For years, Tara Maria Famiglietti, founder and designer of ONDYN, lived on a sailboat, traveling through the French Riviera, the Amalfi Coast, the Balearic Islands, the African Coast and the Caribbean. She’s drawn on that experience to create her collection of 18k gold and diamond jewels, which are designed to drape across the body like a second skin, moving and falling with the movements of the wearer.
We asked Tara three questions:
You started making jewelry at an early age. What drew you to jewelry as opposed to other forms of expression?
Both of my parents were fashion designers and then later were in interior design, so design came naturally. But starting at a very young age I was drawn to crystals and their beauty and was an avid collector. It was my first obsession with the magnificence that nature can create, the most precious materials on earth. Later, this turned into gold and diamonds for me.
For people unfamiliar with ONDYN, what's the best way to describe the brand?
ONDYN jewelry is designed with the element of movement in mind. It’s created to move in a way that maximizes the radiance and sparkle of the diamonds, whether it’s how it drapes on your body or the ingenuity of connections between diamonds to give it fluidity. I’ve least been fascinated by how a piece of jewelry moves or falls on the wearer, it’s what brings it to life.
How does your jewelry reflect your experiences sailing around the world?
I think that experience will always have a hand in how I see things. For me, the natural beauty of the sea and all that you see in and around it is the most inspiring. Two visuals I always keep with me are the sparkle of the sun rising on the delicate waves out at sea and the glow at night, of tiny green orbs that are bioluminescent algae in the water that light up with your every movement.
