Olla! and welcome.
If you're reading this, you've landed on the very first post on this blog which, in a small way, makes you part of the story before it's even properly started. So before anything else: hi. Thank you for being here.
I'm Kayde, the person behind every piece you'll find at Keila Bespoke. It is just me, a workbench, many gemstones, and over twenty years of doing the one thing I've never gotten tired of.
Who designs Keila Bespoke jewellery?
Keila Bespoke is an independent jewellery label based in Singapore, designed and individually assembled by me, Kayde from my own home studio. I trained in metal smithing at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts as a fine jewelry designer, but before that, I learned the old way: standing inside a small independent jewellery store at nineteen, asking the boss if I could stay and learn for free, because something about the craft had already quietly decided for me. Was I crazy then? Looking back, I think that was one of the many best things that happened to me. :)
Since then I've worked across the fine jewellery trade, gold, gemstones, jade, other people's brands, other people's visions. Despite being heavily engaged with my sister's jewellery brand, I created this brand with loads of love and good intention where I get to build something that's entirely mine: modular, wearable, one-of-one pieces meant to move through your life with you, not just sit pretty in a box.
Two decades creating customers's dream into actual heirloom piece
Here's what twenty years in this trade has actually taught me, beyond technique. A piece of jewellery is rarely just decoration. It's usually a stand-in for a memory, a milestone, a version of someone the wearer wants to hold onto. I've sat across the table from brides, from daughters buying their first "grown-up" piece, from women quietly rebuilding their lives. Every one of them taught me something about why this work matters.
That's the experience I bring to every base, every component, every commission that comes through Keila Bespoke. I'm not designing for a showroom. I'm designing for the actual hands that will wear the piece.
What I'm proud to be good at
If I'm honest about my strengths and I'd rather be honest than modest. Here's where I know I deliver. I have an incredible trained eye for proportion, balance and ratiro and detail that comes only from years at the bench, not a weekend course. I genuinely listen before I design, which means a commissioned piece ends up looking like the person who'll wear it, not like a catalogue photo. I built Keila Bespoke's whole modular system myself. One base, many ways to wear it, because I wanted jewellery that adapts the way real women's lives do, not the other way around. And if anything ever goes wrong with a piece I've made, I stand behind it completely. That's not a slogan, that's The Second Life Promise, and I mean every word of it.
What I'm still learning, openly
Running this alone means I'm the designer, the goldsmith, the shopkeeper, and the one replying to your messages at 11pm! I won't pretend that balance comes naturally to me yet. I'd rather spend twelve hours crafting than one hour on a spreadsheet, if I'm being completely honest! Some weeks the craft wins and the admin slips (bleagh). I'm working on that, slowly, the same way I work on everything else — with patience rather than panic.
Come see (and hold) the pieces in person
If you're in Singapore whether you live here or you're just visiting this country, Keila Bespoke also has a small corner inside Gen.K Jewelry, a homegrown jade and jewellery boutique at 1B Duxton Hill, right in one of Singapore's loveliest heritage shophouse stretches. It's a tiny display, but it's mine, tucked in among the jade. If you're the kind of traveller who likes bringing home something locally designed and genuinely one-of-one, rather than another fridge magnet, that little corner is worth the detour.
Thank you for being one of the first people to read something I wrote here. There will be more, about the craft, about the women who wear these pieces, about the days that go right and the days that very much don't.
For now: welcome. I'm glad you found your way here.
With love,
Kayde
Founder
Keila Bespoke