Even as she trained to become a classical dancer in the south of France, Delphine Leymarie’s business-minded father would remind her: You were raised to use all sides of your brain.
Years later, when injuries ended her dreams of a dance career, Leymarie moved onto her next passion project. No, it wasn’t jewelry—yet. It was math. Turns out, Leymarie was uniquely suited to use all sides of her brain, so she went to business school in New York and got a master’s degree in corporate finance.
“I always thought I’d go into marketing. But the thing that spoke to me was numbers,” Leymarie says. “I wanted to live in New York because of Broadway and the energy of the city.… So when I was 17, I took a quick trip there and fell in love with the city. I came back at 23 to pursue an MBA. Then, I never left. It was that simple. There wasn’t a plan or a grand scheme.”
It was a coworker at her corporate job who led Leymarie to jewelry. That work friend was an amateur metalsmith, and when Leymarie showed interest, they directed her to classes at the well-known 92nd Y in New York City. There, Leymarie tried wire wrapping and soon became one of the Y’s most regular student, spending all of her weekends there at the bench.
“The artist in me woke up again,” Leymarie says. “It was about movement and how that translates into form. I always wore jewelry—my mom always gifted it to me for birthdays—and I saw those gifts as emotional and precious.… I didn’t realize how important (jewelry) was until I started making it.”
She studied metalsmithing, enameling, chain-making, and wax carving. In summer 2011, Leymarie realized her weekend hobby had become a full-time job. She started at jewelry shows, traveled, dived more deeply into yoga and meditation, and she decided it was time to launch a brand of her own.
She started Delphine Leymarie Fine Jewelry and began her next phase of life using all of her brain, creating romantic, playful pieces that she hopes her clients adore as much as she does. She knows her parents do.
“My mom requests certain pieces, and that makes me so proud. My dad is proud of me and of the business side,” Leymarie says. “I’ve made them and myself proud.”
Ten years later, Leymarie says the leap into jewelry was the smartest thing she ever did, but it wasn’t without its challenges. There were times when, even with her mind for numbers, the business needed a lift. Friends within the industry and in other parts of her life, particularly her mentor, Elizabeth Bonanno from The EAB project, helped her reenvision her brand, and she says she is now better for it.
To mark her decade as a jeweler, Leymarie created a new line of her well-loved Confetti Lune collection. For her, the moon and its phases are a metaphor for life, and she enjoys expressing that through her jewelry.
“In life, there’s always going to be some ebb and flow,” Leymarie says. “But that doesn’t mean that everything ebbs and flows at the same time.… When you look at my career, it seemed great from the outside. I was in corporate life in New York. But I was traveling too much and not doing what I was meant to do.
“I brought more spirituality into my world because I needed to find myself again,” Leymarie says. “I needed to accept at my core that I was more of an artist than I was allowing myself to be. And that needed to be expressed.”
Today, this “French New Yorker” wants people to create their own personal journey with her jewelry—assembling the pieces in a way that tells their story, brings them joy, and shows that balance is a moving target.
“I don’t miss the corporate world at all,” Leymarie says.
Top: Delphine Leymarie was raised in the south of France, became a dancer, then moved to the United States to study corporate finance. She started making jewelry as a hobby, and the rest is history. Today, Delphine Leymarie Fine Jewelry is thriving (all photos courtesy of Delphine Leymarie).
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