Meet Yves Spinelli & Dwyer Kilcollin | Co-founders of Spinelli Kilcollin

We had the good fortune of connecting with Yves Spinelli & Dwyer Kilcollin and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Yves Spinelli & Dwyer Kilcollin, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
When we met and fell in love, we wanted to spend more time together. But our work schedules left us very few days with each other. At that time, Yves and his dad had already created the first set of linked rings. We saw it as an opportunity to build something special and ran with it! We love working together and working for ourselves.

What should our readers know about your business?
Owning a business offers us a huge opportunity to make a difference. As our brand grows, so does our platform to make the changes we’d like to see in the world. We make all of our jewelry in downtown Los Angeles, using a majority of recycled metals, conflict-free diamonds, and ethically sourced stones. Making our jewelry, displays, and packaging locally reduces our carbon footprint and gives us greater oversight on our materials and sourcing.

Outside of the jewelry industry, we are consistently engaged in efforts to promote freedom and equality in communities local to us.

When we first started our brand, we took a lot of risks– trying things and seeing what worked. It was an exciting, and, in retrospect, exhausting time. Yves and I have never been much for the status quo. It matters little to us how things are normally done because we always want to do things better. Being better means you have to be different.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Great question! If your friend enjoys outdoor activities, we highly recommend hiking the Angeles mountains, especially the canyons, and waterfalls. For rock climbing enthusiasts, Dwyer recommends the Santa Monica mountains, and for surfers, Santa Monica Beach or San Onofre are great options if you have the time to drive down there.

As a family, we enjoy spending our weekends together. Our children are 3 and 5 years old, and we love taking them to the Huntington Gardens in Pasadena or to the Peterson Automotive Museum. The museum has constantly rotating exhibitions, and they have a fun room with games and activities for kids.

This weekend, we’re planning on seeing the Superbloom of native flowers in Antelope Valley. Usually, we often stay close to home on weekends, we have a yard with swings, a trampoline, fruit trees, and a terrace, which makes it perfect for hosting informal gatherings of families with kids running wild!

In the evenings, Yves enjoys cooking and hosting listening parties in his music room. He has worked with a concert acoustician to tune the room into an ideal listening environment, lined with records on every wall. His favorite record stores in LA are Atomic, Record Surplus, and Amoeba.

For dining out, we recommend Botanica, El Prado, Pace in Laurel Canyon, and Speranza in Silverlake. And for a short weekend excursion, Catalina Island is a great option. The main town, Avalon, offers glass-bottom boat tours, a ropes course, deer running wild, and lots of ice cream. This year, we’re even planning on trying out camping on the twin harbors’ side of the island.

Website: https://www.spinellikilcollin.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spinellikilcollin/?hl=en

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpinelliKilcollin/

Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@spinellikilcollin

Image Credits
SK Image 1 – To The Planetarium SK Image 2 – by Abby Gordon SK Image 3 – Neva Wireko SK Image 4 – Vince Aung SK Image 6 – Abby Gordon