Every piece of jewelry we create is designed and handcrafted in Bali by Ngurah, our master craftsman. He works on a small desk, tools scattered like breadcrumbs of intention, wax in hand. He carves for days — sometimes months — until the piece begins to speak: an artfully shaped derrière, the curl of a ram’s horn, Venus rising from sea foam.
This is where it begins: not with a click, but with touch.
Every company has their own Ngurah. But in many cases, that entity is no longer human. It’s a machine. A program. A supercomputer capable of producing perfection — yet incapable of creating something that moves you to feel.
3D printing and CAD have changed the jewelry world. It’s faster, cheaper, repeatable, scalable. That’s every capitalist business woman's dream, isn’t it?
Not for us.
We make jewelry with skin in the game — flawed, fierce, feeling skin.
THE SACRED RITUAL OF WAX
Also known as cire-perdue, lost wax metal casting dates back to the 3rd millennium BC. It’s a process where molten metal is poured into a mold formed around a hand-carved wax model. The wax is melted out — sacrificed — so the metal can take its place. The piece you wear exists because something else was given up for it.
Every CARINA HARDY piece goes through this ritual. No exceptions.
Our 18K Pavé Pendant — bold and unapologetic — took over 100 days to carve. There were multiple versions. Wax carved away, adjusted, reconsidered. A computer might’ve done it in five minutes. But would it have felt the same on your skin? Would it have carried the same soul?
A CASE FOR IMPERFECTION
There’s a kind of honesty in hand-carving that machines just can’t imitate. Slight asymmetries. Natural textures. Tiny, in-the-moment decisions. All of it adds to the identity of a piece. When you wear something carved by hand, you’re not wearing a replica. You’re wearing something original.
It’s tempting in our industry to chase consistency at scale — to flatten the process so the result is always identical. But sameness isn’t always a strength. In fact, the pieces our clients love most are the ones that feel a little different — the ones that remind them someone, halfway across the world, shaped it slowly, purposefully, and with care.
BECAUSE WE CARE, WE CARVE
Our Diamond Embrace Earrings — crafted in solid 18K recycled gold, stone-set in Bangkok with responsibly sourced diamonds — cradle the ear so gently, you could sleep in them and forget they were there.
The Chasm Three-Part Station Bracelet, made from recycled sterling silver and precision set with brown and black diamonds, doesn’t interrupt your movement — it flows with it. It lives as part of you, not apart from you.
And our Woman of Willendorf Pendant, cast in solid 18K gold, is playfully grounding. It invites touch, spin, and presence — anchoring you in the moment, and in the body you call home.
We still carve in wax because we believe jewelry should be deeply human. And deeply human jewelry can only be made by human hands.
PRESERVING THE CRAFT IN THE DIGITAL WORLD
Hand-carving isn’t fast, it doesn’t scale easily, and it’s certainly not the cheapest way to make jewelry. But it keeps us close to our craft.
At the core of CARINA HARDY is a shared belief between Tavish and I: that beauty is more than surface. It’s a force — one that shapes how we feel, how we connect, how we live.
Our philosophy is built around seven quiet reflections that guide our work:
-
Experiencing beauty requires vulnerability.
-
Beauty communicates fundamental truths.
-
Beauty makes us feel and think things we haven’t felt or thought before.
-
Sharing beauty can compound the power of beauty.
-
Beauty pulls us outside of ourselves, rooting us in the present moment — the only place we are free.
-
A relationship or dialogue with beauty is a meditative practice in service of presence.
-
In a shared experience of beauty, we can find a vocabulary of love.
These reflections shape how we carve, how we design, how we photograph and present every piece.
Wax forces us to slow down and to stay present. To make space for something deeper to emerge. There’s no perfection filter or undo button. Just us, the tools, the material, and the message we’re trying to send through form.
In a world that’s increasingly automated, we think that kind of connection still matters.
We don’t wish to make jewelry that just looks good in a photo. We strive to create jewelry that feels meaningful in real life. The time, effort, and skill poured into each carving is what gives our pieces their presence. You can’t fake that, and you can’t rush it.
JEWELRY THAT'S FELT, NOT JUST SEEN
In the end, we carve in wax not because it’s easy, but because it’s worth it. Because we believe that what you wear should embody what and who you are.
If this speaks to you, we invite you to explore our work — to see it, touch it, feel it, and discover the story it holds.