Avanessi
About two and half years ago, I was at a job that I utterly despised. I thought it was my dream job, since it was at an Art college, and I’d always yearned to be part of a world where art, young minds and great creations collide, but I was wrong. I was to assist the head of a department and to be quite honest; I was a terrible assistant to someone who didn’t need an assistant. I’d spend my days mailing out two letters and organizing my desk, while students around me were producing amazing art. I ached to create, but the fear of the unknown and failure would settle in and I wouldn’t do anything about it. One day, I walked into my boss’s office, having had enough as we had spent quite a bit of time discussing a misspelled word I had sent her via email and told her that I was done. I thanked her greatly though, for if it weren’t for this mind-numbing job, I would have never had the courage to take a chance on myself and I put in my two-week notice. As soon as I left, I continued writing for an online magazine and joined my husband in his family’s jewelry business.
Fast forward a year later and Avanessi was born. This adventure has really been a labor of love for me; it all started out with a hand written word, ‘LOVE’ on a cocktail napkin in Vegas. I know how that may sound, but we were there for a jewelry show and I was doodling some pendant ideas and I wrote down the word LOVE. There it was, our LOVE pendant. The pendant, which was our original piece, was just a sweet gesture between my husband and I since that’s what he’s always called me. As soon as I started wearing it though, I had an epiphany and I realized how selfish I had been with love. I had always kept love between my husband and myself and wasn’t giving much of it to anyone else. By wearing this pendant, it opened my eyes and my heart to the world. It may sound cliché, but its changed my existence and what I stand for now. My favorite line is if you give LOVE, you get LOVE and I see that happening constantly in my life and in the lives of our clients who tell us about it. I can’t imagine going back to the way I was before.
Avanessi is just a tiny part of a little revolution that has started all on its own and I’m grateful for it. Its allowed me to look at my community and get to know people who have created amazing charities and projects that reflect love in their own way and we highlight that on the charity section of our website. We’ve vowed to donate 10% or our retail sales from the LOVE collection to our charity of the month every month, and are currently featuring the ‘One LOVE bracelet’ specifically designed for the Susan G. Komen foundation, since breast cancer has touched both our lives. LOVE is such a beautiful, bold and huge notion that applies to so many things, and Avanessi is exposing it bit by bit with our jewelry. What happens after people start wearing it is out of our hands, but we love hearing these stories. Who knows, we might even turn this into a coffee table book some day, but for now, life is grand and LOVE is a great indulgence.
Shop the Avanessi collection @ www.shoprumor.com
