Why I have build Liana

I think my love for jewelry started long before I ever made my first piece.

When I was little, my grandma would open her jewelry box and tell me the story behind every ring, every necklace, every little treasure she had collected over the years.

She never started with what it was worth.
She told me where she’d found it.
Who gave it to her.
What was happening in her life when she wore it.

There were two rings I always came back to.
One was made from three different shades of gold, woven together.
The other was silver with a small gold symbol on top. Most of the gold had worn away over the years.
I remember thinking it was even more beautiful because of that.
It looked loved.

Looking back, I think that’s where it all started.
Not with diamonds.
With stories.

Years later, I found myself in Rishikesh, learning to make jewelry by hand.
For the first time, I watched silver melt.
Something that looked so solid became completely fluid within minutes.
Then it was shaped, hammered, filed and polished until it became something entirely new.

I loved every part of it.

There was something deeply calming about working with your hands.
Watching raw material slowly become something someone might wear for the rest of their life.

A few years later, I travelled to Jaipur.

If you’ve ever been there, you’ll know it’s impossible not to fall in love with gemstones.
Traders would walk in carrying tiny paper packets filled with stones.
Every day, another tray.
Another story.
Another discovery.
I could have spent hours just looking.

One afternoon, a stone caught my eye.
It looked nothing like the others.
It wasn’t perfectly clear.
Inside were tiny black and white inclusions that almost looked like a galaxy.

I asked the gemstone dealer what it was.
“It’s a Salt & Pepper diamond,” he said.
Then he explained that most people didn’t want them.
Too many inclusions.
Too many imperfections.
That’s why they were worth less than flawless diamonds.

The flawless diamonds were beautiful.
But they all looked surprisingly similar.
This one didn’t.
It felt alive.

As if nature had signed it herself.
As if nature had signed it herself.
That moment never really left me.

The more I learned about diamonds, the more I realised I wasn’t interested in perfection.
I was interested in individuality.
Because I’ve never met a person whose most beautiful chapter was the perfect one.
It’s the chapters that ask something of us.
The move.
The goodbye.
The new beginning.
The risk.
The moment you quietly choose yourself.
Those are the stories we carry for the rest of our lives.
And yet, we rarely mark them.

Why do we wait for permission to celebrate ourselves?
What if buying yourself a piece of jewelry wasn’t indulgent…

What if it was simply saying,

“This chapter mattered.”

That’s why I created LIANA.
Not to make beautiful jewelry.
There is already plenty of beautiful jewelry in the world.

I wanted to create symbols.

Pieces that quietly remind you where you’ve been, what you’ve overcome, and who you’re becoming.

Because years from now, I don’t think you’ll remember every outfit you wore.
But I think you’ll remember the woman you became while wearing a certain ring.

And maybe that’s what jewelry has always been.
Not decoration.
A story you can carry.

— Melissa Sopha