Antoinette Cleoni, Designer A California native, Antoinette Cleoni grew up watching her brother design and make beautiful inlaid turquoise jewelry. “I was always fascinated by stones, and he inspired me to take jewelry making classes.” Her interest in jewelry was set aside, however, as she completed her schooling; she graduated from the University of California in social ecology in 1983, and began a career in business. Her business interests took her to Chile, where she fell in love with the beautiful jewelry of the region, particularly the traditional silver and inlaid midnight-blue lapis lazuli jewelry. She began to import these traditional pieces to the U.S., where they became wildly popular. This success inspired Antoinette to return to her original fascination with jewelry design. Gradually she began integrating different stones, such as malachite, turquoise, obsidian, and rhodochrosite, into these traditional Chilean designs, and creating designs of her own. She asserts that “the stones themselves were my inspiration… I kept my designs simple so the natural beauty of the stone spoke.” Over 20 years, Acleoni Designs has grown into a major supplier of fine handcrafted jewelry to the high-end jewelry market in North America and Europe. From the beginning, Antoinette has worked in close collaboration with Chilean—and later, Indonesian—artisans to evolve her unique designs. Chilean artisans had already mastered the art of creating hinged sterling jewelry featuring inlaid stones, and the addition of new stones and stone combinations to their traditional designs forms the basis of Acleoni’s Essentials and Classics collections. Antoinette found that even her simple design innovations had a dramatic effect on traditional forms – for example, to enhance their natural radiance many Acleoni designs feature stones which are domed on top to further highlight their beauty, in contrast to traditional inlay jewelry. Indonesian sterling jewelry has traditionally relied on the process of setting stones into bezel-set casings, in contrast to the Chilean inlay technique. Again, Antoinette worked collaboratively with Balinese artisans to combine their gifts in stone-setting with additional metal-working techniques for hinged jewelry. This collaboration resulted in new designs featuring Acleoni’s signature hinged jewelry with translucent cabochons – unique pieces featured in the popular Voluptuous Curves collection. Antoinette recently introduced the stunning Integration Collection, which combines bezel-set faceted gemstones and inlaid stones in her signature silver-hinged jewelry in truly new, trendsetting combinations. She reports that the Integration collection, available in a variety of stones and colors for all seasons, has been “flying out of stores as soon as our customers receive it!” Antoinette, who has traveled extensively in South America, the Mediterranean, and Southeast Asia, is continually seeking new inspiration for her designs from ancient and contemporary cultures. She is fascinated with the significance of jewelry as adornment through human history, and is committed to producing fine, unique jewelry that can be passed down from generation to generation. In addition, she endeavors to work sensitively with her artisan colleagues from other cultures, and to maintain environmentally conscious business practices. She explains, “We at Acleoni Designs see ourselves as participants in a larger web of interconnectedness. Our goal is to create links between artisans and the public, between past cultures and the present, between traditional techniques and modern technological advances, and between beautiful gifts from the earth and modern consumers.”