Adriana Carrig knows part of the fun when shopping for jewelry is the pursuit of special pieces that really speak to you, and she’s sharing ones that she has found in her new online brand Heart Pieces.
Carrig recently debuted Heart Pieces alongside her two primary companies: the highly successful bead bracelet business Little Words Project and its demi-fine spin-off, Little Layers.
The new company offers customers limited-time drops of vintage and antique jewelry, generally costume or demi-fine, that Carrig curates from her personal collection and organizes in themes. It’s the perfect business venture, she says, for using her vintage expertise and honoring her family’s jewelry legacy.
Carrig’s grandmother Marian Botti was co-owner of Lisa Jewels, a brand that specialized in costume jewelry parties. Carrig says she searches flea markets, antique shops, and thrift stores for pieces her grandmother sold through Lisa Jewels as well as for items she personally wants to wear.
“I just love thrifting. I love the find. I love the hunt. And I love the sale,” says Carrig, who started collecting jewelry when she was a child. “I joke that Heart Pieces is the result of an intervention. My husband told me I had to get rid of some of my collections.”
The most recent Heart Pieces drop centers on cameos and Victorian styles, loosely based on the jewelry seen on Netflix’s wildly popular Bridgerton series (which just began streaming Season 3). Customers are eager to snag pieces before they sell out or Carrig removes them from the site, she says.
“I wanted it to be at an accessible price point that enables people to play in vintage,” Carrig says. “One of the things I love about vintage jewelry is the picking—it’s playful. There’s nothing more fun than digging around someone’s jewelry box.”
She also enjoys researching the stories behind the brands she discovers and introducing classic costume jewelry companies, such as Trifari, Monet, and Pididdly Links, to a new generation of jewelry lovers.
As vintage jewelry is the ultimate way to recycle with style, Heart Pieces appeals to customers who want to make sustainable purchases, Carrig says. Her longtime customers enjoy layering an antique bracelet or ring with a contemporary piece, such as a Little Words bead bracelet, she adds.
“I pitch it to my customer base at Little Words as the final touch you need for your stack. It’s breathing an old story into a modern-day look,” says Carrig.
In the future, Carrig hopes to take some of her curated Heart Pieces drops on the road, with trunk shows of vintage and antique jewelry at her Little Words stores—leveraging her network of retail locations to spread the word about the newer company.
Running three brands at once is challenging, Carrig says, but this is more than a job to her.
“I operate best at the edge of my gas tank. I love being busy,” she says. “It’s a lot of work, but this is the work that lights me up. I’m excited to sharpen my iron in the vintage world and in the buying and reselling space.”
Top: Cameos and other vintage pieces are curated by Adriana Carrig for her new jewelry line Heart Pieces. (Photos courtesy of Adriana Carrig)
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