Who Are We?

Welcome to our website and our sparkling world of vintage and new fine jewelry!  Thank you for coming and taking the time to get to know us a little better.  Vintage Magnality was founded in 2018 and is a woman owned fine jewelry retailer whose higher purpose is to empower women by giving back 2% of sales to women and children charities.  We are based in Lake Forest, IL and are a member of the local Lake Forest Lake Bluff Chamber of Commerce.  Shop online or by appointment only in Lake Forest, message me at 702-336-0066 or through website chat to schedule an appointment. 

We are here to help you celebrate all of those special milestones and celebrations in yours and your loved ones' lives with high quality, exquisitely crafted, fine jewelry.  Whether it's a birthday, anniversary, graduation, confirmation, promotion or self gift, we have the perfect piece of jewelry for you.  All of our packages are delivered in gift ready packaging.

What Is Vintage Magnality's Founder's Story?

A picture of me at a Parisian flea market haggling with a vendor for some beautiful vintage glass pieces. I've always loved treasure hunting from a young age, my grandmother was the first to take me with her to vintage shops and thrift stores to look for undiscovered treasures.  Riding my bike through our subdivision as a child during the summers going to people's garage sales to see what I could find was also a fun past time.  At some point in adolescence I became obsessed with jewelry, watching QVC and learning about the different gemstones and types of gold chains being offered, the term "Made In Italy" seemed exotic to me.  Who knew there were so many different kinds of gemstones? Kunzite, tourmaline, and topaz were all so beautiful sparkling on the television, it was entrancing.  I asked my parents for a 14K yellow gold herringbone chain for my 13th birthday from a jewelry store in our local mall.  My new teenage self loved how the chain made me look and feel more sophisticated and mature. From there forward I always wanted a piece of jewelry for my birthday or special occasion. 

Through college I worked retail jobs which gave me a lot of customer service experience as well as exposure to visual merchandising, package design and branding.  Fast forward to graduating from college and I was in full swing corporate mode.  With disposable income I was able to start self-gifting and slowly began building my personal fine jewelry collection, starting with a small pair of diamond stud earrings.  As a working professional I was traveling a lot and loved shopping at antique and vintage stores for furniture, jewelry and fashion. Over the years, I have frequented estate sales, auction houses and Parisian flea markets to furnish and decorate my homes and build my personal collection of vintage jewelry. 

Seeking out pieces when I travel is a fun way to commemorate the trip and region.  Memories flood back when I go through my jewelry collection.  Jade bangles from the Jade Market in Hong Kong, beautiful gemstone dangle earrings from Jaipur, cameos from Italy, vintage Chanel costume jewelry from Paris, vintage intaglio bracelets from Venice, pearl necklaces from Hyderabad, they all are beautiful and are meaningful to me.  While backpacking through Europe after college, I met this girl Jocelyn and we went shopping for charms in Switzerland because she collected charms from everywhere she travelled for her charm bracelet.  I thought that was a brilliant idea and it's something I now do for my girls when we travel so I can gift them a meaningful charm bracelet when they're older.  

I retired from corporate life to focus on my children and their needs.  After being a stay at home mom for a little while, I decided that I wanted to start my own business that would allow me to pursue my creative interests as well as having flexibility in my schedule. Vintage Magnality was then born and was founded on the premise of transparency, elevating the client experience, women empowerment, sustainability and ethical business practices.  To increase my knowledge base I enrolled in the Gemological Institute of America's (GIA) school and earned my Applied Jewelry Professional diploma.  

Through my global travels, I have been inspired and humbled by the abundant precious gifts on this beautiful planet.  Beauty surrounds us everywhere; in the oceans, mountains, deserts, skies, minerals, plants, animals and humans.  Our brand embraces preserving these gifts at the core of what we do with a sustainable and ethical approach. 

What Do We Sell?   

We 100% guarantee the authenticity of the jewelry we sell and you are able to return your purchase if you are not happy for any reason as in accordance with our returns policy.

