In Conversation with Jovana Djuric
Tell us about your background:
I am the founder and creative director of my eponymous jewelry brand of sculptural jewelry, and a multidisciplinary artist and educator.
Formerly a designer for Givenchy, I launched my collection of sculptural jewelry with a new perspective onto the jewelry world. My pieces are wearable sculptures that rest on the body and complement its everyday movement. I am a Serbian-born multi-media artist and jewelry designer based in New York City. My designs are a response to a cluttered world, where I seek to clear your hand and clear your mind with refined forms of my statement jewelry.
The driving force behind my designs is the idea that a piece of jewelry created in metal will last forever. That resilience gives me focus and the determination to create pieces that are as timeless as the women who wear them. Pieces that inspire and provide power within the wearer. Jewelry that demands focus, while serving as a medium of focus itself.
What do you wish you’d known when you started out?
When I was starting out, I wish I’d known how to choose better who I give my time to. Like with anything in our life, we work hard to seek out opportunities, and we sometimes give equal attention to each of them, thinking that we are creating a situation where they might lead to something beneficial to us. But I now know the opposite to be the truth, at least for me. As much as reaching out and creating opportunities is important, even more important is to really hone in on what is that one, or two things you want, people you want to talk to, stores you want to work with etc. and just keep that course. There is something so powerful in knowing and acting upon your boundaries, or as I prefer to say your authentic self, and not really stepping out of it, while also not being rigid and staying permanently open.
Best career advice you've ever received?
I have to admit, which is not easy, that I was always very stubborn, and always preferred to learn from my own mistakes. And I rarely asked the questions of “How did you get there?” where I wanted to go. So I don’t have the best career advice, at least not the one that had a pivotal value in my career. But there is one that I never knew what to do with but that always lurked from the back of my mind: “Put your marketing hat on” told to me by a life time sales person and a deal maker.
I am however merging it with the true intention behind my work and now this advice resonates in a different way: where marketing becomes sharing, storytelling and community building.
What leadership qualities are important to you?
The most important leadership qualities for me are Self-awareness, kindness and willingness to listen and correct the course if necessary. There is nothing that says a Leader to me more than one’s stability and presence. There is nothing to prove, only to acknowledge and guide.
What has been the biggest challenge in your career so far?
The biggest challenge in my career has been to merge and give a full expression to the richness of my interests that I have in regards to creative projects, products and opportunities. There is a need to focus, but also to expand within it, and I’ve been keenly focused on that. It is still a source of the greatest pleasure and the pain, strength, and sense of weakness in my career.
And for fun, what is your favorite wardrobe staple?
My wardrobe staples are jeans and button-down oversized shirts, that I spike with my Horus rings, Hats, and scarfs. I love the sense of movement and freedom that these elements bring to me.
LinkedIn URL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jovana-djuric-441b0aa/
Website: www.jovanadjuric.com
Instagram: @jovanadjuricnyc
