Ciara Marasigan-Serumgard: Creation story

Adornment is the best way by which many — women, more specifically — are able to fully express themselves. Jewelry designer Ciara Marasigan-Serumgard is one whose fascination for Old World charm and eloquence has deeply inspired her. She shares, “So much of my personality and outlook is expressed in my dressing. A woman’s greatest power and service is her femininity.” Admittedly, Ciara’s delightfully saccharine sensibilities are most reflected in her every fashion endeavor. She declares, “I love ornate jewelry and purses. They are revelations of my taste, perspective and heritage.”

It has been three years now since Ciara first joined the esteemed Young Designers Guild and today, she has become a force to reckon with in the industry of style. Ciara looks to deeply-rooted figures in fashion whose names are etched in history — among them, the revered Queen Elizabeth, whose “severity shows us how her rich fabrics and jewels conveyed incredible wealth, power and prestige.” She also cites Victoire de Castellane of the House of Dior, stressing how the creative genius redefined eccentric luxury through refreshingly novel ideas. As a designer for her own jewelry label Ciara Creates, she admits to being a stickler for detail, never settling for mediocrity. Ciara’s pieces include intricately crafted jewelry that mirror a boundless fascination for the quixotic elements and a harmonious balance in color and cut.

While she is most certainly in the prime of her professional life, Ciara remains keen on playing her part as a wife, a daughter and then a jewelry designer. She ponders on family life saying, “It is the first and last glimpse of love.” In a couple of months, Ciara is planning to join her husband in the US, only returning to Manila every quarter to attend to her work.

When asked to expound more about work and secrets to success, she delightfully says, “I simply believe that one should give back. I look back in memory and to this day, my most significant achievement is having granted my assistant a full college scholarship.” And it is perhaps because of Ciara’s deep sense of social responsibility that many blessings and opportunities have come her way.

And as the fitting end note to Ciara’s creation story, she quotes the late great literary genius Victor Hugo in Man and Woman: “Man is found where earth finishes; woman, where heaven begins.”