JOALYS
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The view from an open train window over the tea-planted hills of central Sri Lanka
The founder

I was supposed to stay two weeks.

Ilyes Makria · founder of Joalys

I stayedtwo years.

A family trip around the world. An island that wasn't even on the list. I came home with a trade I had never gone looking for.

Before the stones

None of it was a detour.

01/06

Pencil sketch: a young man behind a jewellery counter examining a gold ring.

I grew up behind a jeweller's counter.

My best friend's family owned the shop, and I spent my free time beside him, facing customers.

Nobody walks into a jeweller's for gold alone. There is always a person, a promise or a moment behind it.

Pencil sketch: a man in a hi-vis vest on the airport apron, radio in hand, under the nose of an airliner at dawn.

Turnaround manager at Paris-Charles de Gaulle.

One of the busiest airports in the world. Hundreds of details have to line up before a single aircraft leaves on time, and every one of them is checked.

Precision and punctuality are not qualities there. They are the job.

Pencil sketch: a man in a hard hat, plans under his arm, in front of a house under construction.

Then I ran a homebuilding company.

Construction economist, my own practice in Lyon, then a homebuilding company I founded and ran. Each client entrusted us with a large budget and a delivery date.

That is where I learned to hold a budget and a date.

Pencil sketch: a father seen from behind, at a table between two children drawing.

Covid brought me home.

Back with my family, I realised how much of my children's lives I had missed.

Whatever I built next would keep me close to them. And it would be mine.

Pencil sketch: a man at a desk placing a thin gold bracelet into a small box, a laptop and a parcel beside him.

I put one bracelet online. Five years later, jewellery was my trade.

One bracelet, put online. Orders came. One product became a brand, then five years of customers, deadlines and parcels.

By the time I left on the journey that led me to the stones, jewellery was my work.

Watercolour sketch: a man at a table by an open window studies a small golden gemstone through a loupe, folded stone papers and a small scale in front of him.

Then came the island.

The gold in that shop, the jewellery sold online, the brand, and a trade that sorts you at the door: it all connected at once.

I knew exactly which house I wanted to build.

It wasn't the stone that kept me there.

It was how many people a stone passes through without anyone remembering their names.

Looking down a timber-lined gem shaft in Sri Lanka as a miner goes down on the rope
The one who goes down the shaft.
A hand spreading washed gem gravel in a sieve
The one who washes the gravel.
A lapidary's hand holding a stone on its dop against the cutting wheel
The one who holds it against the wheel.
The founder studying a stone held in tweezers
What I do

I go and choose every stone myself.

My job is to be there: sit at the table, look for a long time, argue the price, carry the risk on every stone I bring home. Those skills took years, learned straight in the markets.

The founder among the dealers at a gem market in Sri Lanka
01

At the source, in person

A stone under the microscope at an independent laboratory
02

Verified by an outside lab, always

What I am building

Joalys starts with the stone.

No inherited inventory, no house line to defend. Stones chosen one by one, and rings drawn around them, made to order. What comes next is a jewellery house, built around them.

See the stones A ring made for you
Where to find me

Come and ask me your questions.

Book an appointment How I source