Founder & Gemstone Sourcer
Ilyes Makria
Founder of Joalys, an independent coloured stone house, who buys gemstones directly from the miners and cutters of Ratnapura, Sri Lanka.
Ilyes Makria founded Joalys, an independent coloured stone house, after spending close to two years sourcing gemstones in Sri Lanka. He keeps direct working relationships with the miners and cutters of Ratnapura and buys at the source rather than at the end of a chain of intermediaries, selecting stones one by one. He is not a gemmologist: he writes the Joalys guides from field experience, and an outside gemmologist reviews them.