Ana-Katarina Vinkler-Petrovic has always wanted her fine jewelry designs to be more than just beautiful, high-quality statement pieces. After all, she said, her creations for AnaKatarina Design are an outpouring of personal experience, reflecting resiliency, survival, inspiration and love.
“I’m a storyteller and endlessly curious about history and cultures,” she explained during one of several recent phone interviews from her store in Wellesley, Mass. “That inspires my designs, color choices and collections, all of which get blended into old world meets modern aesthetics.”
Throughout the past decade, Ms. Vinkler-Petrovic, now 59, has released 13 collections. Her pieces range from simple designs, such as charms and pendants, to complex and intricate creations, like a flip ring bedecked with diamonds, sapphires and opals, which is one of her most expensive pieces at $24,595.
Her designs start with pen and paper sketches that, when perfected, she turns over to her production director and a team of jewelers, setters, a gem carver and a designer who specializes in computer-aided designs.
In addition to her shop, which opened in 2024, she sells online and at a variety of stores and galleries, including ABC Carpet & Home in New York City, Belle Shops in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and Gallery 1401 in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Ms. Vinkler-Petrovic did not begin her career in the pretty, sparkly world of luxury jewelry.
The self-taught designer was born in the United States to creative parents — her father was an architect; her mother was a painter — who had emigrated from Yugoslavia. In 1992, at 25 years old, she covered the Bosnian War, a conflict that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia, working as a freelance photographer and correspondent for outlets such as the BBC and Politika, a prominent Serbian newspaper. Then she briefly became a liaison between the United Nations and the Bosnian army.
Years later, when she started designing jewelry, she “wanted to find the beauty in the darkness, in the bombing and in the rebellion of surviving,” she said. “My experiences in the war, as horrific as they were, made me into a more observant, caring and optimistic person.”
Her love affair with jewelry began in 1999, after she had married and had two daughters and was working with her father, who had opened a small jewelry shop in addition to his architecture projects. One day, a customer came in to sell her engagement ring. Ms. Vinkler-Petrovic talked her into commissioning a post-divorce necklace instead. That idea led to a career.
Initially she designed engagement rings for her father’s store and for private clients. In 2012, she moved to Kuwait to open a jewelry shop, only to return to Boston a year later. Clients kept her busy, as did a divorce, until 2018 when she introduced her first major 25-piece collection, called 4 Elements, featuring earrings, necklaces, charms, rings and bracelets focused on the natural world.
“It was my first toe into designing,” she said. “It was my voice, not my client’s voice, coming through.”
Each of the collections that followed have started with a statement ring. “A large, power ring that you wear every day,” she said. “Jewelry is the most intimate thing you can put on your body. It’s your armor in the world.”
Her wartime experiences also prompted her to focus on using conflict-free and fair-trade precious and semiprecious gems, such as sapphires and green tourmalines, as well as recycled gold and reclaimed diamonds.
Ms. Vinkler-Petrovic said her jewelry told a timeless story of evolving, shown by “spikes and inverted diamonds, which represent attitude and resilience.” She also loves to play with color: think pink and orange sapphires with pink tourmaline, or black diamonds and blue sapphires.
She highlighted the tension she created between her jewelry’s architectural lines and sensuous curves, finding beauty in the messy and the complex; the delicate and the dangerous. And she adds totems throughout her work, such as sea urchins, butterflies and bees, which she said represent “creativity, intuition or evolution.”
“I’m a deeply spiritual person,” she said. “My jewelry is about empowerment, protection, self-love, mythology and the strength of the feminine experience.”
Amy Beierholm, the divisional merchandising manager at ABC Carpet & Home, who met Ms. Vinkler-Petrovic at a small trade show in 2023, said her creations reflected her personality, story and perspective. “She’s very open and her work represents that,” Ms. Beierholm said.
ABC regularly stocks 30 to 60 AnaKatarina Design pieces — rings, earrings and necklaces from collections such as Eye Love, California Dreamin’ and 4 Elements. “Each piece holds a unique story and that’s important to us and ABC’s customers,” Ms. Beierholm said. “They want jewelry, like her sun totem, or her Impeccable Words collection, like her spiders and butterflies, nature’s artists, because it connects with their personal values or memories and what they believe in.”
For Ms. Vinkler-Petrovic’s most recent collection, Initial Pendants, released last year, she collaborated for the first time with the second of her now three daughters, Adrina Dervisevic, 28. The made-to-order pieces in two sizes, in either 14-karat- or 18-karat gold at $2,520 to $7,100, were inspired by toy blocks that Ms. Vinkler-Petrovic played with and passed on to her own children.
“Adrina is young, has a great design sense and is in touch with what her generation likes,” Ms. Vinkler-Petrovic said. Their next collaboration, featuring 14-karat-gold charms, is scheduled to be introduced this year.
Relevance, a lighthearted playfulness and pops of color are all things that Ms. Vinkler-Petrovic said she wanted to infuse into her future creations.
“Life is very good right now,” she shared. “It’s freer. I’m more grounded. I think any woman in her 60s who has had a journey of divorce and life-changing experiences will understand that is a moment where your life just becomes lighter.”
