Bijoux Bios

My necklace is actually a magnifying glass. It belonged to my great grandmother,  Grace Todd. She was British. I got it from my mother's cousin Phyllis when I visited her in England in 2018.  I have a very small family so having small items from relatives is very special. When I visited Phyllis, she  said, "I have something for you." I fell in love with this -- even before she told me what it was. Back in the 1800s not everyone had eye glasses, so my great grandmother would use this magnifying glass to see better. She had worn it around her neck on a string.  When I got home, I put it on a little chain. I wear it as much as I can.   It’s very meaningful because I have very little from my mother’s British family.  My mother moved to America from England when she was a child. Sadly, I lost my mother tragically 25 years ago. I was young to lose my mother; she was  way  too young to die. So to have anything from her part of the family is very, ve...

I've worn a watch every day for as long as I can remember, usually in the Timex family. I’ve always had a watch and used as the primary way to tell time even after I could use my phone for that purpose as well. But I never thought of watches as collectible jewelry — until I interviewed Paul Brown about his watch collection.  Breitling Chrono Avenger, known for its waterproof capabilities Paul Brown received his first watch, a digital, when he was seven or eight, but his fascination with watches began with a Swatch. Remember the Swatch? Launched in 1983 in Switzerland, the Swatch product line -- Swatch is a contraction of "second watch" -- was offered as casual, disposable accessories. The originals (different models are still offered by the Swatch Group) had an open case back, a transparent cover on the backside of the watch that allowed you to see the inner workings of the movement.  Brown's collection now includes six watches valued at more than $20,000. They are un...

  When Bijoux Bios asked Kanika Tomalin, the Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg, if she had an interesting jewelry story to tell, she immediately thought of her AKA sorority pin. Alpha Kappa Alpha, founded in 1908 at Howard University as the first intercollegiate historically African-American sorority, had been, after all, in the news lately thanks to fellow sorority sister and now U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris. Harris joined the Alpha Chapter when she was a student at Howard University in the 1980s in Washington, D.C. Tomalin was an AKA debutante in 1993 when she was a journalism student at FAMU (Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University), another historically black university. Looking in the box where she kept her AKA pin, however, Tomalin found the engagement ring that she had placed there nearly five years ago. The ring was the most significant piece of jewelry that she had ever owned. It is the story of that ring — and the love that it represents— that she chose to...

   During these turbulent times when so many of us are experiencing grief and outrage over what has been taken from us, Maria Vesperi’s story of loss has a particular resonance. It is a tale that carries an important message about the pain of loss, but also about the power of healing. The story has a bad guy: a thief who breaks into a house and steals silver pieces. Each piece holds a precious memory and each loss is painful. But the story also has a good guy: a friend who sees the pain her friend is experiencing and decides to do something about it. She gives again.      We are especially proud to present Maria Vesperi’s story since the piece of jewelry that has adorned our Facebook page since our launch belongs to her.        "The gold locket was handed down from my grandmother to my mother to me," Maria explained when we asked her about the origin of the locket. "It can be dated to1908 by the studio photos taken when my mother was ...