Yacine Hamdani was an engineering student hesitantly going about his studies when he made a surprising but not completely disconnected pivot. The pivot in question was to jewelry making, but he wasn't passionate about making necklaces or rings or bracelets—instead, his fascination with human anatomy and desire to create something uniquely personal to every consumer led him to create his own category, redefining what jewelry is and can be along the way. Eargrillz, a piece of jewelry molded to the shape of your ear that I stumbled upon while perusing Instagram, was born from a fascination with machines and their capabilities beyond what they were created for, and a need that every creative person can probably relate to: Hamdani needed to do something that didn't bore him.
Hamdani connected with me from Montreal, where he grew up and once again lives, and early on it became evident that he genuinely loves talking to people. Here, Hamdani shares how engineering led him to jewelry making and how Eargrillz, which launched about three years ago, created a new, deeply personal way of accessorizing.
Yacine Hamdani
How did you go from engineering school to designing jewelry?
"I liked engineering but, at the same time, I didn't feel like I was going to do this for the rest of my life, and I was kind of more doing it for my parents. As an immigrant, your parents have some type of expectations, so they come here and they put you in a school and everything, and they want you to either become a doctor or engineer or stuff like that. So I was kind of going with it. I just wanted to make them happy. During my second year, I was working in a lab in a 3D printing lab, and I would stay after hours just working on my own projects. And then I came up with this, the Eargrillz."
Were you creative when you were growing up?
"I think that my creative type was not a traditional kid's creative type. My type of creativeness was more in 3D. Since a kid, I could see things in 3D and imagine systems in my head in 3D, but that's kind of something that came a little bit later. And I figured that out later during my time in high school and a bit before university when I was doing some 3D work. So growing up, I wasn't crazy creative. I'm not good at music or drawing, but I was always interested by small details.
Yacine Hamdani
Yacine Hamdani
Do you think there are similarities between engineering and what you do now?
"Yeah, actually, I think that there are a lot of similarities. What I do is very engineered and focused. So the jewelry that I make and the way I see it, I don't only see it as a piece of gold or metal or something. I see it more as, it's kind of the culmination of thousands of years of human technology. We went from just creating fire to getting to the place where we can actually create things like the technology that enables us to create the Eargrillz. That's how I see it. It's all engineering tools. I was able to create Eargrillz when I was still in university using all the tools that I had there. And none of them were jewelry-making tools. It was only engineering tools. I think that this is more of an engineering project mixed with a lot of creative work than just a jewelry thing."
How did you come up with Eargrillz?
"I was in the lab working on a project on my car. It's super weird, but I was working on my car and I was fixing it with 3D printing and just 3D technologies and everything. I was into human anatomy and biology and cyberpunk things and everything. So I was like, 'how could we just mix both and create something for humans using techniques that I used to fix the car?'"
When someone is getting an eargrill, what does that process look like?
"We have to fit it in the ear. It's super custom made and it replicates the inside of your ear. Everything is done remotely, and that's how we push it. I don't want you to have to travel to get it made for yourself so I'm making the whole business around it being accessible to everyone. We send out the whole molding kit and it's super easy. It takes ten minutes to get it fitted for the ear, and then they send it back to us, and then we create our magic from there. It's a super easy process and it's made to not take much of the customer's time."
What does your creative process look like? How do you stay creative and what inspires you?
"I look at machines and I look at their limits. They come first. I choose one machine, one type of technology, and I look at the machine's limitations. If one machine is not able to do that kind of work, I still try to make it happen with that machine or that software. And when you try to do something, you push a machine to its limit. You push a software to its limit and it unlocks something new or a new process that's never been done before. It's just about taking tools to create things they're not designed to create. It's almost like intentionally creating glitches and then turning these glitches into jewelry. For the brand, we put the customer at the center of the creative process. Whatever they want to create, we do our best to make it happen. It's really them who are guiding the ship."
Yacine Hamdani
What excites you about jewelry?
"Well, it's really the stories that we get from our customers. For example, there's this lady called Amanda from Toronto, and she lost hearing in one of her ears. It was really difficult for her just accepting it and everything for a few years. And then she started working on herself and embracing it a bit more. And at the same time, we were launching Eargrillz and she saw it and she got one for herself. Now she embraces it. She has the eargrill on the ear with a cochlear implant. It looks so cool. It's really the future of customizable jewelry. How personal can we make it? I also really love gemstones. I think they're beautiful."
How do you see the brand growing?
"I think I want to create some type of AI system that takes only our own data and somehow integrate it in the whole creation process with the customer. The customer can just go and say something to the AI and create their dream piece. I would also really love to have stores around the world, starting with New York and La, Dubai, Paris, London. You could just walk in the store and get your ear fitted and the mold in person. I also see the brand being part of a video game or something like Cyberpunk, GTA or Death Stranding. That would be crazy."
Yacine Hamdani
Yacine Hamdani
How does your family feel about what you do now?
"It was so difficult. I'm doing all this to prove myself to them. You're helping me prove my point."
