EBRU DANYAL

Once serving as the residence of sultans, Turkey's Topkapi Palace has become a significant remnant of the country's history that currently serves as a museum.

It is a structure of enormous proportions with tall gates, pavilions, and courtyards each with its own purpose. Turkey is also the home of featured jewelry designer Ebru Danyal.

Danyal's website loads with a view through a keyhole. You catch glimpses of different items located in the virtual, animated room peaking behind it.
Once you mouse-click the keyhole, you are taken into the designer's world full of fun, and high spirits, the embodiment of childhood.

Though Danyal's bold-colored jewelry is reminiscent of Tarina Tarantino's equally buoyant trinkets the finer details of Danyal's creations are the distinguishing characteristics between the two designers.

Danyal's use of mosaic glass, embroidery, glitter, acrylic beads, and Swarovski crystals, as well as her implementation of distinctive minutiae like figurines of poodles, penguins, high-heel shoes, and teddy bears sets her collections apart from Tarantino's primarily Lucite bijouterie.

While I feel that Tarantino's jewelry is a wonderfully unabashed celebration of eternal girlhood, its essence is lilting romanticism peppered with a sense of angst as depicted with the edgy skull pieces, and her Wicked items from the My Pretty Collection.

The essence of Danyal's jewelry, in my opinion, is pure joy and innocence. There is plenty of pink, lilac, and powder blue; colors that for me evoke the decadent side of childhood like jelly beans, cotton candy, or the excitement of roaming an amusement park with your friends.

Like Tarantino's collections, I found Danyal's jewelry taking me back to those days of first-times and discoveries when everything was new, fresh, and seemingly uncomplicated.

At the same time, Danyal manages to add a mild twist of cosmopolitan sophistication as the WorldWhite and Pink Collection is inspired in part by the cities of New York, Paris, Vienna, and Tokyo with a dash of Holly Golightly thrown in for good measure.


Her splendid embodiment of "childhood sweet memories" garnered the designer the 2008 Best Accessory Designer from the Bijorhca International Jewelry Fair in Paris.
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Photo 1 (top right): Kissing A Frog Bracelet with Embroidered Fabric, Plastic Figurines, and Swarovski Crystals
Photo 2 (bottom left): Hollywood Necklace with Swarovski Crystals form the WorldWhite and Pink Collection