You became interested in jewelry in India — how did that influence your design process and does it still influence your line today?
"Well, I was interested in jewelry my whole life, but when I was in India, they have so much beautiful jewelry, so I was like 'oh my god!,' and they had a jewelry-making class and I was living in an ashram and I had all this time to do... anything! So, I took a jewelry-making class and it was fun and then I started just making stuff and getting stuff made at jewelry stores. Then my friends loved it and I was like oh I should go and make more than one and find a manufacturer, but that was the hard part! I thought it would be easy but you can't get it made at a retail price. So I had to find a good wholesale manufacturer that was on my same page and that I could trust — it's like dating! Seriously! Because a lot of people look at your designs are are like, 'Haha, no way, this is stupid!'"

Really!?
"Well, everybody does different things. A lot of people in Asia, they don't even speak English, so it's tricky. And now I'm looking here in New York because traveling is nice, but it's hard to live and have a life. You know, with my dog and boyfriends — it's not the easiest thing."

Photographed by Michael Flores