MICHAL NEGRIN

 Pink Floral Opera Ring with Pink
and Fuchsia Swarovski Crystals

The Jerusalem Botanical Gardens in Israel is a sanctuary away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Often overlooked, it is nestled away between a gas station and supermarket.

The gardens house over 6,000 species of plants, a lake, two ponds, and a waterfall. Israel is also the home of featured jewelry designer Michal Negrin.

Visiting Negrin's beautiful website is like stepping into another world that is at once is fanciful, exploding with color and familiar elements mixed in.

Like her website, Negrin's vintage-inspired jewelry astonishes with spectacularly feminine designs that are a testament to her lucid imagination.

Styles range from exotic and intricate with multi-colored Swarovski Crystals to a simple link of colored, glass beads.

Negrin's unique imagination developed in childhood while living on a communal farm in Israel. She used her fertile mind to create a world of unparalleled color, whimsy, and beauty. Although she relished opportunities to explore her creativity, she was sometimes reluctant to express it.

Her mother, however, recognizing her daughter's gift, provided Negrin with encouragement. "My mother provided me with the tools to realize my dream, the strength to take risks, and the power to believe in myself and my designs."

Determined to realize her dreams, Negrin created and sold her jewelry clandestinely. The communal farm required that all occupants give any personal earnings to the community. She was able to establish her company with the proceeds she earned selling her pieces at a craft and arts market in Tel Aviv.

By age 31, with the support of her husband, Meir, Negrin opened a small store in Tel Aviv. Fascinated with the 1920s many of her designs incorporate the aesthetic of this era, as well as the Victorian era. The pieces are a gorgeous combination of antique, Italian metal, lace, pearls, enamel, crystals, flower motifs, semi-precious gemstones, and even hand-painted portraits of 1920s flappers.

The minute detail of each item is hand cultivated from the placement of crystals to the cutting of metal into flower forms. An aura of vitality permeates every piece.

Victorian Floral Cameo Necklace
in Pink and Green

With all of the gorgeous gemstones, and luminous color her collections encapsulates beauty, and the renewing spring season.

"I love what I do. I revel in the evolution and the way the whole process comes together at the end," she says.

After 21 years, Negrin has stores in Australia, Japan, France, Mexico, Spain, and the United States.

She now employs over 160 artisans, and her clientele include the likes of Kate Beckinsale, Nicole Kidman, and Uma Thurman. Negrin also designs and creates clothing, greeting cards, figurines, and picture frames.

In 2007, actor Imelda Staunton wore a brooch and ring, designed by Negrin, in the feature film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.