Our story . . .

Hi there! I'm Anne the founder of this fabulous jewelry brand, and I’m thrilled to share my story with you.

I was born in Zimbabwe but like so many of us in struggling economies, took off the moment I finished school for greener pastures.

My passion for silversmithing began in Oregon when I was 17. I accidentally ended up in a Metalwork 101 class because I was late for registration and had to do an art pre-requisite before I could go into my core studies and it was the only class with a vacancy! After that I took every metal work class I could get into!

I instantly fell head over heels in love with creating beautiful pieces from scratch that told stories. But at that age I wasn’t really good at selling my work, in fact I was more of the mind to give it to someone if they liked it than sell it! So reality stepped in when I realized I needed to pay bills, and I had to choose a major that would result in a “real job”!

Fast forward a few years, and I became a single mom. Juggling a career and raising my daughter left little room for my passion, but I never let it go. I’d sneak in time to craft whenever I could, creating little treasures that brought me so much joy, paid for my very expensive hobby and a bill or two!

Spent 19 beautiful years in the States but Zimbabwe was always home and in 2007 I was lucky enough to make it back! I moved back with my teenage daughter in the middle of the implosion of the Zimbabwe dollar! What a wild ride! And once again making jewellery took a back seat to just surviving.

Then came the day my daughter left for university. Enter a twist of fate! I met a wonderful woman who needed help selling her handcrafted jewelry. This chance meeting reignited the spark in me, and I knew I had to dive back into my passion.

For the next eight years, I balanced my day job with my jewellery side hustle. Every piece I designed felt like a step closer to my dream. I got busy and had to hire someone full-time to help me with the work and then an apprentice. The support and love from my growing customer base fueled my determination.

Finally, I took the leap and embraced silversmithing full-time in 2021.

And that in a nutshell is how it took me almost 30 years to finally come back to what I always wanted to do with my life!

Every day that I sit down at my desk I have to give a little whoop whoop and remember that no matter how hard of the day I have ahead of me that I finally got to do what I dreamed of – just remember it is never too late to go after your dream!

I often get asked what Zuri means. Zuri is a Swahili word for beautiful and it perfectly describes the spirit of the people of Zimbabwe, our environment, wildlife, the different cultures that make up the country of Zimbabwe and the continent of Africa that we are so lucky to call home.

You may wonder why I, as a Zimbabwean, chose a Swahili word instead of an English, Ndebele, Shona or Tonga word. The reason is quite simply that like the language of Swahili, my life experiences are a mixture of all kinds of cultures here in Africa - Bantu, Arabic and European and in that mixture we get to find all kinds of layers of beauty.

It's the amazing stories we find in all these beautiful layers of people and culture that I collect and retell through our work.

And here we are! Every piece of jewellery I create is infused with my journey, my love of telling a story and pure unadulterated joy and love. Sending you all much love for allowing us the honour of being part of your beautiful story!

Welcome to my world. Welcome to The Zuri Tribe!