Hunting for Historical Treasures With Ileana Makri

LONDON — Last August, when the British Museum revealed that 2,000 precious items worth millions of pounds had been stolen from its collection, they weren’t referring to the Edo-era Japanese porcelain elephants, Native American medicine masks or Anglo-Saxon swords on display.

Instead, they were forced to tell the world that classical Greek and Roman jewelry made from gold and colored glass, some featuring carved initials, inscriptions or intricate designs such as lions’ heads, had been stolen, likely by museum insiders. And the race was on to get them back.

The scandal prompted the resignation of the museum’s director and deputy director, and proved that ancient jewels are still hot property, gripping the collective imagination and offering an instant gateway to the past.

Ileana Makri is one designer who instinctively understands the appeal of a serpentine ring, an evil eye charm or a bracelet that fits like a shower of gold on the wrist.

Although her Made in Greece contemporary designs would be out of place in the glass cabinets of the British Museum, they carry an old world, archaeological charm befitting a designer who lives in central Athens, a short walk from the Acropolis.

Her signature Tile collection, with bracelets, necklaces, rings and earrings made from square slivers of gold, could have been pulled straight from a glittering Byzantine or Greco-Roman mosaic. Instead they reference a more recent era, the 19th century.

“Those shapes are inspired by the stone tiles they were cutting by hand in the old times in the cities in the north of Greece and in Salonika,” Makri said over a coffee at a private club in London. “My grandmother’s street was set, by hand, in those tiles and this is the pattern I wanted to recreate.”

Makri, who launched men’s jewelry earlier this year, is taking those tiles in new directions, and soon plans to turn them into cuff links.

Other designs have similarly humble origins — and historic flair. There is the Evil Eye collection based on a symbol of protection that dates to ancient Greek and Roman eras. Other collections have names such as Grass, Snake and Cascade, offering jewelry that could easily have belonged to Cleopatra.

Even Makri’s new Globetrotter collection reveals her fascination with the past. During lockdown, Makri dusted off a trunk that she’d been filling with beads, trinkets, bits of glass and various charms from her round-the-world travels, and started building necklaces and bracelets with a bohemian edge.

She has since scaled up the operation and is now making jewelry from precious and semiprecious gems, stones and striped agate Tibetan beads, with Mr Porter among the retailers that carry the unisex collection.

Makri said her clients have begun to mix her fine jewelry designs with the beads, hanging trinkets and pendants on gold chains with diamond clasps. “It’s becoming a layering story,” she said.

From the beginning Makri’s designs have always had a handmade, organic edge.

She began her career in retail, opening a concept store in Athens called Mageia that carried fashion, art and jewelry.

“It was the first concept store in Athens with a combination of my one-of-a-kind pieces of jewelry, Smythson stationery, old Venetian glass, candles and different things I felt would make an interesting environment,” Makri said of the store, which has since shut.

She launched her jewelry brand in 1998 after studying at the Gemological Institute of America in Santa Monica, Calif., and got her big break after a buyer at Barneys New York spotted the delicate, sparkly Thread rings she was wearing during a visit to the store.

Makri had come up with the idea of the Thread collection after gazing in horror at the chunky, diamond-studded bands she saw her friends in Athens wearing.

She wanted to create something completely different from those “heavy, vulgar” designs, and asked one of her workshops to find “the smallest diamonds in the market,” the leftover, undesirable rocks which she would later mount on the thinnest of gold bands and wear in stacks on her fingers.

In blind faith Barneys deposited more than $100,000 into Makri’s bank account and asked her to whip up a collection of stackable rings and bracelets with stones in a rainbow of colors set in precious metals.

Twenty-five years later her designs are still attracting buyers, with the collection launching a few weeks ago at Bergdorf Goodman.

“We have been waiting for just the right time to bring Ileana Makri to Bergdorf’s, and that time was now,” said Linda Fargo, senior vice president of the fashion office and the director of women’s fashion and store presentation at the store.

She added that Makri’s jewelry pairs “perfectly” with the more timeless spirit of fashion today.

“Her pieces are less about wearing them only occasionally for special moments and more about wearable, versatile designs, which can be worn day and night, with a wide range of fashion. Real jewelry for real women with real lives to live.

“Ileana has built a quiet cult following. The people who have collected it know that these are investments which bring beauty into their lives and amortize themselves through the frequency with which they are worn,” Fargo added.

Earlier this month, Fargo hosted a dinner in Makri’s honor with guests including Ashley Olsen, Lisa Marie Fernandez, Paul Andrew, Louis Eisner, Priscilla Ratazzi and director Zoe Cassavetes, with whom Makri collaborated on a capsule collection of jewelry marking the 200th anniversary of Greek independence.

In the past, Makri has also designed jewelry for The Row and for Marios Schwab’s runway collections.

She continues to sell through her stand-alone stores in Athens and Tokyo.

The Athens store, which opened in 2014, is a cool, minimalist delight designed by the architect Stelios Kois in the swanky shopping neighborhood of Kolonaki. The Tokyo store is located at the Ginza Six shopping center.

Makri said her travels continue to inspire the new, one-of-a-kind pieces she’s been creating, as well as the more informal Globetrotter styles.

Makri said her trips to India in particular have become like oxygen. “I find so many little treasures there that I can transform into a piece of jewelry. I let the stones lead me to the designs,” said the designer, who is always on the lookout for a pathway to the past.