Isabella Lalonde mostly makes pearl necklaces (there are also some tourmaline stones, handcrafted into silver mushroom charms, on her web store), but they’re very far removed from the ones you might have seen on your grandmother’s bureau growing up. Just take the personified descriptions that she writes for them on her website: Venom II, a necklace that threads together forest green and lilac pearls and is finished off with a cross-like glass pendant in the center, “grew up in a forest, was raised by deers, and loves the smell of lavender.”
Lalonde, who is 23, grew up between Switzerland, Paris, and New Jersey—her dad works in the fashion industry, and the family moved around a lot as he worked for different brands—and she went on to study fine arts at Parsons School of Design, where she dabbled in video art, performance art, painting, illustration, and bookmaking. She first started experimenting with precious metals while taking an experimental jewelry class at Central Saint Martins, but after brief stints working in Vogue’s fashion closet and for Dior’s media team, she’s committed herself even further to the practice in her free time. She currently has a full-time gig at Helmut Lang as a graphic designer, but still finds spare hours to work in a glass-blowing studio to create the mushroom and devil charms that dot her necklaces, as well as to source the vintage Louis Vuitton charms and beads she likes to weave throughout her designs.