color or what type of stones they like, but then they leave a lot of that up to me, so that's great. 

Do you ever struggle with the technical difficulty of your own designs?  

It's true that sometimes I do whip myself. For the Drops and Sparkle collection under the Lenka Kerlická label, I wanted to technically manage the setting of the stone so that the light would pass through to it perfectly, but at the same time the jewellery would be comfortable and not fray. I spent a long time figuring out the stone setting before I was satisfied. This setting then became the basis for the entire collection, which plays with different stone compositions. For example, another time I was working with an expensive and unique opal, which is not a hard stone, and I wanted diamonds to go over it, so that was a tough one. Fortunately, everything worked out well and I love remembering that piece of jewelry.  

You mentioned the Lenka Kerlická brand. Is that a separate project or does it belong to 27Jewelry?  

That's a different project. I want to focus on high end jewellery to jewellery as objects that I'll take maybe six months to make. They will be created in a slightly different way. I kind of got to a point where I felt like I needed to explode somewhere else jewelry-wise, to let go of inspiration. I want to make gold watches and other crazy things, and that's what Lenka Kerlická is. I don't want to set any limits and I'm curious to see where it leads.   

Will you ever see your jewellery again?  

Sometimes I do. It's been about six months, we had a ring in the main showcase with a unique set of black and grey diamonds combined with pearls. Someone bought it when I wasn't here, so sometimes I'll make a piece like that, but then I don't know where it lives. Until one day a lady came in and wanted to buy another piece of jewelry and she had that particular ring on her hand! So it was so beautiful because I really remembered it. I sent out a thought - I wonder where the ring was - and then she came to show it to me. Otherwise, I can see the jewellery when I'm cleaning, but I don't see a lot of it again.  

You make jewellery especially for women. Do you do anything for men besides wedding rings?   

I do a lot, bracelets, necklaces, pendants, cufflinks, clasps... But apart from wedding rings, I don't have a men's collection and the jewellery is very much bespoke. Either a woman comes in wanting something for a man, or a man comes in.  

How are custom wedding rings made?   

I'm guided by the stories of my customers. When I create wedding rings, I naturally think about what the jewellery is for, how it will be worn, who will wear it and what people are actually hoping for with the jewellery. A lot of it comes down to what type of person they are, what kind of life they live and how they want to wear the ring. Because some people work on the computer, some people work with their hands, so we try to make sure that the jewelry is comfortable, that the person doesn't have to take it off, that they don't have to take extra care of it and worry about it. That's probably the first thing we deal with together. Then I want to hear what the fiancés see in the jewellery, what they want it to say to each other, or if they have a symbol or a stone that connects them. It may be about a shared experience, so we might choose a suitable type of stone to put in both rings.  

But usually the engagement ring precedes the wedding ring...  

It's a very different job in many ways when a man comes alone and wants to have a ring made for his sweetheart. We deal with who his girlfriend is, where they met, what she likes. I tell men - don't worry, when you go to get your wedding ring, it won't be so hard, she'll advise you (laughs). Sometimes they are accompanied by maybe a future mother-in-law or a friend, but 95 percent of the time men go alone. It's amazing and I love it. They are usually very nervous and shaking hands and sometimes they can hardly remember the name of their chosen one. It's really touching and I feel like, just being the way guys are, it's an important moment for them. I appreciate it tremendously when I feel from them that they appreciate their partner and want to materialize the relationship with something unique, that they want to put something more than just a ring into the moment.  

Do you have any idea how many couples you've connected with a wedding ring?  

You know I don't know? I'm not gonna take a shot from the hip, but it's probably a couple hundred. Some people even have several wedding rings made. Clients often come to me and they're stressed about picking out a ring for life. But I reassure them that they don't have to have just one - just as we change, rings can change too. For example, on their anniversary, couples get new wedding rings and can either use them to complement the current one or wear the one they're in the mood for in the morning.  

What do you want your jewellery to bring to its wearer?  

Joy! Because people come here in different life situations and it's about their individual joy. It's not just weddings or engagements, for example, this year there is a big demand for memorial jewellery in memory of the deceased. That's such a big theme that I'm working with at the same time because it too is part of the journey of our lives, yet it has completely disappeared in our country. It used to be quite common to have amulets, and rings were woven into the hair of the deceased... So this year is teaching me about this topic as well, and I feel the weight of the responsibility of how to hold such jewelry and how to preserve that last memory. But on the other hand, it's terribly beautiful that people want to preserve the memory in something dignified, in something that is again a lovely and very intimate thing, and so they can actually still be together in that jewelry.  

We're talking about relationships and lasting values. Is that why you chose gold as your material of choice?  

The energy of the material is the main thing that works for me. I feel like the older the gold is, the more beautiful it is, and I know that platinum is a more expensive metal, but it doesn't have the same charm for me as gold. Gold is warm, pleasant, personal. I didn't hesitate at all, even though I started with silver, because it's more accessible and cheaper. But I knew that if I wanted to give my jewelry longevity, it just couldn't be any other material. When something is custom made, it's a shame for it to be short-lived. 
 

Over time, the metal will change character a bit, but that's actually part of the jewelry. If it was always the same, it'd be lifeless...  

