Amplifying Asian Americans: Earth Angelry by Belle Zhao
Earth Angelry is a made to order, eco-conscious, genderless jewelry company in New York created by Chinese-American artist Belle Zhao. In this piece, Belle speaks about challenging fashion industry standards, finding strength in vulnerability, and just how much she loves her parents.
In this monthly blog series, we highlight creative pursuits outside the music industry and by Asian American Pacific Islanders, as part of our mission in amplifying Asian Americans, or #AAA.
“This is a way for me to rewrite what it means to be strong,” Belle told me in our interview, which was also the first time we met. Jay and I found Belle after reaching out to members of Asian Creative Network. She responded to our message with enthusiasm and was the only creative we heard from whose art took the form of jewelry. Her company, Earth Angelry, sells a vast collection of custom-made bead pieces that can (and should) be worn by everyone, or as Belle calls them, “earth angels.” Her jewelry expresses people’s strength, but the business and story behind it are what showcase the strength of Belle Zhao.
Raised as an only child in San Francisco to two amazing Chinese immigrant parents, Belle spent much of her childhood alone in her room playing around with Klutz craft kits. She loved the kits so much that she would gift them to her friends just so they could craft together, and at 12 years old, Belle launched her first Etsy shop to sell handmade wire rings and chain bracelets. She was determined to make it big, equipped with PR lists that included the names of social influencers’ pets so that she could send them personalized pieces as gifted marketing. A fear of failure made her pull the plug. She sold nothing and hid away her supplies.
Earth Angelry “Guardian Angel Earrings.” Photo by Belle Zhao.
At 18, Belle found herself in New York City attending journalism school and landed a job with her designer idol. “I scammed my way into it,” said Belle of the job, because in addition to making jewelry she was the team’s Head Photographer, even though she had no professional photography training. I have a hard time seeing this as a scam when Belle’s diligence and self-taught skills led to her photographs being published in Vogue and her jewelry being sold at Nordstrom. But it is easy to understand why Belle would still underestimate herself: she was never paid. “I got nothing for it, not even lunch sometimes,” she said. Her role model was the real scam, and Belle was left feeling like her dreams were unattainable.
Belle had no choice but to give up or make something better herself. She chose the latter, transferring to design school and starting her own company, for real this time. She was thankful to receive her parents’ support, if not their encouragement, and found motivation in her strong values. “The fashion world is cruel,” said Belle. “I’m trying to make a spot for myself and not have to compromise.”
“I don’t want my jewelry to just be jewelry. There’s a lot of love that goes into it, and I hope that that love is felt even after the transaction.”
Earth Angelry is the justice Belle sought after her role model failed her. It is the competition to Belle’s ego and an alternative path to a capitalist industry built on exploitation. Through her business, Belle strives to be the best citizen—the best earth angel—she can be, all by grounding herself in a mission statement that is not profit driven. Jay and I bonded with her on this note, because Earth Angelry was built for the same reason Keepsake House was: not to make money, but to foster community.
“I don’t want my jewelry to just be jewelry,” said Belle. “There’s a lot of love that goes into it, and I hope that that love is felt even after the transaction.” That love is expressed through the beads, of course, but also where the beads come from and where they go. Belle is always looking for ways to avoid fast fashion and ensure that her pieces are as sustainable as possible. She takes apart vintage jewelry, re-uses packaging, sends postcards made out of recycled paper, and donates a percentage of her profits to One Tree Planted and other organizations that work toward environmental and social justice. And her pieces are made for all identities, therefore all bodies. She purposefully does not market toward any gender or size and can custom fit the chain length for every order. “Earth angels are not just women,” she told me. “They are people who are genuine, intentional, and kind.”
Belle’s “studio space.” Photo by Jimin Ou.
