Getting to Know Corina
This International Women's Day, we have decided to flip the script on this series and spotlight one of our own. We are so excited to pull back the curtain and give you a glimpse of Corina at Home, an afternoon with Single Stone co-owner & designer Corina Madilian.
At Single Stone, we have the pleasure of working with so many inspiring women, and we hope to introduce more of them to you throughout this year. But in honor of International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, our team wanted to highlight our talented leader. Creating jewelry with meaning is a core part of our brand, and Corina is the biggest champion of that value. Whether or not you’ve had the pleasure of meeting her, we hope this interview will offer more insight into the heart and soul of our collection.
Who is Corina?
Single Stone co-owner and designer - in partnership with her husband Ari - and a highly involved mom, Corina is truly The Woman Who Does it All. She also owns our flagship store, Single Stone San Marino, and our sister store Serafina, a multi-brand lifestyle boutique. She maintains a very hands-on role in the day to day operations of all three brands and is likely already known to many of you as she can usually be found at one of our stores or meeting Single Stone clients in other regions at our trunk shows.
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A LITTLE ABOUT Corina...
The three things I never leave home without are:
Dr. Hauschka lip balm, mascara on my lashes and some form of a scarf or wrap.
The person I look up to most is:This is a hard one for me… there are many individuals who I admire for different reasons. I don’t think I could name just one.
New York. Not because it is the most beautiful but because of the energy I feel when I’m there. There is always such a buzz in the air and it stirs my creativity. I also love being in such a diverse and multicultural environment.
The best meal I ever ate was:Anyone that knows me knows I am not that particular about food but I am about the environment when I’m consuming it. I absolutely love the warmth and coziness of La Mercerie in NY and Mozza in Los Angeles. I love to sit at the mozzarella bar and just watch Nancy Silverton and her crew create dishes that are not only delicious but beautiful as well.
On my days off, you’ll find me:Probably driving my kids around to their activities and then landing somewhere for lunch. It’s always something familiar, where we can sit outside to enjoy the California sun. I love recapping on the week’s activities and getting mentally prepared for the week ahead.
I never really had a certainty about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I just knew that it was important to do something I loved and that it needed to involve working with people. In an ideal world, I may have pursued architecture – I love the idea of designing homes for people and am fascinated by what we can build. I also wish I had been encouraged to pursue my creative side more when I was younger. This is something I didn’t realize about myself until I was a bit older. Luckily, I landed somewhere perfectly suited for me. Single Stone has allowed me to pursue my creativity as well as my more analytic business mind. And, working with clients is a dream.
I keep a work/home life balance by:What is this? Just kidding. I think I live my life very much like I run my business – with high standards and an order to things. I am a structured individual that takes great pleasure in doing the things I do. Each facet of my life is lived with love and care. When I am home, I like to give my family my all – we focus on our time together through even the simplest tasks, like cleaning up the kitchen after our daily meals. When I am at work I concentrate on what we need to accomplish. Sure, tasks sometimes overlap and spill over but the end goal is always the same and I don’t let anything overwhelm me for too long. Tomorrow is another day.
Now let’s talk jewelry…
I got into designing jewelry:
When I joined my husband and partner in Single Stone. Ari had already been restoring vintage jewelry and was a supplier of vintage diamonds to the trade. Coming on board, I had an idea of the direction I saw our company going and what we should work towards. Our philosophy at Single Stone has always remained the same, to create beautiful, timeless jewels that allow us to repurpose original, antique diamonds.
I love them all! Jewelry is so personal and each piece that has entered my collection has been because I have felt a personal connection to it. There is not one piece more precious than the other. Each is important for its own sentimental reason.
My biggest point of pride in our collection is:
I am most proud of the fact that we have not compromised our design aesthetic, our use of vintage stones or the standard that we apply when producing our jewelry. Ari likes to say that I am our hardest critic – the quality of our work is super important to me and something that I don’t take for granted or like to skimp on. Our team is made up of artisans that are great at what they do and know that we will apply the strictest level of quality control when we produce each piece.
Los Angeles is our home. We like being connected to each jewelry piece being made and to work with our artisans to ensure the quality of our production is never compromised. We would also like to encourage more individuals to consider jewelry making as a craft and career. As the areas surrounding Los Angeles’s jewelry district are being redeveloped, the jewelry district is shrinking. With that, we are seeing that the craft of jewelry making is becoming less of a possibility for creative individuals that may have considered this as a career.
First of all, I love the beauty and individualism of antique stones. Knowing that each piece was cut by hand therefore rendering each a one-of-a-kind is pretty spectacular. Second, I love the romance of antique diamonds. The idea that antique diamonds were cut to showcase their beauty in the glow of candlelight really resonates with me and inspires true magic. And lastly, the use of antique diamonds is the only true proponent of ethical practice in modern jewelry. Less than 1% of the world’s diamonds are antique diamonds and giving new life to stones that were cut over 100 years ago is the only way to achieve this.
