How two sisters collaborate across continents to create beaded jewelry - St. Louis Magazine
Yuliana Erazo was in Colombia, coordinating global trade in meat for a multinational company, when she agreed to transfer to Chicago—where she fell in love with a colleague who was Dutch and Nepali and living in St. Louis. They decided it made more sense to follow his job, and quitting hers gave her the freedom to explore what interested her. Now she sells real estate, which is a part of her family history; her parents did it as a side job. But she’s also landed a side gig of her own, staying up until the wee hours to help her sister, Miller Erazo, start a jewelry company. It’s called Cattleya Handmade, after the orchids they loved as children.
I’m guessing it took a lot of courage for your sister to step back from her corporate law practice to string beads. She was under a lot of stress, and she’s always been good at art. She said, “I need something to help me manage the stress.” So last October, she started taking beadwork classes with my mom, and in December, she sent me some of her earrings. I got a lot of compliments, so I said, “Send some more, and we’ll see how people like them.”
And half a year later, she had enough orders for a full-time business? It was like a snowball. Today at 6 p.m. there are three people coming over who I don’t even know, but someone they know bought earrings and loved them. Instagram has also been a good way to reach people—and now I have an order from Holland!
The earrings you’re wearing—what inspired those colors? [She scrolls through her phone, shows me a photo of a lily.] This is what I sent her as a palette: deep purple, red, pink, and golden peach. I’ll say, “Can you do something with these colors?” and she’ll say, “Sure. What shape do you want?” [Yuliana sweeps a hand over the jewelry laid out on her dining table: ovals, rings, spheres, hexagons, squares, stars, teardrops, narrow pendants, even tiny faces.]
Love the little Frida Kahlos! I said, “I want flamingos and Fridas,” and she said, “Flamingos are very hard.” I said, “Well, make me a Frida.” I had a small obsession with Frida. Even with all the hardship she had to go through, she fought for what she wanted.
What’s the role of jewelry in our lives? Beauty is subjective; it’s how you’ve been raised to think of yourself. Jewelry is a way for you to express your pretty self; it’s what you like to wear, what makes you think, That’s me. What made my sister more passionate about this was the way she could personalize the orders: It makes her excited, because she’s always having to come up with new designs, new colors, and people are happy because they have the chance to choose for themselves.
And now she’s teaching, too? Her kids go to a private school that sponsors a school in a depressed area. The idea is for her to teach moms from that school how to make jewelry so they can learn an art, create a business, work their own hours. She said, “If we keep growing, we can be the ones giving them the job.”
