time TRAVEL

Jeweler NATALYA LAGDAMEO creates future heirlooms that trickle through the past, present, and future

-  SAM POTENCIANO

When we step into Natalya Lagdameo’s shop at the basement of The Manila Peninsula Hotel, we find her in a state of deep concentration, as if we’ve walked in on her working through some complex mathematical problem. Which on any other day, may just be the case, given that her nine-to-five involves designing furniture for the family business.

“Maybe you can help me,” she says, her fingers deftly sliding across threadbare strands of brass chain, orbs of antique glass, and polished onyx cylinders. Her signature stack of giniling bangles clink gently against one another as she scatters her work across the jewelry display case at the center of her showroom. It is an elegant glass counter resting on a thick slab of Philippine hardwood that she designed together with her father.

Lagdameo’s namesake line of jewelry has long garnered a dedicated following both locally and internationally, for its merging of old world Filipino smithing techniques with contemporary flourishes. Among her showroom pieces include earrings made with Spanish-era tamburin beads (a design derived from traditional reliquaries such as rosaries) cascading like drops of water suspended between chalcedony, while another features golden antique-style kalabasa beads (named after their vegetal, pumpkin-like shape) hanging from a half-dome stud.