A diamond found in Petra. A Bedouin nick-name. A creative spark in Paris. A Hawaiian ocean inspiration. An adventure in the Yucatan. A discovery in India. A love song to the Moon …
The GAMAR Story – much like my life story– begins in the desert.
When I was 6-years old, my family took a trip to the ancient Nabatean site of Petra in Jordan, one of the 7 Wonders of the World. The only way to reach the archaeological site is via a long walk through the iconic siq – a narrow, winding canyon of rose-red sandstone cliffs that serves as the dramatic main entrance. After walking for a while, my little legs became tired and I sat down on a natural stone ledge jutting out of the siq wall. As I put my hand down on the ledge, I felt something hard under my fingers. Picking up the object, I discovered that I had a perfectly formed, beautifully faceted diamond in my hand! I was stunned – it felt like this surreal corridor had offered me a little gem of magic. My father said that when we got back to the hotel we could determine if the diamond was real or not by testing to see if it could cut glass. I closed my little hand tightly around the diamond, guarding it like it was the most sacred treasure, and continued to walk on.
A little while farther, I again grew tired and my father put me on his shoulders to carry me the rest of the way. As we emerged out of the siq, into the full sunshine and out in front of the mesmerising Treasury building – the famous towering façade carved directly into the cliff face – my father set me down on the rocky ground below us. But as my feet landed on the uneven surface, I lost my balance and instinctively opened up my hands to brace myself against a fall. The diamond fell from my grip. I immediately dropped to my knees and scrambled to search for it, but the little gem had slipped between the millions of time-smoothed pebbles, falling back deep into the Earth.
I had lost my diamond.
I could never test to see if the diamond was real or not, but to this day I maintain that it was.
16 years later I returned to Jordan as a 22-year-old, working on bio-cultural heritage projects in the Red Sea Region. During a horseback tour of the Siq al-Barid ruins just outside of Petra – golden hills carved with kilometres of quiet life – I befriended my Bedouin guide. He told me he was nicknaming me Gamar because I reminded him of the moon.
I didn’t realise it at the time, but this name was symbolically the second diamond I had received in Petra ...
Fast forward another 16-years (as if the universe was spacing things out deliberately) when I first dreamed up the idea of starting a Jewellery line in my friend’s kitchen in Paris. “Let me email you what we brainstormed”, he said. I gave him my email address (which was the name Gamar), and without even knowing the back-story, he immediately declared “that’s your brand’s name!”. He was right – it was unquestionably THE name.
In the Bedouin language, Gamar means both moon and beauty, reflecting perfectly the key qualities and inspirations behind my designs.
As the daughter of a marine biologist, I have grown up and worked in ten countries across five continents, and travelled through dozens more. My childhood in the Middle East, Africa and Hawaii was spent exploring underwater kingdoms, wild savanna and vast mystical deserts. I was also always drawn to learning about the cosmo-visions, spiritual traditions and artistic legacies of my host cultures. Natural and cultural landscapes became my magical playgrounds of discovery, undoubtedly influencing my own internal landscapes.
I remember running over the sand dunes in Namibia, uncovering rose quartz and amethyst with my footsteps; getting happily lost in the bazaars of Oman, climbing over mountains of carpets and sifting through golden treasures; and resting – in awe – under vast star-filled skies, always tuning towards the moon, which became my connection to home, my centring of self.
For me, the moon offers constancy amid change. No matter where I am in the world physically, or where my loved ones are, we are always connected under the same moon. She is the symbol and soul of the sacred feminine, of embodied wisdom and intuition, a reminder of the forces (both internal and external) that participate in shaping our unique life journeys.
Following my work with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and my time in Jordan, life took many more enriching and international turns. I studied painting in New York and worked at the Museum of Modern Art. I moved to Mexico, trained with indigenous healers and helped open an award-winning luxury spa based on holistic and ancestral practice. This led to the creation of a community-based project to regenerate Mayan bio-cultural heritage in the Yucatan, which I ran for 6 years before deciding to focus full-time on my business and art. I now move between my home bases in Hawaii and Paris, while still allowing my imagination and nomadic spirit to adventure elsewhere for inspiration and artistic nourishment.
The thread running consistently through my life’s journey, is my deep reverence for the world’s sacred beauty. At the heart of GAMAR is my desire to uphold ancestral handmade technique and savoir-faire, as well as to give back to female Earth stewards who are working to protect our beautiful planet and its rich cultural traditions. I also aim to be as sustainable as possible in all my business operations, working with recycled gold and silver, ethically-sourced gemstones and choosing small family-run manufacturers that maintain an ethical core.
GAMAR Jewellery was born from a wish to celebrate this incredible planet that has given me so much — its ancient landscapes, its living cultures, its cosmological rhythms — and to honour the unique space and inherent beauty each one of us embodies within it. Guided by the moon and inspired by the sacred, my designs distil life's mystery, magic, and magnificence into beautiful wearable form. Connecting with the goddess within, GAMAR offers jewellery as ritual, adornment as devotion and beauty as sacred ceremony.
I invite you to join me on this unfolding journey (please scroll down to sign-up to receive my emails).
Wishing you inspiration, meaning & magic on your internal and external journeys,
~ Lauren Salm
