The Style Story: Lauren Greenwalt of Loop Jewelry

For this week’s installment of The Style Story I had the pleasure of sitting down with a local designer whose art I have been buying and wearing since I moved to Portland a little over a year ago.

Lauren Greenwalt of Loop Jewelry uses steady rhythms, precise angles and her artistic instincts to create original jewelry in her Southeast Portland studio. Friendly and easy-going, Lauren treated me to kombucha and baked goods while we chatted about her business.

Seasons + Salt: Tell me about your jewelry line. In three words.

Lauren Greenwalt: Architecture. Art Deco. Simple.

How do you express yourself through your jewelry making?

For me, it’s definitely an art form. It calms me and centers me. There are even times when I’ve made sad pieces, and they’re just for me. When I am creating a shape or a design, I can’t really explain it, but it is something I am feeling. And sometimes, when I am creating a new piece, I hem and haw over it and I think, “I don’t know,” and then boom! I got it. And it’s this really great resonance. It’s like hitting a chord. Hitting the right note and it does something for your spirit. 

I love shapes, I love angles, they just speak to me. It’s musical.

How do you harness your creative inspirations when they hit?

I just have to get in there and do it. Sometimes if it’s late at night I try and take notes, but I think that if I don’t just get in there and do it, it wont happen.

What is your favorite part of the process?

Straightening and forming is really meditative. If I have a big order from a boutique, or it’s really busy, one of the things I really look forward to is sitting down and kind of going away and straightening my wire and forming the shapes. That is very centering.

What inspires you in your daily life?

I really love to go for walks with my dog. It just helps me unwind. I love the flowers. Architecture is a huge inspiration for me. I never realized how inspired by architecture I was until I started making jewelry. I often look at buildings and think, ‘oh this is just like huge pieces of jewelry.’

If you could design jewelry for any celebrity, who would it be?

I really want Angelina Jolie to wear one of my pieces, because I feel like she would like it. She’s sleek and elegant and she’s not frilly.

Tell me about your 2016 line.

This was my second year of really producing a line because I am pretty new to the jewelry scene. I knew I wanted to do something that was different from what I already had done. I needed something new. It had to be hard, it had to be different, I needed to push myself and my skill set. Bohemian style jewelry is really big right now, but I don’t want to do what everyone else is doing. So, what I decided to go with more of an Art Deco meets Bohemian sort of theme. I wanted to make fans and unfurling, blooming shapes because those are shapes that I just love.

What are your favorite pieces from your 2016 line?

I love the Large Plume necklace, to me it says “She’s queen, she’s warrior, she’s strong.” My mom is a feminist and I was definitely raised with that influence. And I think the Lariat is lightweight and easy to wear. I kept wanting to do a lariat for a long time, and then I realized you could wear these as back necklaces too.

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Before I got a chance to start the recorder rolling Lauren touched on an interesting parallel between jewelry and clothing designs. We were talking about copyrighting and design infringement and she pointed out that it’s a lot easier for copycat fashion to crop up from clothing designers than from jewelry designers – something we see all too often in the fast-fashion industry. Designers can trademark a logo and copyright a print or a design, but it’s a lot trickier to legally protect the design of a garment.

This awareness makes me all the more eager to shop small and support artists and designers directly as often as I can.

Lauren stocks her jewelry at a select number of retail shops around the country, or you can shop online at Loop Jewelry. To keep up with her latest designs be sure to follow her on Instagram or Facebook.

A big thank you to Lauren for sharing her story with Seasons + Salt! :)