Model-turned-jeweller Aliya Lucas has found her passion project

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Jewellery designer Aliya Lucas is sporting seven rings when we meet over Zoom, but to her, that’s nothing. “I usually have every finger stacked with two or three,” she says from her Waterloo, Ont., studio, fluttering her hands to show off her “everydays.” They include a honey quartz in a ridged setting, a coral-inspired piece with tubular protrusions, and a wavy design in which she tried to capture the feeling “of being wrapped in a blanket.” Amidst it all is a digit wrapped with white tape to protect her skin when she is filing metal. “I’ve been taking chunks out of it lately,” she declares with zero annoyance.

Working with her hands is Lucas’s comfort zone, much more so than modelling, where she has achieved the commercial success that every new face hopes for. Her campaigns include Mejuri, Roots, Lululemon, Joe Fresh, Nars, Macy’s and Olay. “Modelling isn’t something that comes easily to me,” she says. “I don’t feel comfortable being seen. When I am on set, I have a bit of an out-of-body experience where I channel my sister, Jamila, who wanted to model.”

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If Lucas is starting to sound like an artist, that’s because she is. She comes from a family of them, and creative pursuits were encouraged from a young age. “We were surrounded by illustration books of fantasy worlds, and I always found myself sketching mermaids, dragons and fairies from them. I think I’ve subconsciously been designing jewellery that I think characters of that world would wear.”

Lucas left her family home in Pickering in 2017, landing work at a restaurant in Toronto. A co-worker was represented by Elite Model Management and encouraged Lucas to attend an open casting. She reluctantly went but was quickly signed.

In 2021, with her modelling career well established, Lucas was keen to find a more tactile hobby. She took a lost wax carving workshop and made her first ring, a dome-shaped silver band. “My instructor said, ‘you’re really good at this. You can make a living doing it.’ I thought, ‘I bet she says that to everybody.’ But I had missed about 50 per cent of the classes because of work, and I still ended up finishing a piece ahead of everyone else. That stirred something in me.”

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She developed a style she describes as organic, experimental and blatantly handmade. “I like little imperfections, and something that looks like it’s washed ashore after being lost in the ocean for a couple of years.” As far as favourite gems go, Lucas says, “I love any stone that has a lot of inclusions in it, something that looks a little battered.”

Lucas had no intention of going into business, unlike many top models today who have fashion-adjacent side hustles. But after posting some of her creations, friends began requesting commissions and stylists started borrowing for shoots. “Even now I have a hard time wrapping my head around selling,” she says. “It’s still very much a passion project. Everything that I make, I make for myself, and then I have a hard time letting go.”