Our Ethos

An Archive Of Who You Are

WWAKE is an awakening and a wake. A beginning and an end. We create jewelry for both, and for every moment between. Not only the celebrations, but the losses. Not only the milestones, but the shifts that change who you are. A graduation, a marriage, a separation, a move across an ocean, a year you survived. WWAKE exists for the moments that matter, however they find you

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The Archive

Your jewelry is an archive: of who you are, and of everyone who touched it before you. A stone formed over millions of years. A miner, a cutter, a setter. Gold doesn't forget; it carries forward.

Cultural Gold

There is gold, and there is cultural gold: gold shaped into something meant to be kept, worn, remembered. WWAKE exists to create the cultural gold of today: proof that we were here.

Design Philosophy

Our process begins with materials. We follow where they lead: the weight of a stone in the hand, the way light moves through it, the form it seems to ask for.

We pare back until only what's necessary remains, giving stones space, and refining proportion until it feels inevitable. Something discovered through making, touch, repetition, and attention to what emerges.

Each piece is part of a larger whole: many gestures, many iterations, like ripples from the same center; individually distinct, but belonging to one another.

Material & Sourcing

Every material carries a history: where it formed, how it moved through the world, what it means to work with it now.

Social Impact & Sustainability

Jewelry connects a global chain of people. These are the communities and practices behind what we make.

Craft & Creative Process

Making as discovery, from hand to form to finished piece. Each design evolves through careful study of material, proportion, and balance, shaped in our Brooklyn studio.

Tailored Services

Custom
Heirloom Reset
Styling Session

The Designer

Wing Yau grew up between Papua New Guinea, Peru, and the Pacific Northwest, an end-generation immigrant whose family left its heirlooms behind. She was raised surrounded by her mother's collection of indigenous textiles and ceramics, gathered with anthropological care, and shaping an early understanding of how materials carry culture; how objects retain the hand of their makers.

She studied sculpture at RISD, where she absorbed a modernist principle: give materials room to perform. After years assisting artists and galleries in New York, Wing began making necklaces rooted in textile sculpture—work that led to starting WWAKE in 2012.

A fascination with the human story of materials remains the through-line: tracing how stones and metals transform across cultures, gaining meaning far beyond their raw forms. WWAKE is that curiosity in practice.

Ethos

Our approach is long-term. We care about the full picture: where materials come from, how they're made, and who is impacted. This work is ever-evolving, and we stay close to it.

1

Materials & Sourcing

Our first priority is materials that drive social impact at the source: Fairmined gold, gemstones from mining communities we know and support. In moments when these materials can't provide the consistency or scale a collection might require, we turn to what already exists: recycled metals, antique diamonds, heritage stones from previous generations. Our gemstones are natural, with country of origin documented, and we invest in long-term relationships with partners who uphold fair labor and environmental standards.

2

Local Production

All WWAKE pieces are made in our Brooklyn studio and New York's diamond district. In Brooklyn, we built our studio in 2015 around how we wanted to work: a clean, low-toxic environment for our jewelers, using Fairmined gold and certified recycled metal. Over time, we’ve also expanded to work with a family-owned studio that makes our jewelry that shares our standards for stone setting and finishing. We purposefully stay close to our production. It keeps us rooted in our community, supports local makers, and gives us oversight at every step—elevating our quality beyond what outsourcing allows.

3

Social Impact

Responsibility at the source means responsibility at home. We have supported the mining communities we work with (including training programs, school repairs, long-term partnerships) and extend that same care in New York. We contribute a minimum of 1% of annual sales to organizations working on immigrant advocacy, housing security, and support for marginalized communities. We maintain at least 50% of roles for Black, NBPOC, and immigrant employees; a threshold we currently exceed.

4

Ongoing Work

We operate our business within a jewelry industry—and a world—that is historically tangled and deeply imperfect. We believe in the value of proximity: knowing the hands that set your stone, keeping our supply chains short, and in the ongoingness of learning.

Our Commitments

Winnyc
Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM)
Pact
Pure Earth
Chimwadzulu Mine
Moyo Gems

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