Lady LUX

From lawyer to designer may sound like a big leap. Rosena Sammi, however, believes that without her eight years as a lawyer, she wouldn’t be the successful jewelry designer she is today. The big difference: the wardrobe, she laughed.

“It’s amazing the amount of skills I learned while practicing law have really translated into being a designer. So much about being a designer is about being an entrepreneur and a businesswoman. It’s great to have great designs, but you’re not going to get them in front of buyers and you’re not going to get them in front of consumers unless you able to formulate and execute a good business plan,” she noted.

Sammi’s jewelry takes tradition and turns it on its ear. She appropriates conventional Indian pieces, which may be so ornate and heavy they are not practical to wear, and transforms them into something entirely modern yet still true to her South Asian roots.

“It’s something exotic. It’s something you can’t really put your finger on it but it’s a little unusual. It’s eye-catching but at the same time incredibly wearable,” she declared.

While learning a great deal from her days as a lawyer, she felt the stuffy atmosphere was stifling her creativity. The solution: night classes at Parsons School of Design.

“(The classes) fueled my creative passions and I slowly started to realize there was potential for me to take my hobby and turn it into a career,” she said, noting her long-held love affair with jewelry.

The change didn’t happen overnight. Her first baby steps were designing for her wedding and designing for her friends. It wasn’t until she was on a trip to India that she started to consider jewelry making seriously.

“(I started) meeting artisans and really getting involved in the holding of all the stones and the designing and figuring things out that’s when it really hit me and that’s one of the times that I thought this was real,” Sammi articulated.

via Rosena Sammi

Crediting her “relentless cold calling” as critical to her success, Sammi wasn’t scared to pick up the phone or knock down buyers’ doors. Her efforts landed her jewelry in front of the editors at Harper’s Bazaar, who liked her jewelry so much they featured it in their magazine. Her next lucky break came when a stylist dressing Naomi Watts saw one of Sammi’s necklaces and Watts wound up sporting the piece at a red carpet movie premiere.

“That was one of my very exciting moments. I was jumping up and down,” the designer reported. Today, her list of celebrity fans has grown impressively, with her chic necklaces, earrings and bangles attracting the attention of Rihanna, Jessica Simpson, Blake Lively, Miley Cyrus, Jessica Alba and Hilary Duff.

Drawing on her Sri Lankan and Indian heritage, Sammi takes the old and combines it with the new for something fun and unexpected, describing her jewelry as “a mix of South Asian tradition and culture with a New York twist.”

“I get inspired by what I need in my personal wardrobe,” Sammi explained. “One season I really had a passion for big cocktail rings, and I did maybe a dozen mostly by finding great stones and they inspire me. Other times it is a little more spiritual. Sometimes I do more Sanskrit and sandalwood, things that resonate with me at the time. Other times it is color, art that I see, these temples scenes with traditional ornate jewelry and I try to translate that into something wearable.”

Fashion is such a passion for the lawyer-turned-designer because she believes it allows women to express themselves.

“Especially coming from a legal background where it is so conservative and navy suits are the norm, I think that fashion gives you this wonderful opportunity to reinvent yourself every day,” Sammi noted.

In response to our current economic times, which demand cost-effective pieces, Sammi has evolved her materials, offering options in sterling silver, gold vermeil, semiprecious stones and silk threads, with pieces that can transition from day to night.

“(My jewelry targets) a woman like myself who is trying to balance everything, in terms of running to the office and then running to a cocktail party in the evening. It’s jewelry that can translate into many different venues. It’s adaptable and wearable,” she said. “It is something that is fun, but it is something that is also very elegant.”

Her Monsoon collection has been flying off the shelves, so to speak. With bangles, necklaces and earrings that feature fun, bright colors and wrapped gold threads, women can mix and match the styles, whether pairing with a long black cocktail dress or wearing to an enjoyable day at the beach.

“It’s a vast array of colors, so it is an opportunity to mix fuchsia and purple and turquoise and really make a statement,” she expressed. And it’s a statement you can make for accessible price points: The entire collection is priced under $50. Other popular items include her agate geo necklaces and earrings, which combine traditional Indian designs with cubic zirconia, again blending bright color with Asian culture.

Fashion is an outlet for her to articulate not just her creativity, but her very self.

“I love the ability to express myself, to see something start from an idea and then end up in Neiman Marcus,” Sammi said. “It’s an amazing feeling.”

And each season, of course, brings more new pieces down the pipeline. “Right now I’m excited to keep growing and keep putting out new pieces and stay tuned!” she exclaimed.

Check out all her chic pieces at www.rosenasammi.com.

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Fashion / Features