[dropcap]E[/dropcap]llinor Stenroos had been sick at home all week, feeling tired and uneasy, but for the first time in a while she was excited. She stared at the TV screen with eagerness.
This was really happening, This was it, the moment she had been waiting for.
Her jewelry was going to be worn at the Oscars.
“It did feel really special to get to be part of it and kind of get into the excitement of the whole event. I don’t always watch the Oscars, the red carpet and all of that, but this time, I was like, ‘I’ve got to see the TV,’” she said.
Stenroos, a Calgary-based jewelry designer, had the opportunity to have her creations worn at the 2023 Oscars.
The Oscars aren’t just known for their Academy Awards but also for their glamorous red carpet fashion. To be a jewelry designer for some of the attendees is a huge accomplishment.
“I know the two ladies that were nominated and I was just sharing it with my partner because he didn’t know that we had Oscar nominees in Calgary,” said Stenroos.
The nominated ladies are the Calgary-based animation duo Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby.
“He just said, ‘Well, why don’t you ask if they need any jewelry?’ And I was like, what, that’s super ballsy, I’m not going to do that. But then I thought, ‘Well, maybe I should,'” said Stenroos.
Stenroos reached out and the nominee’s stylist contacted her, knowing what the ladies were going to wear.
“She selected a whole pile of (jewelry) and took it with her and then they got to go through it themselves and see what they felt comfortable wearing,” she said.
“They actually chose the most affordable things that I have, not like the really glitzy, big stuff.”
The duo was wearing black tuxedos and once the jewelry was paired with their outfits, they looked effortlessly chic.
“They were quite minimalist and quite modern,” said Stenroos.
Forbis enjoys wearing layered pearls with big chains. For the Oscars, she wore just that, pearls with chains and a pair of pearl earrings. She also wore two platinum and diamond rings.
“The chain that she ended up layering it with is something that I would wear myself, just on a regular day,” said Stenroos.
Tilby doesn’t have her ears pierced so Stenroos made her a pair of custom earrings out of pearls and rock crystals.
Due to the style of her shirt, she didn’t need to wear a necklace, but to add a little more detail, she decided to go with custom earrings. She also wore a little diamond eternity band.
Stenroos also sent multiple other pieces for the pair to wear to after parties and other events leading up to the Oscars.
“There were, I’m sure, another 10 pieces that I sent with them,” she said.
“There were some black pearl earrings, black pearl necklaces, just things that they could wear at some of the other occasions.”
While she enjoys making high-end jewelry, sometimes Stenroos can’t really afford her own work.
“If I’ve made a mistake and something doesn’t turn out exactly how it was supposed to be, then I take that piece for myself, but most of the time I create it specifically for the client,” she said.
However, she does like to occasionally indulge in her pieces.
“I’ve treated myself to a couple of pieces that are milestones, birthdays, or 10 years in business and things like that.”
Stenroos has come a long way in the industry.
As a child, she had always been playing with beads and making things in her dad’s garage workshop. She would break apart her mom’s necklaces and would restring them back together, sometimes without permission.
Because of this passion, she started taking a metalsmithing and silversmithing course when she was a teenager in her home village in Finland. She eventually fell in love with the art of jewelry design.
“After having worked more of a desk job straight out of high school, I kind of felt like I wanted to see if I could actually take a stab at doing it for a career,” said Stenroos.
“So I went back to school and studied just a general kind of art course, but with a focus on metalsmithing.”
After a year of art school in Finland, Stenroos moved to England to complete a university degree in silversmithing, goldsmithing and jewelry design. This led her to move to Calgary in 2005 and in 2010 she launched her own company.
“I absolutely loved it,” she said.
Stenroos has now been in business for almost 13 years and continues to follow her passions.
