There's a little surprise for you at the end of this post, so keep reading :)
Quite a while ago, I’ve written a blog post about ethical jewellery, on which I’ve received so many positive comments. Therefore I decided to continue this and show you one of my favourite brands, to share their story in value, sustainability and ethics. Today, we’ll talk about GLDN, an American jewellery brand focussing on giving back.
Let me introduce you to GLDN!
How GLDN started
GLDN was founded by Chrissy Lavdovsky. She started by collecting vintage jewellery that she’d remake into cool, new pieces to sell in her boutique. At that time she mostly sold clothes at the boutique. However, she enjoyed her time with making jewellery, so she decided to give this a try. Chrissy started with an online store on Etsy. This evolved so quickly, that she realised there’s an opportunity to build a business around it.
Let’s talk about the brand, the character, values and style.
GLDN believes you shouldn’t have to choose between – style or ethical production – price or quality – they believe you can have it all. Their promise is goodness. They assure consciously made pieces you can be proud to wear. They are made by good humans who are passionate about changing the world, one piece of jewelry at a time.
Concerning style and character, GLDN produces simple, versatile, quality jewellery that you can wear with anything. These pieces will be the kind of pieces that are your favourite for years. Besides that, they would like to create personal jewellery. They create meaningful pieces that touch your heart. GLDN also offers customised jewellery pieces to get it just right for you.
Lastly, they want to provide a better alternative to all that mass produced crap out there. They believe that ethical jewellery can be cool, high quality and affordable for everyone.
What about sustainability and the materials?
The raw materials are all from the USA, so GLDN can guarantee ethical practices.
Other than that, sustainability starts with using what you have. So when you buy a GLDN piece, you’ll be sure you’ll wear if for a long time. The quality is really good and the designs are timeless. I own a few necklaces, rings and earrings and they are definitely my favourite pieces of jewellery.
My tips when buying jewellery from GLDN
1. Decide what color you want to wear.
I love to wear gold coloured jewellery, so when I ordered from GLDN I looked for this color. Do you like wearing gold too, look for “gold fill” pieces instead of “gold plated”. This because they will last you longer. However, if you really want to make sure your jewellery doesn’t change colour over time, you should think of investing in solid gold.
If you rather wear silver, then the sterling silver will not change colour either.
Real gold and real silver will literally last you a lifetime.
2. Get your size right
Sizing might be difficult, especially if you are used to the European system in centimeters instead of inches. However, Google has been my best friend in translating the inches to centimeters. Also, the GLDN sizing guides for necklaces and bracelets, are super helpful.
For the sizing of the rings I’ve used this sizing chart. I’ve put the rings I already had on the circles of the template. But you have to make sure the page settings are 100% (not more or less), because otherwise it doesn’t work! I have pretty big fingers and wear a size 9 on my ring fingers.
3. Pricing, purchasing and discount codes
The prices are all in American dollars. Later this will be converted to Euros (if you’re from the EU, like me). You have to pay custom fees/taxes when the item arrives, but you don’t have to pay them on their website. In The Netherlands the customs take samples at random. This means: when you’re lucky, you don’t have to pay them at all.
Handmade items take time, so you don’t have to expect your items arrive within a day. Nevertheless, I think GLDN is super fast and within two weeks I’ve received my beautifully hand made goodies.
