Responsible, traceable, honest — making your many moments lived a little bit more beautiful, while serving as more mindful stewards of our planet.
“Will there be enough water when my kids grow up?” That’s what my stepdaughter Mady asked me one night while watching a Netflix documentary together. As a new mom (my daughter Kaia is five months old, and Mady will turn eleven this month), business Founder and CEO, I’ve always been aware of the importance of living mindfully, while recognizing the impact of our daily actions, and how consumption shapes our future.
But it wasn’t until Mady posed that question with such honesty and clarity, that the urgency of the situation became personal. In that moment, we both recognized the next generation’s future was in our hands, and that all of us — no matter what our age or vantage point — have a responsibility to take it seriously. Ever since, I’ve been making even more little shifts and adjustments to the way my family lives and the way I run my business. I’ve found this works better for us than concentrating too hard on the big picture, which can start to feel overwhelming, really fast.
At Kinn, we’ve always been committed to the small-scale production of responsible, traceable, and honest jewelry. To take this commitment a step further, we now use recycled gold, and conflict-free, fair-trade gemstones in every piece we make. Created from existing jewelry, industrial metals, or electronic components, recycled gold is refined back to its purest elements, making it not only equal in quality to newly minded metals, but much more responsible.
We also work with a locally owned manufacturer here in Los Angeles — not only to have better control of the quality, but to ensure the people who make our jewelry are fairly compensated and working under safe conditions, too. The owners and their employees hold a special place in my heart; they’re immigrants, like I am, and it’s important to me that we support one another.
Through Kinn’s #repurpose project, we’ve also started breathing new life into old and inherited pieces. And our new concierge service invites customers to further extend the life and wearability of their existing jewelry — the most sustainable approach of all. Early next year, we’ll start taking a closer look at our packaging; not only in how we can reduce it overall, but to ensure what we do use is less of a burden on the environment.
It feels too lofty to claim individual contributions like these will change the world my daughters will inherit. So I don’t like to think of what we’re doing in that way. I like to think we’re helping make the many moments you’ll live just a little bit more beautiful, while doing our best to be more thoughtful and responsible stewards of our planet.
x, J—
Founder + CEO, Kinn
