This feature was shown on 'The Gallarija' by Ms. Miriam Galea.

If you’re looking for jewellery that’s unique and unusual, check out Dimara Creations, a jewellery-making venture born from three women’s love for fashion and the arts. Miriam Galea speaks to Josianne Vella about this new enterprise.

Even in today’s mass-driven world, there are people who have retained enough innocence and sanity to sill pursue their whims and individual dreams and make something out of them. This is the case of Josianne Vella, Claire Galea and Charmaine Attard Bezzina, three women who share a passion for creating and a flair for fashion, which led them to start their own business together. Josianne, Claire and Charmaine spend many hours together creating jewellery, and have just set up a website promoting their company, Dimara Creations, through which they are able to reach a wider clientele.

“Our interest in jewellery began some years ago. All three of us have a passion for the arts in general and we love fashion. Jewellery-making gave us the opportunity to make use of our artistic talents and have fun together. In our free time we used to meet and experiment with the materials we had at the time. After a year or so, we realized we had a product, so Dimara Creations was born!”

Two months ago the group launched its first collection which can be seen on their website, where each item is displayed professionally with a model wearing the earrings, bracelets and necklaces. “We like to think of our jewellery as a piece of art. This is in fact one of the reasons why we only make one item of each design,” explains Josianne, “And we don’t duplicate our work. We hope that each and every woman who wears our jewellery feels as unique as the jewellery itself.”

The three girls have known each other for a long time and so are an excellent team when it comes to working together. Josianne and Claire are sister, and Charmaine has been a friend for 15 years. “By now we know each other’s personality very well and we have learnt to cope with each other. We have tons of fun working together!” Josianne smiles. Claire and Charmaine became first interested in jewellery-making when they both attended a general course on beading. Their interest grew when they did more research on the topic and produced their first jewellery piece. “I obviously got hooked and we started doing costume jewellery for ourselves and friends,” Josianne tells me.

It was Claire who came up with the name, Dimara Creations, after long brainstorming sessions. The three women all liked it, as it has a Mediterranean sound to it and includes the word mara, which in Maltese means “woman”. Claire is the only full-time member of the trio. She does all the administrative work, day-to-day web maintenance and research. All three are interested in the arts; Josianne is into fashion and costume design, Charmaine loves painting and Claire enjoys making crafts. I ask Josianne about the process involved in their jewellery-making. The team starts by studying the fashion trends for the upcoming season. “We decide which trends and colours we would like to develop and we all do our research separately. In this way we come up with different ideas about what we would like to see in our collection. Once we have a clear picture in mind – and this usually takes a lot of time- we start looking for our materials.” The company orders all the materials from foreign suppliers, mostly from the UK. “Then it’s working on our designs and once these are ready, we start working on the practical side of it!”

Josianne, Charmaine and Claire are all mainly self-taught, although they regularly attend related courses, which provide them with new skills and techniques. Josianne also attended a number of courses on fashion design in Malta and at St. Martins’ College in London. They are always on the lookout for new ideas for designs and are currently already working on their next collection.

According to Josianne, the distinguishing features of their jewellery are the unique designs and the variety of gemstones that they use. “We try to make each piece as original and creative as possible. This is our first collection and so far we have had a very positive response.” I ask whether they make custom-made jewellery and whether clients order specific creations for particular occasions. Josianne is not overconfident. “The collections are our main line of work, although we do love a challenge once in a while! Clients do sometimes ask for specific pieces. At times we are limited with time since our materials have to come from abroad, but we do our best to satisfy our clients whenever we can.”

Therefore, if you are looking for an unusual item of jewellery for that special occasion , or even just to spice up your everyday wear, log on to Dimara Creations’ web site www.dimaracreations.com.

One thing you can be sure of: you won’t see anyone else walking around wearing your same jewellery!