Arts
Creating her own sparkle
“I want my jewellery to be of high quality and look expensive without costing a fortune,” says Amanda Wijemanne talking of her brand Aviika. Having grown up around gems due to her father’s business of exporting gems, launching her own line of jewellery seemed to be an idea which evolved naturally. “I used to think ‘why don’t we start our own line of jewellery’ but my father was not too keen. Since I anyway wanted to start my own brand- be it clothes or jewellery, I decided to go ahead,” she explains. Thus began Aviika in September 2018.
Amanda. Pic by Priyanka Samaraweera
The name Aviika has a rather interesting story behind it. “All the names in my family except for my brother’s start with an ‘A’ so I wanted a name which began with ‘A’, and then my father came up with Aviika; and I liked the name so I decided to use it,” she explains.
Having always loved unusual jewellery, Amanda aims for unique designs with her brand. She uses semi-precious stones, mostly gold plated with a silver and brass base. While she also does pieces in silver, these are few and far between because most people request gold jewellery, she says.
A past pupil of Visakha Vidyalaya, Amanda studied Business Marketing and Economics at the California State University, Northridge before returning to Sri Lanka and working for MAS Holdings in the marketing team for Amanté. “I studied business so I think that knowledge helps me but learning about the gems was new to me,” she says, adding that she obtained a certificate in gemmology from the International Gemmology Academy to bridge the gap. Her professional experience has helped with this new venture. “Working for a retail brand such as Amante I learnt about fashion trends and so it was easy for me to figure out what designs people would want to pair their outfits with,” she says. Amanda is also the Director of Sales and Marketing at her father’s business AnuraWijemanne Associates.
Aviika has definitely been a collective effort. “I would like to thank my parents, brother and husband as well as my grandmother for being so supportive and for encouraging me to take the leap and start my own brand – much of my strength is from them,” she says. Amanda recalls one weekend leading up to the Christmas season when she signed Aviika up for two pop up stores both at the same time. “So my mother and (then) fiance were at one pop up and my brother and I at another and that was the time that the brand was very new and people had a lot of questions so I really needed the support,” she says.
Aviika is priced from Rs. 2500 upwards. They can be found on their Facebook page ‘aviikajewelrySL’ and on Instagram as ‘aviikajewellrysl’. The collection is also available at the Design Collective at 28, Stratford Avenue, Colombo 6 and at her office at 50, Galle Road, Colombo 03.
