Hechizo owner Hali Emminger (left) and Nicole Salle (Photo by Jay Paul)
Chesterfield native Hali Emminger is four years into molding her sculptural jewelry brand, Hechizo. And in that fourth year, she’s brought the ceramics, metals and leathers she works with back home by moving Hechizo from New York to Richmond.
The brand name is Spanish for “spell” or “magical charm,” which Emminger thought was an interesting way to describe her jewelry, given that the company often incorporates Native American and Latin talismans and symbols into its designs. The brand offers handmade accessories for $54 and up, including earrings, necklaces, rings and worry dolls that exhibit traditional aesthetics.
Hechizo products are available online (at shophechizo.com) and at Rosewood Clothing Co. on Broad Street and Gild & Ash on Patterson Avenue. Emminger is the owner and designer of the company, which is based in Scott’s Addition.
“This feels like a smaller community, where you can actually know a lot of the movers and the shakers in the creative field,” Emminger says of Richmond. “That’s been really nice and kind of a refreshing start for the brand.”
Emminger majored in sculpture and art education at Virginia Commonwealth University. That background is what distinguishes her jewelry. “For me, the objective is more about how I want to infuse things that are inspiring to me, like pottery and traditional motifs, into something that I haven’t seen before in a wearable piece,” she says.
Jewelry aside, Hechizo stands out for the brass worry dolls it offers. Worry dolls, which originated in Guatemala, are small trinkets upon which young girls are encouraged to wish away their worries and fears. “They’re usually little wooden dolls, and you literally wish your worries on them and put them under your pillow at night,” Emminger says. “That’s what they tell kids to do. These ones we adapted into a wearable piece.”
The company partners with women-run cooperatives in Guatemala to create the dolls. “I wanted to give a nod to this thing that I loved as a kid, but I didn’t want to rip it off,” Emminger says.