About 'Alohi Kai

Crave escape? Chase adventure? Do you reach for the unknown, pushing the edge of your comfort to seek the extraordinary? To explore connections with creatures and other worlds.

We make jewelry for expansive minds – divers and rough water swimmers yes, shoreline wanderers and arm-chair admirers too. Dreamers of the ocean depths. People who breathe in the wild blue expanse and want protect its future. We help you be your story, with ocean-friendly designs that tell a tale survival and perseverance – designing for people who believe in slow ways, slow living, and that beautiful adornment persists through time and trends. And for everyone who believes in the ocean.

Our Ethos

Every ‘Alohi Kai design has a story to tell. Representing experiences and adventures, they tell a tale of ocean hardship, survival and ingenuity, as well as our own tale of discovery and inspiration. 

Using ‘slow’ methods we hand carve and sculpt our models using a knife or flame. We set stones, fabricate and polish our jewelry by hand. We’re small and do things in small batches to ensure each piece meets our quality standards.

We create with attention to detail, design to be coveted, and produce quality that can be passed down generations. We love the feel of authentic and slow. We don’t do disposable or fast.

We like to support our own so we use domestic labor for production and all our metals are sourced from the US. And we make decisions with the impacts of what we do in mind – opting for non-toxic processes and reusable, recyclable packaging. (Read more here.) We live on a small rock in the middle of the ocean, these choices matter.

And of course, we carry these values into the ocean when we dive. Our jewelry represents hundreds of hours not just observing wildlife, but clearing line, hooks, garbage and on occasion, freeing creatures caught up in it.

Tools of the trade

A male humpback singing for a mate

Plastic debris with juvenile fish

The Process

I'm Shera, and I take the photos and make the jewelry for 'Alohi Kai. We spend a good deal of our lives in the ocean, it's where we go to be happy, to heal, to explore. So its no surprise that ideas often come to me when I'm underwater. After selecting (and usually photographing) a subject, I sketch it from various angles before carving and sculpting it in a hard jeweler’s wax. These small scale sculptures are prepped, textured and finished, then cast in silver.

Once cast, I clip, file, sand and polish each piece - it's very labor intensive! From some I make silicone molds and cast multiples to fabricate larger pieces of jewelry such as the great hammerhead link bracelet below.

Other designs are polished, soldered/finished as a single piece like the aquamarine ring or octopus ear cuffs (both below). Every item is hand-finished at each stage, with care and attention – we want it to be loved and have a very long life!

Blue Beryl (Aquamarine) Ring

Octopus Cuff

Great Hammerhead Link Bracelet

Shera Mercer is an ocean-obsessed designer, maker & underwater photographer based in Hawaii. Despite starting silversmithing at 17, she found herself in corporate life in the US and the UK. After working extensively in Europe, the Middle East, Japan, Mexico and the US, she decided to hang up her business suits in favor of wetsuits and now dives every week in the blue of the Pacific with her husband Joe.

Diving and photographing wildlife around the world became her constant companion while traveling.  The ocean teaches you not just about human limitations and coexisting with wildlife, but also companionship and connections between diverse people. With love of the ocean in common, people with oppositional philosophies come together because people protect what they love. Taking these experiences into ‘Alohi Kai, in a small way she hopes to contribute to raising awareness about ocean sustainability and conservation.

‘Alohi Kai jewelry has been featured on HI on Art, Marriott’s Bonvoy Traveller, KITV News, in Lei Chic and Honolulu Magazine and in blogs by Paula Rath. For more, check out our blog, Instagram and Facebook

About

We help ocean lovers express their watery souls, and raise awareness of endemic and endangered Hawaiian marine wildlife.  We hand carve ocean jewelry from our own underwater photos and craft it in silver and gold. Wear your ocean!

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