Recipients

French New Yorker Delphine Leymarie designs and crafts her luxe and modern eponymous fine jewelry line in NYC. Drawing inspiration from the blissful beaches of her childhood in the South of France and the invigorating energy of the modern urban architecture surrounding her for the last 2 decades, she creates jewels that are timelessly romantic, organically geometric, and playfully convertible. Delphine’s collection is centered around the many uses of her Boheme Clickers, her versatile modular charm holders that can be used in many combinations, making her jewels as unique as the wearer. She favors empowering and protective symbols paired with carefully and responsibly selected gems to create uplifting & colorful jewelry. She dreams up her pieces as powerful talismans and modern heirlooms to be cherished for generations. Delphine uses recycled fine metals whenever possible, primarily 18k gold, working to source her gems responsibly and satisfy a craving for a kind of luxury that is respectful of the magnificent resources of our planet. She believes that mindful luxury is possible and aims to create sparkly sculptures that can adorn your body and help elevate your soul. An avid and classically trained dancer, she also has a natural affinity with numbers that first led her to Business School. She originally moved to NYC to pursue an MBA in Corporate finance, a field where she had a successful career for more than a decade. In search of a new creative outlet, she fell in love with jewelry making after taking classes at the 92nd street Y in Manhattan. She first trained in metalsmithing, enameling, and chain making, but really found her medium once she started learning wax carving, as it better suited her love of volumes and sculptural shapes. She has not stopped hand-sculpting jewelry since, and happily left behind the drab world of corporate finance for the sparkly one of jewelry when she started her fine jewelry line in the summer of 2011. To celebrate over a decade of Delphine Leymarie Fine Jewelry, a Fairmined gold capsule collection is in the works to mark the milestone and reaffirm Delphine’s commitment to responsible jewelry crafting.

Cydney’s earliest memories of jewelry were in getting into her mother’s and grandmother’s jewelry collections. Although she’s always loved the appearance of antique jewelry — especially Art Nouveau and Edwardian — she had never considered it as a career path until her mother-in-law encouraged her to enroll in courses at GIA and to start working at a local boutique. 
 

While obtaining her Associate’s Degree from Saddleback College in American Sign Language Interpreting, Cydney’s instructors had emphasized the frustration felt by the deaf and hard of hearing communities when trying to interact with the larger hearing community, and how rare it was for somebody to engage with them in a patient manner.
 

Cydney witnessed this frustration while helping as an interpreter for a Deaf friend, as well as when employed at a fine jewelry location, and resolved to be an advocate for clear and compassionate interactions with that community.
 

After completing her Graduate Gemologist diploma at GIA, her goal is to work as an appraiser. She also plans on creating content that is accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing communities. As an individual with dyslexia and dyscalculia, she also wants to make content that is accessible for those with learning disabilities so that they can not only share in her education and knowledge but ultimately feel empowered when selecting jewelry.