History- Mango Tree Jewelry
It all started at 2004, when I traveled across magical India, the land of Sab Kuch Milega
It all started at 2004, when I traveled across magical India, the land of Sab Kuch Milega (everything is possible), on my big trip after the army. After a journey of 6 months, I stood at a crossroad, wondering where to finish my trip; in the familiar beloved city Pushkar or in Jaipur- the city of gemstones. I had a flight back within a week. After taking the red eye bus to Jaipur I arrived to a guesthouse, and in the patio stood David. We had a strong connection right at that evening, and we are together since, living with great love in our hearts.
David is a guy full of love and endless giving, natural captivating charisma and positive energies. He studied gemology in Jaipur and specialized in identifying and characterizing stones. Already back in India, he started to sell and buy rare gemstones and he used to travel with a backpack full of them, taking them with him from place to place.
After a few days of falling hard in love, I called my mom in Israel to tell her I'm not coming back, and after only three weeks, we left India together to the wild Australian outback. We bought an old, charming trailer, and after a small renovation it turned into our house. For a year, we explored Australia and New Zealand- parked on beaches, near forests and on parks, and connected to the magnificent nature that surrounded us. As we carried plenty of gemstones with us, we started playing with them, and they turned out to be gorgeous jewelries, such as necklaces and bracelets made of gemstones beads, combined with silver. It was a very enjoyable experience for both of us.
To provide for our living, we opened a stand at the weekend fairs of every town we visited. There, we sold the jewelries we made during the same week. To the local goldsmiths, we sold the special gemstones we had for setting. At one of our stops in Nelson, New Zealand, we met a kind goldsmith who offered us an exchange; he will teach us gold and silver crafting and we will give him gemstones in return. We loved the idea, and that is how the world of jewelry making opened for us. We traveled from Australia to New Zealand and then back to Australia- we fell in love with Australia and its people, but on March 2005 our visa expired, and we had to pick a new destination.
We set our sights on the United Kingdom, and after resting in Thailand and buying some merchandise, we went to try our luck there. In England, we built our own stand and there we sold our jewelries during the summer season. The British really liked us and we decided to go back to England every summer. So we did, and we traveled from England to Israel to Thailand to India and back to England to do it all over again, each year. In England, the customers started to recognize us, pointing and saying "Here is Mango Tree", because of our famous bracelets made of mango trees. This is how our name was born.
In 2007 our oldest daughter was born, and after another year around the world with her on our hands, we realized the best thing for us now is to settle in Israel and establish our roots here. After a period of settling in, we returned to the markets, but with a somewhat different view to look at, in the art fair of Dizingoff center. There, as some of you probably remember, we visited daily for five years. The stall was like a store to me- I loved our lovely customers, and I deeply enjoyed the atmosphere of life the street bestowed.
On 2011, the management of Dizingoff art fair announced that the fair is being cancelled and that it is going to be open only on Fridays and Tuesdays. With that, we realized that our next step is our own real store. Since then, we are nurturing three stores in the center area and we are expecting to expand soon.
Today David and I are raising three lovely children. We live in North Tel Aviv, right next to the studio, which is our second home, and where we make our special orders such as custom made pendants, custom made wedding and engagement rings, personally styled name-necklaces and of course all the jewelries offered in our stores.
Our stores: 6 Shenkin St., Tel Aviv | 175 Dizingoff St., Tel Aviv | Oshiland Mall, Kfar Sava.
With love, Hellen Ducket.
