E Komo Mai!
About Alohi Kai Jewelry
Crave escape, chase adventure. Reach toward the unknown, balancing on the edge of your comfort. Seek the extraordinary, exploring connections with other creatures, other worlds.
We make jewelry for expansive minds – divers and rough water swimmers yes, shoreline wanderers and arm-chair admirers too. People who breathe in the wild air and sea – and want protect its future. We help you be that story, with ocean-friendly designs that tell a tale survival and perseverance – designing for people who believe in slow ways, slow living, and that beautiful adornment persists through time and trends. And for everyone who believes in the ocean.
Our Ethos
Every ‘Alohi Kai design has a story to tell. Representing experiences and adventures, they tell a tale of ocean hardship, survival and ingenuity, as well as our own tale of discovery and inspiration.
Using ‘slow’ methods we hand carve and sculpt our models using a knife or flame. We set stones, fabricate and polish our jewelry by hand. We’re small and do things in small batches to ensure each piece meets our quality standards.
We create with attention to detail, design to be coveted, and produce quality that can be passed down generations. We love the feel of authentic and slow. We don’t do disposable or fast.
We like to support our own so we use domestic labor for production and all our metals are sourced from the US. And we make decisions with the impacts of what we do in mind – opting for non-toxic processes and reusable, recyclable packaging. (Read more here.) We live on a small rock in the middle of the ocean, these choices matter.
And of course, we carry these values into the ocean when we dive. Our jewelry represents hundreds of hours not just observing wildlife, but clearing line, hooks, garbage and on occasion, freeing creatures caught up in it.
Our Process
Our designs are conceived underwater. After selecting (and usually photographing) a subject, we make sketches from various angles before carefully carving and sculpting it in a hard jeweler’s wax. These small scale sculptures are prepped, given a surface finish, and cast in silver; master castings get many iterations of ever finer files, sandpaper, and polishing compounds.
Click below to explore some of the work we do to prepare wax for casting: making a master, injecting a mold, and cleaning waxes. We make silicone molds from a master model and sometimes use castings to fabricate larger pieces of jewelry such as the great hammerhead link bracelet (below left). Other designs are polished and finished as a single piece like the aquamarine ring (below right). Every item is hand-finished at each stage, with care and attention – we want it to be loved and have a very long life!
Making a wax model
Injecting wax for casting
Cleaning waxes for casting
Shera Mercer is an ocean-obsessed designer, maker & underwater photographer based in Hawaii. Despite starting silversmithing at 17, she found herself in corporate life in the US and the UK. After working extensively in Europe, the Middle East, Japan, Mexico and the US, she decided to hang up her business suits in favor of wetsuits and now dives every week in the blue of the Pacific with her husband Joe.
Diving and photographing wildlife around the world became her constant companion while traveling. The ocean teaches you not just about human limitations and coexisting with wildlife, but also companionship and connections between diverse people. With love of the ocean in common, people with oppositional philosophies come together because people protect what they love. Taking these experiences into ‘Alohi Kai, in a small way she hopes to contribute to raising awareness about ocean sustainability and conservation.
‘Alohi Kai jewelry has been featured on HI on Art, Marriott’s Bonvoy Traveller, KITV News, in Lei Chic and Honolulu Magazine and in blogs by Paula Rath. For more, check out our blog, Instagram and Facebook.
