Joyce Makitalo has always loved fashion even as a young girl; she has been buying Vogue magazine religiously, without fail since she was a teenager and dreamed of becoming a fashion designer. But she got sidetracked and became a painter/graphic designer instead, straight out of the University of Santo Tomas, College of Fine Arts. Several years into working with watercolor and canvas though, she quit and found her creative juices leading her back to her original love — fashion in the form of accessories.
“I discovered that I love to make big chunky pieces,” Joyce says. “As an artist, I am able to express my creativity better when the accessories are bigger,” she enthuses.
In 2003, she began making accessories, starting with necklaces of semi-precious stones strung in silk thread and jewelry cable wire. Her initial foray into retailing came via a concessionaire’s arrangement with the Ayala Museum shop under the name Galleon. It was a rather unsuccessful exercise because “hardly anyone bought my pieces, I guess the last thing museum goers wanted to buy in a museum shop was accessories,” claims Joyce with a tinge of disappointment.
Undeterred by that experience, she joined the Guild of Filipino Jewelers Annual Design Competition in 2007 and won in the non-traditional category. Her prize was a six-week stint to work with fine jewelers, an opportunity that eventually led her to her current forte, creating accessories of semi-precious stones set in brass and precious metals. From that moment on, it was goodbye to amateurish cable and thread-strung necklaces and hello to finely crafted colored stones set in 24K gold, brass, and silver dipped in gold.
As fashion fate would have it, 2008 was the year of large and chunky accessories; bib necklaces were everywhere and semi-precious stones became the material du jour for most one-of-a-kind accessories. The moment for Joyce Makitalo finally arrived and her big, bold, beautiful collection of necklaces, cuffs, and rings became the must-have accessories for the fashionable set. In 2009 Preview magazine did the first feature on her magnificent pieces and those in the know sought her work and became fans, including Karen Davila, Maricris Zobel, Mia Borromeo, Irene Martel Francisco, Lizzie and Sofia Zobel.
These stones rock!
Joyce likes to work with the chunkiest and most irregular of colored stones because they have grooves and inclusions that make them imperfectly unique and beautiful, and a texture that is easy to work with. She sources her semi-precious stones at the Hong Kong Jewelry Fair from certified wholesalers and considers amethyst her most favorite of the colored stones. She describes selecting and buying the stones as the most exciting part of what she does because “the moment I see the stones, I can already imagine how they will look like as accessories,” Joyce explains.
I asked Joyce where she gets her inspirations, how she visualizes her final designs and she told me that, “it is a combination of sporadic creative moments and purpose-driven research from books to period films. “One of my most well-received collections, Valentina as Venus, was inspired by the last movie Heath Ledger filmed titled, Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, a fact and trivia Joyce was happy to share.
“It was theatrical and over-the-top and it is just how I want my accessories to be, absolute standouts,” Joyce adds.
The quirky, somewhat shy 34-year-old designer counts Delfina Delletrez Fendi as her most favorite jewelry designer.
Since all her pieces are one-of-a-kind, I inquired whether she accepted requests for made-to-order accessories. She frowned and admitted that, “yes, at one point I did but after encountering a client who wanted to pick the stones and design the whole thing and just wanted me to execute her drawing, I stopped. I felt like I was compromising my craft and was making pieces I couldn’t really be very proud of and call my own.” So she now insists on having full creative control over her designs and comes up with several pocket and sizeable collections each year.
“What is the biggest challenge you face in your craft?” I asked Joyce. While I was expecting answers like “difficulty in finding qualified artisans to work with or the market not quite understanding her design style,” I was taken aback by her rather unorthodox reply. “Letting go” is my biggest challenge, Joyce says with a hint of sadness. “The pieces are like my babies and I find it difficult to part with them.”
She has given away many of her work to family members simply because she knows any time she wants to see or borrow them, it is easy to do so. Her Finnish husband Petteri, who helps run the financial side of her business, told her to “stop giving away accessories otherwise they cannot run a legitimate business.”
Today, Joyce sells her designs at Rustan’s, Firma, Charina Sarte, and The House of Laurel.
At the prodding of her husband, Joyce expanded overseas and now sells her accessories in Singapore at Vanilla Home, an eclectic store of one-of-a kind products; and Black Market, a shop that features independent labels from the world over. She recently tested the waters of New York City hoping to take a bite of the Big fashionable Apple. The result? A one-page feature on American Vogue, March 2011 showcasing her Subo Rondel ring on the hand of a model casually posing with iconic singer/songwriter John Legend.
The ‘Crux’ of the Matter
It takes Joyce about two to three weeks to produce a collection and it was no different with the “Crux” collection she presented this week alongside Wynn Wynn Ong, Celestina, and Hans Brumann at Greenbelt 5. Her 12-piece collection of crosses hanging on cotton silk neck scarves and moonstone mala necklaces, slip-on cuffs and oversized rings remind me of Byzantine-era jewelry — ornate, alluring, luxurious, stunning and expressive. Her choice to use irregular semi-precious stones, 24K gold, bronze and silver dipped in gold mountings and the “hammering metal sheet” technique, highlights the artistic, almost natural mosaic-like feature of her crosses, reminiscent of the gilded bronze and gold ones popular during the Byzantine period. Couture meets accessories in Joyce Makitalo’s outstanding collection.
Joyce Makitalo’s designs are not for the weak of heart, the meek and the mild; they are statement pieces that must be worn with utmost confidence and elegance. One Joyce Makitalo piece is all you need to wear at any time to achieve a high-octane fashion look. And just like the Byzantine era jewelry, her accessories are timeless, collectible pieces worth handing down from one stylish generation to another.
Next on Joyce’s fashion calendar, a line of fine jewelry to be unveiled in a couple of months.
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For more information on her accessories, go to joycemakitalo.com or visit Celestina at Greenbelt 5 to see her Crux collection.