Meet The Designer

A chat with our designer Tanya Coelho

The girl most likely....

I come from a long line of craftspeople, so I always knew I was going to work with my hands.

I’ve always been passionate about art, aesthetics and design, and I fell headlong in love with jewellery and metal smithing while training at the Enmore Design Centre in my home town of Sydney.

The muse....

Although jewellery design is my first love, I’ve been swept off my feet more than once by the romance of travel. It’s in my blood. Portuguese blood that is; my countrymen have always been entranced by the sea and the whisper of distant shores.

So it stands to reason that my collections are hugely inspired by the art, nature and architecture that I’ve been lucky enough to encounter on my jaunts around the world.

While living in the romantic city of Edinburgh for a few years, I had the good fortune to share a massive arts space with lots of other artists and designers. During my time in this creative melting pot, I distilled the inspiration I'd received in Europe and Africa, and forged my aesthetic style.

The turning point....

It was during this time that I started to feel a disconnect between my values of caring for people and the earth, and a jewellery industry more famous for its questionable mining practices than its social and environmental credentials.

The creation....

Cue my light bulb moment: why not create a business that combines my ethics with my aesthetics?

What could be better than an eco glam jewellery label based on conscious, creative design, with beauty and compassion as its guiding lights?

....And so Zefyr was born