Taking Macrame Jewellry to a New Level is Anastasia

What is your Koh Phangan story?
My time here starts six years ago, my husband and I didn’t know how long we would stay but we liked it very much. It was our second experience of long time travel, the first was in India where we stayed for four, mostly to avoid Russian winters which is a common story for everyone!

After India we decided to try something else, one of our friends was here on Phangan and asked us to visit and then we got stuck here. It never gets boring, every time it is different and we explore the island again and again.

It doesn’t matter where we are in the world, we just need internet for work so we spend six months a year in Russia seeing our friends and family there, so we get spring twice a year!

How did you get into jewellry making?
I’m an artist and have been drawing since childhood, it became my profession in 1999.

I have always been interested in beautiful things, the first time I saw macrame was in India, I saw a shop with a lot of necklaces, pendants and bracelets with natural stones like I use and they were very, very beautiful.

I didn’t understand how it was made so I asked the owner of the shop if it was possible to learn and he said that he could teach me.

So I started to go to his lessons and afterwards I tried by myself. It was interesting that my teacher was a man and he did it very good, an indian guy not a woman doing the macrame. His style was a little bit too straight and masculine so when I started to do my own designs I made them more feminine.

What do you use for inspiration?
A lot of different things, nature, Phangan nature especially, sunsets, beautiful music and movies.

I really like old movies with long dresses, high hair and a lot of jewellry on women. When I see this the I feel like I want to do something beautiful like years ago, sometimes I can just read magazines, look at photos or pictures which can inspire me also.

What stones do you like working with?
I like very much malachite, turquoise, labradorite and moonstone, these are my favourites.
They are not as expensive as rubys or emeralds but beautiful and interesting still, they look rich and expensive, so people can afford it and so can we.

You do wedding macrame, where did you get the idea from?
The first time I decided to try to do something for a bride was a few years ago. Our good friends live on samui, they are a good couple, he’s a wedding photographer and she’s a wedding stylist and makeup artist, so they make a wedding photo session every week.

My friend asked me if maybe I could try to make something for a wedding shoot, I stayed up all  night and made white anklets for the bride as they had to leave to go back to Samui, it took ten hours but I got it all ready.

The next morning the bride liked the pieces very much so I have continued, adding in headpieces etc and it is still very popular.

Where do you sell your pieces and do you do custom orders?
I sell my jewellry in ‘The Gallery of Koh Phangan’ in Thong Sala, but only part of the collection.

I make for order too but only seldom or if someone really need it and I really love them as it is difficult to make for order as I like to make pieces when I have inspiration. I see a stone and think about what I want to do with it.

You can find my full collection on my website.

Why do you think Koh Phangan is special?
After six years I feel like it’s my second home, because it’s a beautiful place of course.

Here I feel more inspiration to create something, I just look around and feel it. It’s like the island makes some kind of energy.

Here we meet a lot of interesting, kind people, a lot of people are already our best friends.

How do you spend your free time here?
We don’t have too much time as I am also working with orders and internet customers.

I draw illustrations and I am a dance teacher of tribal fusion.

When we have free time my husband and I drive around the island together and drink coffee in beautiful places.

What do you hope for yourself and all of your art over the next few years?
I am dreaming about my own shop, I believe in this.

I would like to have more time for macrame and actually I need someone to help me, I have a friend in St Petersburg, she was my student and now is my partner but we can only make jewellry together for only six months of the year so we miss each other very much.

I would like to stay on the island and have more of the same.

I would be happy for my friends to visit more often than now, every year they come but only for two or three weeks, it’s too short.

What is your life philosophy?
I have a lot of philosophies haha. I just try to stay positive always even if something bad happens, I believe it is not forever and tomorrow the sun will come again and everything will be ok.