Every spring the cherry tree outside my window does the same thing. It blooms for maybe two weeks, drops everything it worked all year to grow, and stands there bare again like nothing happened. I used to find that sad. This drop is me finally finding it beautiful instead.

Bloom started with that tree, the same one, several springs in a row. I kept photographing it obsessively, the same branches, slightly different light, slightly different version of me standing underneath. One spring I was heartbroken under it, genuinely convinced I'd never feel normal again. Another spring I was fine, barely thinking about anything at all, just walking past it on my way somewhere. The tree never knew the difference. It bloomed exactly on schedule both times, indifferent to what I was going through, and there's something in that indifference I needed. The idea that beauty doesn't wait for you to be ready for it, that it arrives on its own calendar regardless of whether yours lines up.

So the collection follows the tree itself, almost literally, piece by piece. The petal studs came first, small and scattered, meant to sit close to the ear the way petals sit close together right before they let go. I wanted them to feel almost accidental, like something that landed on you rather than something you put on. Then the branch earcuff, which took the longest to get right of anything in this drop. Early versions looked too finished, too much like a piece of jewellery trying to depict a branch. I kept sending it back until it looked like something still growing, unfinished on purpose, a shape mid-motion rather than a shape that had already decided what it was.

Last came the four-petal charm, in silver and in gold, and it's the piece I keep coming back to myself, months after the drop went out. It's the one that looks most like an ending and most like a beginning, depending entirely on the day you look at it. Some mornings I see it and think of everything the tree lost that year. Other mornings I see the same charm and think only of how much came after.

I called it Bloom and not Cherry Blossom on purpose, because I didn't want it tied to one specific tree or one specific spring. I wanted it to be about the forgetting-to-hold-back part, the way the tree gives everything away every single year without protecting any of it for later, without hedging, without keeping some in reserve in case next spring is harder. Everything the tree forgot to hold back is exactly what this collection is. Dropped colour, given away on purpose, gone in two weeks, worth it anyway.

It's a quieter drop than some of the others we've made. Less bold, more wistful, closer to a held breath than a statement. That felt right for what it's actually about. Not every collection needs to announce itself. Some of them are just meant to sit with you the way the tree sits outside a window, doing its quiet thing whether or not you're paying attention that year.

— Paola