Photo by Neidy Gutierrez / SOC Images.
Metals. Beads. Pearls.
These are just some of the jewelry materials you could probably find somewhere on the floor of Beatriz Villanueva’s family living room, where she creates all her jewelry for her small business, Buhayin. And behind each tiny object, Villanueva said she sees it as a piece of someone’s life.
Villanueva is celebrating the second anniversary of Buhayin, a one-of-one jewelry brand that uses secondhand materials, thrifted goods and pre-loved pieces to create necklaces, earrings, headpieces and more. Villanueva, who is the jewelry designer and founder of the brand, told Slice of Culture that she hopes to evolve Buhayin from a jewelry brand into a community space while also pushing for change in the fashion industry.
“My favorite quote is just like, ‘Change is inevitable in order for growth to happen.’ So if we wanna find or see change in the fashion industry, in particular, people need to push for that,” she said.
“… I feel like in the future, besides just doing jewelry, I want [Buhayin] to really be something like people can go to as a, ‘Hey, I wanna start modeling. Do you have anything I can help you with?’ or ‘I wanna grow my portfolio’ because that’s what I’m doing now. I wanna keep doing that.”
“Having Buhayin for funding these projects and then always making sure they go back to actually doing these projects and [for] the community especially [for] people of color, college students specifically.”
Reviving Mom’s Pliers
The Jersey City native has been making jewelry since elementary school, and actually started her first small business at seven years old with “Buttons and Beads.”
“It was actually just me stringing buttons into garter strings. And I would sell those for like a dollar in my elementary school in like fourth grade and I kept doing that into middle school that I called it like Blue Penguin Company,” she laughed.
That eventually changed into a different medium when she got into high school: painting and sketching. It wasn’t until she got to college, attending the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, that she returned to her “Buttons and Beads” days, but this time, doing more with it.
Villanueva remembered her mom had a pair of pliers that she used to make jewelry with when she first moved to Jersey City from the Philippines.
“I borrowed them when I made my own earrings. And people were like, ‘I would buy that.’ And I looked at them like, ‘Really? You’d buy that?’” Villanueva laughed.
So to keep her mind sharp, involved with the community and her thoughts creative, she officially launched Buhayin in October of 2023. Buhayin means “revive” in Tagalog.
She added that starting a jewelry brand “kind of just happened,” but the support and success thus far is thanks to her family and friends. Now every time Villanueva’s mom sees her using the old pliers, her mom cries.
And the embodiment of Buhayin became even more surreal during Villanueva’s two New York Fashion Week appearances in September 2024 and February of this year.
“I brought her [my mom] to my second New York Fashion Week show and then I held her hand and I was walking by and I just started like crying,” she laughed.
Those opportunities came thanks to a producer named Emon Gee, who she previously volunteered for at a NYFW show, and the second was a connection with community platform Unieke Mode New York.
In the first show, Villanueva created six body jewelry sets with the theme of water, earth and the sun while the second featured 10 body sets with stories of their own.
All 10 pieces took her about three months to make, and her mom’s pliers got her through every set.
On average, Villanueva said it can take an hour or two to make something, depending on complexity. And if you ask her about her creative process, she’ll tell you it involves a lot of people watching.
“Yeah, it’s bad. It’s really bad,” she laughed. “I have friends dedicated to just [sitting] with me for people watching. We’re all the same. So it’s like Newport Mall, Washington Square Park, Exchange Place, Grove [Street]… seeing how jewelry fits on them, how it could go into clothing.”
And no matter the person, Villanueva emphasized that she will make the jewelry fit. “And then [people are] just like, ‘really? … I don’t need to be 5’9”? I’m like, ‘No, you don’t,’” she smiled.
1-of-1 Pieces, Just For You
On Buhayin’s newly launched website, you can find different pieces like the Silver Sun Pendant Necklace with Dangling Metal Chains or the Vintage 1960s Ornate Gold Pendant Decorated with Faux Pearls and Gold Chain Detailing, both of which are part of her Anniversary Collection. Every item has a section that tells you “what’s secondhand.”
Over the summer, Buhayin released The Muses collection, which was inspired by the sea and sun, featuring four models who all, in some way, have also been a muse to Villanueva.
And one of Buhayin’s defining collections was the second collection, the TANSEY, which Villanueva said was crafted from materials given to her from a family friend from St. Peter’s University, who couldn’t wear jewelry anymore due to her old age.
“She gave me a box of her jewelry and her mom’s jewelry. So I was just gifted with history. I was like, ‘Yes, this is glorious and all the materials were so beautiful, this is one of them here,” Villanueva pointed to the handmade necklace she was wearing.
“I basically took them all apart and it was such an intimate collection for me… this is from people who believe in me to hold onto pieces of their lives. So from that moment on, I always wanted to stay within [the] Jersey City community [and] New York City community and always give back to those who help me.”
Looking ahead, Villanueva said she’s going to dust off her sewing machine and incorporate more fabrics into her designs. And hopefully, down the road, Buhayin will become more than a jewelry brand.