Vintage Fine Jewelry Collection

Vintage fine jewelry is where our journey began. Our Vintage Treasures have been loved and cherished by someone, before being selected by us, to offer you!  We inspect for quality and readiness to sell before offering to sell on our website. You will receive a one-of-a-kind fine jewelry piece that is ready to wear and be admired. That being said, most pieces show some signs of being previously owned, that is part of vintage jewelry's charm and character.  We do our best to be completely transparent in our product descriptions detailing anything outside of normal wear and tear. Please look at our high quality photos and use the zoom feature to get up close and personal with our pieces.  We are highly selective with what we buy and look for quality, uniqueness and authenticity.  We have discerning taste just like you!  

Storyteller Fine Jewelry

Storyteller by Vintage Magnality is our new fine jewelry line for those customers who want a brand new, handcrafted, possibly personalized or a custom piece of jewelry that they can Wear Everyday™ and enjoy. Storyteller embraces classics but also offers fun modern pieces. Our Wear Everyday™ Storyteller line is wearable everyday luxury, offering pieces so you can build the jewelry wardrobe of your dreams.   

While we maintain that vintage is the most ethical way to buy anything, including jewelry, you can shop our Storyteller Fine Jewelry line and feel amazing about your purchase. We partnered with an ethical jewelry company who shares our core values, placing social and environmental consciousness at the foundation of their business. 

What Are Our Company Values? 

 

Overall, We Want To #DoGood!

Social Consciousness, or social awareness, is defined as consciousness shared by individuals within a society.  It essentially means to be conscious or aware of the problems within a society or community.  Traveling has provided me a real life anthropological education seeing first hand how people from other cultures live, interact with one another, their challenges, obstacles and stigmas, and impacts of varying government and economic systems on the local people.  Contrasting these observations with what we as Americans have access to has imprinted a strong sense of gratefulness as well as awareness of the need that there is so much work to be done around the globe for those who are not having basic needs met.

Women Empowerment 

We're putting the BOTTOM LINE at the TOP.  Vintage Magnality is proud to be donating 2% of Net SALES (not profit!) to Girls Not Brides Members.  This is 1 of 5 charities that Melinda Gates previously recommended to support that benefit women and girls. I encourage you to visit their website to read about the issue and what their organization and member partners are doing to help women and girls worldwide.

Additionally, we are also avid donors to schools, breast cancer and other women and children charities including Montessori School of Lake Forest, St. John's Northwestern Academies, Deer Path Middle School Teacher Appreciation Program, National Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc., Dr. Susan Love Foundation for Breast Cancer Research, The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and the Global Physicians Network Foundation. 

We seek out women owned businesses and artists to partner with and we would like to recognize some of them and their work here: 

J'AMOIS founded by a lovely artistic Ukrainian soul named Yana, was founded in Ukraine and reborn in Paris 2022 after the war started. We have been working with J'Amois since 2018 or 2019.  They handcraft our beautiful bespoke silk velvet busts, jewelry display boxes, trays and available for sale silk velvet ring and earring boxes.  Our branded rainbow ombre boxes below are so cheerful, luxurious and fun, shop here! 

 

Sakal Palm Beach founded by Oksana Sakal is a very talented Ukrainian born female artist and painter who immigrated to America to continue her studies.  Her work and story has been featured in publications including Modern Luxury Palm Beach magazine.  I found her on Instagram and fell in love with her work which consists of hand painting unique varying motifs on leather goods such as handbags and shoes.  We partnered together to create unique one-of-a-kind hand painted designs on our genuine leather jewelry travel case wallets, which make an amazing special gift, shop here! 

Shakti.ism founded by Jitna Bhagani, is a non-profit social initiative to create on-going employment with fair wages for women in India, Bangladesh and Nepal.  We partnered with Shakti.ism to purchase their reusable sari gift wraps which are upcycled and reversible to gift wrap all of our jewelry travel case wallets so they are protected during shipping as well as gift ready for our clients. The wraps themselves are stunning and add that special sustainable touch to our jewelry travel cases, shop here! 