Her missions and values have allowed Belle the freedom to create playfully again. Still a student, Belle is able to treat Earth Angelry as a side business without any financial pressure, but she is also often consumed by schoolwork. It wasn’t until recently that she started choosing classes that were more relevant to making jewelry. From her online lectures taken during the pandemic, Belle learned to solder and is designing new kinds of pieces like wall art and pendants. She finds inspiration in anything from a vintage sconce to painted Chinese goddesses, and everything she does comes from play. “Every time I finish a piece, it looks like someone broke in,” she told me about her “studio space,” or the small desk in her apartment bedroom where she studies and makes jewelry. “All my shit is broken and there are beads all over the floor. It really looks like someone broke in and took nothing.”
Perhaps her favorite type of creative process is one that is collaborative. Belle loves to create custom pieces inspired by a person’s story or even their favorite emojis. She also tries to include her friends in as many projects as possible. While most of her photographs she takes herself, Belle will contract to her community whenever she can, and is always encouraging her loved ones to release their art. “I try to use whatever excuse I can to break my friends’ creative lulls, because they do that for me all the time,” said Belle. Recently, her friends and partner pushed her to drop a piece that she’d been working on for years, but that came at just the right time.
Earth Angelry “Angel Mace,” available for pre-order now. Photo by Myka Papetti.
Angel Mace is a beautifully bedazzled pepper spray that Earth Angelry started selling soon after the mass shooting in Atlanta. Belle had put so much pressure on herself for the release to be perfect that she nearly didn’t release it at all. When it was finally announced on her Instagram, it was an act of self-love for Belle confronting her fear as much as it was a symbol of self-love for others confronting theirs. “It is an important step to take for women—especially for women of color—to be unashamed of your need for protection,” Belle said. Belle’s own sorrow after the shooting became proactive anger, especially in response to being raised to keep her head down.
In April, Belle returned home to San Francisco for the first time in nearly two years. Being near her parents again made the fear for her and her family’s safety more real than ever. Caught between two cities that saw extreme spikes in anti-Asian hate crimes over the past year, Belle faced a reckoning with her upbringing. It had previously been easy to hide among the crowds of Asian Americans in the Bay Area, but it wasn’t anymore. “I’m tired of my safety being dependent on how easily I can hide,” she said. “I’m tired of my safety being contingent on how frail someone else’s ego is.” Violent thoughts passed through her head, thoughts begging for attackers to come for her just so that they wouldn’t come for her family. The number of unprovoked crimes proved that being quiet wasn’t working for Asian Americans like Belle, so she said, “The only other option is to be loud.”
“I’m tired of my safety being dependent on how easily I can hide. I’m tired of my safety being contingent on how frail someone else’s ego is.”
Pepper spray offers one type of noise, and vulnerability offers another. Belle and I spoke at length about the strength of crying. She said she’d been crying a lot, almost every day, since the shooting. Probably before that, because none of this is new. She started filming herself for a video diary and opened an Instagram account solely to post pictures of her in tears. I shared a quote from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre that reads, “Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive.” Belle and I agreed that crying is powerful, impressive even. To cry means that you have conquered.
Coming home seems cathartic for Belle. She brought her beads back to her childhood bedroom and is finding ways to reconnect with her parents. They don’t fully understand what she’s doing with Earth Angelry, but every time she reminds them that they helped her get to this point, that without them this business wouldn’t exist, they open up a little more. When we asked Belle who she would want to wear her jewelry if it could be worn by anyone in the world, she said it would be her parents. If her mom put in an order or her dad started calling himself an earth angel, Belle would tell them, “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Earth Angelry custom chain. Photo by Belle Zhao.
Belle may still hold some fear of failure—to succeed, be better than her idols, protect her loved ones—but as her tears show, she has conquered so much. The shop she started at 12 wasn’t perfect enough to pursue, but now, Belle believes “it’s necessary for your designs to fail before they succeed.” It was necessary for her to fail at 12 so that she could succeed at 22. It was necessary for her past dreams to die so that Earth Angelry could be born. Belle is rewriting what it means to be strong, and as it turns out, strength is a lot like Belle’s jewelry: it comes in all forms.
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