My family has made inspirational handmade jewelry for over 65 years, and perhaps no symbol has been more important than the Guardian Angel. My grandfather had a strong belief in divine intervention, and it inspired a lot of the jewelry he created over the years.
He passed that inspiration and passion along to my father, who in the mid 1990s made a small pin with four Swarovski® crystals that resembled the silhouette of a Guardian Angel. Calling it the "Crystal Angel Pin", he went on to sell over 13 million of the pins in a 3 year period, and it remains one of the most successful inspirational jewelry items of all time.
He would always tell me, "this is the pin that everyone always keeps." Over the years, I witnessed firsthand how impactful and important this handmade pin was for people who either bought it for themselves, or received it as a gift. Like many things in life, he wasn't always right but he was rarely wrong!
When I started Luca + Danni, I stumbled upon a unique way to make a bracelet. Rather than have the charms hang off the bottom of a bracelet or have them wrap around a bracelet, I wanted to feature them prominently on the top of the wrist. My belief was simple — jewelry is a powerful form of self-expression and I believed that bracelets in particular were an important accessory to communicate moments that the wearer was going through in her life. With that belief, we started taking components that were typically used in jewelry manufacturing, but mixing them up in ways that hadn’t been done before.
Our first concept was based off of an angel wing that my father had made years prior. The piece was actually used on rosary bead style necklaces. What we found through some trial and error was that if we wire wrapped the angel wing on our signature Luca + Danni bracelet, the wearer had this beautiful handcrafted silhouette of an angel wing covering the top of her wrist.
It could represent the guardian angel that's always watching over you, and that no matter the situation or circumstances, you were going to spread your wings and fly! More importantly, I loved the fact that we were taking historical pieces from my family's jewelry archive and giving them a fresh, modern twist.
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