A life across cultures.
A deeply personal vision.

Joo Yeon “Yona” Kim founded MEMORAE at the meeting point of personal memory, fine jewellery and a career shaped across cultures.

For more than a decade, she has worked across international luxury, brand experience and creative direction—including seven years with Christian Dior across Asian markets. Moving between cultures taught her that the objects people treasure may differ, but the instinct behind them is universal: we look for ways to hold close the people, places and moments that have changed us.

“The moments that make a life meaningful deserve a form as singular as the feeling itself. A great love, a new life, a promise, an achievement—each leaves a trace in us. To carry the physical trace of one of those moments into a one-of-one diamond is to keep its story close, through your lifetime and beyond.”

Her creative practice brings together the emotional intelligence of storytelling and the exacting standards of luxury. As a GIA Graduate Gemologist, with further jewellery studies at The Hatton Jewellery Institute and the Central Saint Martins Jewellery Programme, she approaches each commission with both gemological rigour and a designer’s eye for proportion, material and meaning.

MEMORAE grew from one compelling idea: carbon is the foundation of life and the element that forms a diamond. By transforming carbon recovered from a cherished artifact into a one-of-one stone, something deeply personal can become enduring—not reproduced, not selected from a case, but created from the physical trace of one singular story.

Yona’s role is personal from the first conversation. She listens for the meaning beneath the object, guides each client through the artifact and diamond possibilities, and helps shape a piece of jewellery that feels intimate, modern and unmistakably their own.

• 10+ yearsInternational luxury, brand experience and creative direction
• 7 yearsChristian Dior across Asian markets
• GIAGraduate Gemologist
• Jewellery designThe Hatton Jewellery Institute · Central Saint Martins Jewellery Programme

Book a private preview ⟶