Erin Wahed

Erin and I were first introduced by her mother, the very talented Canadian jeweler and designer, Janis Kerman. Erin is the creator and designer behind Bande Des Quatres, a modern jewelry line inspired by artists and designers, which we are very proud to carry.

I was very fortunate to meet both Erin and her father, Simone for brunch a few months ago. Erin arrived with a big smile, dark sunglasses, wearing enough BDQ jewelry to make my heart stop in envy, and sporting green tipped dark curls. Her dad was dapper in his jeans and button down shirt. His close cropped hair and beard, white, and his eyes only for his daughter and wife. When I pulled out the double fingered Sanaa ring, Erin told me how her dad had inspired its design. She wrote about it below too. 

Here is what Erin shared with us for Father's Day:

What is your first memory of your father? 

Gooey gooey. We would play in the backyard and combine mud with water and play around with it. It was loads of fun and a total father-daughter bonding experience. 

Who is your father? 

He is the wisest person I know. He somehow always seems to know what I am going to do before I do it, life wise and career wise. Super smart, loving and kind. Best father I could ever ask for!

How has your dad influenced you? 

My father, a business man, hoped I would follow in his footsteps . When it came time for me to choose a field to study in college, I chose Photography and to please him, I chose to do a minor in Math. How the two fields would ultimately intersect, I had no idea, but I wanted to make him happy. After a semester of working way too hard at Calculus just because I wanted that "A", by second semester, I walked into the first Linear Algebra class and recall that I whatever the teacher was explaining made absolutely no sense to me and I knew right then that the struggle was not going to be worth it. I walked out of the class, called my father and told him, "I love you, but I'm not doing this just for you." It was at that moment, that I knew he supported me 100% and that I no longer needed to do things just to make him happy, but that he would get on board with any decision I make.

We know how close you two are. How has your dad influenced your work? 

I started Bande des Quatres as a result of learning about the notion of supply & demand from him. My mother and I designed a ring for me to wear to my senior thesis photography show at NYU that I continued to wear post show. It became a staple accessory for me. People kept stopping me on the street, in the subway, at restaurants and asking where they could get one. After that kept happening for weeks, I knew we needed to create supply, thus founding Bande des Quatres. 

We love the Sanna ring and the story of how it was created. Will you share it with us?

Our Sanaa ring from our second collection was inspired by my father. He used to take the plastic circular bit off the top of water bottles and place it around his pinky and ring finger. It looked like a double finger ring. My mother got annoyed with him wearing plastic on his hands, and made him a version in white, yellow and rose gold. This then became our Sanaa ring.