TGC Founder, Nia Tahani, earned her start in the industry during the early 2000’s as a fine jewelry and luxury goods publicist. In 2015, she fired up The Gem Corps on Instagram in order to experience the freedom of "uninhibited jewelry joy." During the pandemic, what began as rehoming pieces of her personal collection, developed into curating estate jewelry and designing fine jewelry that’s inspired by antique and vintage jewels. Leading with education is paramount to the TGC ethos, so it’s with enthusiasm that she’ll take you on her jewelry journeys into gemstone culture (i.e.,JADE) and storied jewelry motifs (i.e., BLACKAMOOR).
In 2023, within days of Montgomery Brawl, she and her partner created *the little chair that could* Sweet CHAIRiot—in the midst of working on a jewelry collection. And so the zeitgeist of "not today energy" and a black woman-made talisman of self-determination took precedence. Sweet CHAIRIOT has come to represent solidarity with oppressed peoples, resistance to injustice, remembering the ancestors, and honoring our need for REST.
Will we see that reprioritized collection one day? "Yes," she says, "Eventually."
Nia is a Chocolate City native, a skilled horsewoman of many years, and a scholar of the natural world, including gemology. Her dedication to her passions is a verb. She's served on the NorCal chapter board of the Women’s Jewelry Association; the Metropolitan Horsemen's Assocation board; is a member of the Black In Jewelry Coalition, as well as the American Society of Jewelry Historians, and the International Gem Society. Nia holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
The Gem Corps
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