Fashion Designer of the Year 2024: Jeanie Andronyk

From the beginning, jewellery designer Jeanie Andronyk has loved creating items with her bare hands. Growing up on a farm in northern Alberta meant ample opportunities for hands-on creativity: from using leftover wax from the wood stove to form candles to weaving old ribbon markers she collected from gas pipelines, she spent her childhood making. But it wasn’t until she moved away that her innate creativity became a realistic career path, too.

“In a small town, jewellery designer was never an option; it was something I had to feel my way into,” the designer explains. She was drawn to rocks and minerals, so she picked up work at a semi-precious gem wholesaler in Edmonton, where she eventually met jewellery designer Leanne Gallagher of Salt Spring Island’s Queen Bee Design. Soon enough, Andronyk was learning basic silversmithing, soldering and production. From there the designer completed a two-year diploma with master goldsmith Gerold Mueller at the Vancouver Metal Art School, where she experimented with “out-of-the-box, sculptural pieces.” Simultaneously, Andronyk worked at JewellerBau, a gallery in Vancouver owned by Dina Gonzalez Mascaro, who, along with her partner, took the designer under her wing and provided a space for her to showcase the very jewellery that informs the type of work she creates today.   

Take the Drift ring, a non-traditional solitaire-style ring that celebrates the use of handheld tools to create something not only captivating in design but also ergonomic and balanced in its wearability. “Even if it’s a finer piece, I don’t want it to look too delicate… I want it to be substantial,” Andronyk notes. Her pieces aren’t fussy, and can withstand heavy wear despite the raw elegance that judge Karyna Schultz of Neighbour described as having a “brutalist quality that appeals.”     

When a sudden renoviction from the designer’s Vancouver apartment coincided with the end of school, she took the opportunity to move to a tiny town in Southwest Saskatchewan. “I missed the space to breathe and the magic of the country, where rural simplicity can breed creativity in unexpected ways,” she says. And it did: upon relocating, our 2024 Western Living Fashion and Jewellery Designer of the Year officially founded the eponymous Andronyk Studio.

Andronyk’s gender-neutral, sculptural pieces are also constructed with responsibility in mind. The designer is a member of Ethical Metalsmiths and Andronyk Studio is a Fairmined Gold licensed brand, which means pieces like the Prism ring are not only avant-garde and substantial in their design, they’re ethical and sustainable in their impact, too. Judge Gabrielle Bayona of Truvelle praised Andronyk for the move. “With solid gold jewellery becoming more popular,” she noted, “the use of not only recycled gold but also ARM-certified gold (Alliance of Responsible Mining) makes this collection a cut above—prioritizing ethical sourcing without sacrificing on style.”    

The designer embraces the concept of “phygital” items—ones that exist both physically and digitally. In the case of the Aeon collection, inspired by AI, each sculptural ring has a unique NFT (what Andronyk calls “digital assets”). “Each of the [digital] artworks I’ve created is a section of the physical ring, and then I’ve created a world around it in the digital space.” Details about the piece are also embedded in the metadata of the digital asset, linking the two together on the blockchain where, according to the designer, it can live forever.

“The concept of permanence is so important to me, because my work is always evolving,” she says. “It’s not a prim and pretty thing—it’s something that will evolve with you. As you wear a piece it will slowly polish up… or it will gain scratches, but it’s meant to collect those little memories. It’s truly yours that way.”

Q&A with Jeanie Andronyk

Who’s a Western Canadian designer whose work you admire?

Edmonton’s Vikki Wiercinski. She  can combine elements and shape  and colour in her patterns in a way  that I am always struck by. It’s easy  to become happily lost in her work.

What’s your go-to material?

Gold. Always gold. As a material,  it’s so full of history and I feel like it comes alive when you work with it.  It’s durable and buttery and delicious and powerful and oh-so-gorgeous.

What books are on your nightstand right now?

Right now I’m re-reading The Incal,  a graphic novel by Alejandro  Jodorowsky. It’s everything you  want in a metaphysical sci-fi  comedy/drama, and it inspired  the film The Fifth Element!

What do you think is the most  perfectly designed object?

I have a Barunson Techno 1000 mechanical pencil from my childhood that I can’t live without and is still  perfectly new. The weight, pocket  clip and click are all so satisfying, and the chrome details are super sharp.

Photo by Coda Creative Studio

READ MORE: Meet Western Living’s Designers to Watch in 2024