Greenwood Village-based Tiffany Bausch Weld has crafted jewelry since before she can recall. “I don’t remember a time that I wasn’t stringing things together,” she says.
Since Tiffany was a child, her grandfather Fiore taught her to strand rocks and shells into jewelry. “By the time I got to college,” Tiffany says, “I was proficient in hemp necklaces.”
Tiffany honors the earth and self-love with her online store Fiore Wylde, which she launched in March 2020 to sell her ceramic art, along with silver and gold rings, bracelets, necklaces and earrings set with hand-chosen gems. Constructing jewelry with fine metals and stones that last a lifetime, Tiffany creates pieces that “brighten your face and shine your light,” she says.
For 13 years, Tiffany designed and directed collections for various New York fashion houses like Banana Republic, Club Monaco, J. Crew and Ippolita, where she mentored under and worked with the Italian jewelry designer and artist.
When she’s not making jewelry, Tiffany loves playing with mud in the ceramics studio and sells several ceramic hand sculptures on her website.
“I love how each hand is crafted by my hands,” Tiffany says. “Hands are powerful makers and communicators.” They also hold things for us, which is why Tiffany has designed her ceramic hands to cup crystals or sit on an end table holding a selenite crystal clearing wand.
With other jewelry companies using cheap, impure or plated metals that aren’t healthy for human skin or the planet, Tiffany recommends saving money for a meaningful piece, one that’s good for the environment with real stones and silver or gold.
“I don’t just want to make gold-plated pieces like everyone else,” Tiffany says. “Our purpose is to stop the landfill trash of meaningless jewelry.”
Fitting with one of Fiore Wylde’s mission statements to promote craftsmanship, Tiffany works to create a welcoming industry for other jewelry entrepreneurs, especially since some industry participants can be guarded about where they manufacture and supply their pieces from.
Tiffany says the trade’s secrecy is almost ancient, dating back to when sapphire miners kept deposit locations hush-hush in order to hide their inventory from others. Because of this gatekeeping, it’s possible that at a gem show a buyer might unknowingly purchase a fake or chemical-processed stone.
To help combat this confidentiality, Tiffany has built a team of trustworthy partners to create a transparent process. She works with a reputable couture production house in New York City for her custom pieces.
For the Fiore Wylde line, she produces jewelry with women-owned manufacturers based in Thailand and Bali who share the same mission of integrity. They use recycled, traceable gold and silver, know the mines their stones come from and the journey their materials take to market.
“These choices to make jewelry in a healthy, ethical environment absolutely impact the quality,” Tiffany says, “and most importantly, give the customer the power to support better practices.”
