Signature Technique: Plekta d'Oro
How it all started
While I was a kid, I used to go to my dad's electronics workshop where I would spend hours playing with the hundred little cables that were coming out of each component, all tangled together. I'd shape them with my hands, trying to construct an object which I'd later gift to someone.
A few years later, a special person, my grandmother, taught me how to knit with threads and that memory has always accompanied me throughout my journey. Those moments spent creating “plekta,” as it is called in Greek, have stayed with me ever since.
The origins of this ancient technique
The roots of this textile technique dates back to 2400 BC. In ancient Greece, needlework and netting traditions were central to women's craft. Greek women created intricate nets called kekryphalos from gold and silk thread to adorn their hair.
Hellenistic goldsmiths wove fine gold wire
into loop-in-loop chains for necklaces, earrings and diadems. The art of interlacing wire by hand, loop through loop, was practiced across the Greek and Byzantine world for centuries.
Plekta d'oro
This textile-inspired way of working with metal has deep roots in both Greek and Italian traditions. In the ancient Greek and Byzantine world, goldsmiths wove and looped fine wire into flexible structures for necklaces, earrings, diadems, and the kekryphalos hairnets worn by aristocratic women.
After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Greek refugees brought their textile-net traditions to Italy. There, needleworkers developed them into an openwork lace known across Europe as Greek point, or reticella, meaning "little net" in Italian. When worked in gold thread, it was called reticella d'oro, "the little golden net," and became part of courtly fashion in Florence and Venice, worn to adorn the necklines of open gowns.
Watch it come to life
From Greece to florence
Today I revive this heritage in my studio in Florence, in a technique I call plekta d'oro, where Greek craftsmanship and a long tradition of fine metalwork once came together. Each piece begins with a single continuous line of wire, and is knitted using crochet hooks. Through a series of experiments and trials I developed this textile technique to construct flexible structures with dense, organic patterns. Explore the pieces where this technique is used across the earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and rings collections.
metal finish
Once the structure is complete, each piece is plated in a small workshop in Greece, that specialises in traditional plating techniques. A layer of 18-carat gold, platinum, or black rhodium is deposited over the sterling silver base, giving the jewellery its colour and protecting the surface from everyday wear. The gold plating uses an intense yellow-gold hue rooted in the Greek tradition of gold surface treatment, a craft with origins in Classical and Hellenistic goldsmithing. See the collection in each finish: 18K gold plated, platinum plated, black rhodium plated, or sterling silver. For a firsthand experience, join a small-group jewellery workshop in Florence.
Key Terms
Plekta d'oro: my hand-knitted wire technique, combining the Greek word for knitted objects with the Italian "of gold." Reticella d'oro: Italian Renaissance needle lace made in gold thread, a cultural ancestor of my work.
Kekryphalos: gold hairnets worn by aristocratic Greek women in the Hellenistic period, made using wire-weaving techniques.