Exactly. Of course, nobody wants a ring ruined, but the subtle abrasions that get into the gold are just another story of the jewellery. And if we find a piece of our grandmother's or great-grandmother's jewellery somewhere, it shows what she went through and how she treated it. Some grandmothers have it frilly as they wore it casually, and others have jewelry so thin and worn that you can smell their whole life on it.  

You, too, have a gem in your home with your family's long-ago story; it's the history of the Kerlick jewelry family that has almost fallen into obscurity. You only found out about it from your uncle more or less by accident while studying jewellery making, why so late?  

I'd like to know! The last shop was on Old Town Square, the communists closed it down and nationalised all the stuff. As far as I remember from my childhood, my grandmother worked in a bank and my grandfather was a soldier. Not a word about the jewelry store. We have nothing of the jewellery that was made in the workshop. It's only now that I've acquired a cigarette butt given to me by a gentleman. He found it in his aunt's attic and it was still in its original Kerlick packaging, so he searched the internet to find out where it came from and wrote to me. I immediately wrote him that it was an absolute treasure and that I would give anything to at least see it. And then he gave it to me and I was overjoyed. Now I have a whole set of fruit cutlery, also from the estate, which is quite new. Occasionally I get a call that they have something in the family and they bring it to show me, so that's nice, but otherwise we don't own anything at home. I'm always searching the internet because sometimes I come across something of ours, but it's always already sold. So I'm posting it out here for the world to find me.  

At the same time, do you let historical jewelry inspire your work?  

No, because I came to jewellery making from the other side and somehow it found me on its own, so I'm actually glad I'm not influenced by it and I have a freer scope. I don't feel like I have to follow anything.  

How do you feel about the symbolism of gemstones?  

It's an important aspect. For example, I created a collection of five pieces of jewellery based on the meridians or pathways in our body, it was a kind of demonstration of how to work with stones. Each piece of jewellery was focused on a different type of meridian and is meant to harmonise us. But other times I create jewellery based more on a feeling based on the play of the colours of the stones, I enjoy the atypical concept - when you say sapphire, everyone thinks of blue, and I'm actually inspired by all the other colours of sapphire other than blue. After all, blue has many shades. So for one piece of jewellery I can play with three shades of one stone and again create a slightly different emotion. There is harmony in that too.  

Do you have a favourite stone besides diamond?  

Besides diamond? That was the first one that came to mind. Sometimes people think of diamond as a common stone. More expensive, but common. But what never ceases to fascinate me about a diamond is the incredible magic of cutting it, which other stones don't have. When you see a natural diamond and then the sparkle after the cut, you'd never think you could coax that out of it. I still find it completely unbelievable. Of course, the hardness and durability of this stone is unparalleled. Emeralds are beautiful, and they're even more expensive than diamonds, they're very rare. Moonstones are popular in my work, my clients like them, they feel in tune with them. I personally like labradorite, which is not so popular, but it is an interesting stone. Or opal, it's a feast for the eyes. I'm already looking forward to going abroad again and spending a lot of money at the fair. That's very dangerous (laughs).  

There is also an ethical dimension to jewellery today with precious stones and metals. How do you approach it?  

It's quite difficult to get hold of recycled gold here in the Czech Republic. Therefore, I try to get gold from clients and reprocess it so that we don't burden nature unnecessarily. People watch blood diamonds a lot, but every stone has to be mined somewhere and every stone has to be processed by someone. It's important to source material from proven places, diamonds from Antwerp and certified stones. We do our best to know their origin and what we actually provide to our clients.  

The tenth anniversary issue of Mile focused on fragrances and memories. What scents do you surround yourself with and what do they mean to you?  

Scent is a big theme for me, especially in the last year of my life. I'm very sensitive to smells and sounds and have a problem with scented candles and perfumes, I've been searching for a suitable brand all my life and not finding one. So I decided not to search, but to create something, and set about developing a perfume. It's going to be an all-natural, certified oil-based perfume. It's a long run, millions of tests and smells and finding the right essences and certifications, so hopefully it will all come through. We've come up with three basic scents. Each one will be a little different, but they'll be combinable, so there'll be a lot more combinations in the end. I hope people will start enjoying them soon. It's a big heartthrob and I'm really looking forward to it.  

Is your new brand 27Ascent related to this?  

Yes, that's kind of my new baby! The very first product is the Aithér glass aromatherapy lamp, which was created in collaboration with Eliska Monsport. I love burning incense, just put a candle under rose petals or dried eucalyptus, it smells wonderful and it's actually pure nature, nothing chemical. Our aromatherapy lamp is meant to do that, whether it's for burning dry fragrance or drops of essential oils, and it's also an art object, the movement, the smoke, the scent materializes in its form. People sometimes say that my jewellery reminds them of nature, but for me it's all about movement. I'm happy that I've found out how to grasp working with gold so that it's not stiff, dead, but the material just lives. That's what connects the two brands. I love glass and I'm really proud of this project, and it's Czech handmade.  

In your own words, the number 27 guides you through your life, why did you add the word ascent?  

Ascent in English means something uplifting, rising upwards, so I also see movement and inner growth in the name. At the same time, the scent itself is hidden in it. My motto, which symbolizes the brand for me, is conversation between body and mind. So I want to continue in the direction of beautiful things that make us happy and make our lives more enjoyable.  

Text: Helena Stiessová | Photo: Everbay