Blank Inside Design, founded by artist Liz from Manchester, England, is one of the partners we source sustainable gift wrapping paper and gift cards from.  She completed her degree in Textile Design at Nottingham Trent University and then opened her design studio in Sussex where she creates her beautiful hand drawn and painted designs. Her printed products are made from sustainable materials including recycled paper using vegetable ink.  They give our clients that extra touch of luxury for those who would like to utilize our complimentary gift wrapping service with our white and grey gift boxes.   

We are excited to be working with you our customers to be helping women and children in these communities through your support of our business.

Sustainability & Ethical Business Practices

We pursue sustainability and ethical business practices through the following strategies:

1. We offer Vintage fine jewelry pieces and believe that buying vintage is the most sustainable form of consumerism there is.  You are buying something that already exists and does not require new resources for mining or manufacturing. 

2.  We offer new fine jewelry pieces that are made and/or sourced by a jewelry partner that has the following distinctions:

• Our partner is a certified member of the Responsible Jewellery Council, which means they are certified as fine jewelry manufacturers and suppliers as having responsible ethical, social and environmental practices throughout their operation.  To become a certified member, an organization must pass a third party audit to RJC's Code of Practices which respects human rights throughout the jewelry supply chain for diamonds, gold and platinum metals.
• Our partner is a member of the Diamond Manufacturers and Importers Association of America and guarantees that all natural diamonds they sell comply with the Kimberly Process as a way to give you confidence that you are buying conflict-free and ethical diamonds.
• Our partner has Conflict Free Responsible Sourcing Protocol Guidelines for all of their suppliers to ensure that gold supplied to them is conflict-free for all gold products (finished and components).
• Our partner has received SCS's Global Certification for 100% recycled metals, verifying that their internally manufactured gold, silver, platinum and palladium products have 100% recycled content. SCS is an international leader in third-party certification and standards development in environment and sustainability claims according to global standards. 

3. We build out our supply chain seeking vendor partners who specialize in sustainably made branded product and shipping packaging whenever possible.  This means products that are recyclable, and/or, made from recycled materials and/or from sustainably sourced materials. Some examples of these include the following:

• Our branded White and Grey Sustainable Jewelry Boxes are made by The Tiny Box Company in the UK. They are recyclable and made from 99% recycled box board.  They are also biodegradable. 

• Our branded White Sustainable Gift Bags with rope handles are made by The Tiny Box Company in the UK.  They are biodegradable, compostable, fairly produced, traded and traceable, made from 100% post consumer waste recycled plastic bottles, and are recyclable.

 

• Our branded Mailer Boxes are made by Packlane in the USA.  All of their corrugated and paper based materials are sourced in North America with the highest recycled content available whenever possible.  Using materials sourced in local regions results in a much lower carbon footprint than manufacturers who source from overseas. Our mailers are partially made from recycled content and recyclable.   

• Our Compostable Mailers used for shipping our Travel Case Jewelry Wallets are made by noissue and are home and commercially compostable, breaking down fully within 180 and 90 days respectively, returning nutrients back to the earth.  These are also reusable with two adhesive strips so our customers can reuse if they desire. 

 

• Our second generation eco friendly branded Faux Suede Jewelry Pouches are sourced by Westpack.  These jewelry pouches are used to protect and present our jewelry in a gift ready luxurious way tucked inside our white and grey jewelry boxes. Instead of using new raw materials, they are made from 100% recycled plastic bottles. 

How to Care For Your Jewelry? 

General Care 

Please care for your pieces as if they are treasures (which they are)!  Don't shower, bathe, swim or workout with your jewelry on.  Obviously, some pieces are more delicate than others so please take precautions with all of your jewelry.  Jewelry should be inspected at least semi-annually by your local jeweler for loose settings and stones to prevent loss.  When you aren't wearing your jewelry keep in a jewelry box or bag separate from other pieces to prevent tarnishing, tangling, scratching etc.  Spray perfume, hairspray, makeup, etc. prior to putting on your jewelry.

Questions

Any questions?  Use our website Chat function to get in touch with us right away or email us at info@vintagemagnality.com.  We respond to emails within 24 hours.