St. Mike’s alum’s business Homegrown Jewelry goes from dorm room pop-up shop to British Vogue

Readers of British Vogue connected with Saint Michael’s College may have noticed a familiar business name in several recent issues. 

Francesca D’Elia ’20 (Courtesy Francesca D’Elia)

Homegrown Jewelry, a small business created by Francesca D’Elia ’20, was featured in the December, January, and February issues of British Vogue as one of their “Jewellery Designer Profiles” alongside jewelry designers from around the world.  

D’Elia majored in Business Administration and minored in Economics while at Saint Michael’s, but her passion for jewelry began long before college.  

D’Elia started making jewelry in middle school as Christmas presents. She said she’s always gained inspiration from what types of jewelry her friends would wear. She eventually began entering her jewelry into local craft fairs in Vermont.  

“I did my first craft show when I was a sophomore in high school… and I remember just being terrified to sell anything, and literally sat at my table shaking as people were asking me about what I was making,” D’Elia said. “And now looking back, that’s like, very funny, because now I do like 10 plus shows just in the holiday season.”  

D’Elia officially named her business “Homegrown Jewelry” as she started selling her creations to more people.  

“Homegrown really kind of stuck out,” D’Elia said. “I honestly didn’t even have other names in mind. It just felt right because I was making it out of, at that point, out of my bedroom, and it had a really big focus, always on nature and designs from nature.”  

‘The jewelry girl’ 

As D’Elia entered her first year at Saint Michael’s College – following in the footsteps of her parents and three sisters, who are all alums – she thought she would be too busy to keep her business running. However, this changed as she told her friends about Homegrown Jewelry, and they insisted that she have a “market” before the winter break. 

A ring and bracelet designed by Homegrown Jewelry, which is owned by Francesca D’Elia ’20, was one of the designs featured in British Vogue in early 2025. (Courtesy Francesca D’Elia)

“Freshman year in my dorm room in Ryan (Hall), we hosted a two-hour jewelry shopping pop-up,” D’Elia said. She added, “For the next four years, I was the jewelry girl.”  

D’Elia said she felt extremely supported by her peers throughout her time at Saint Michael’s, and this encouragement gave her a lot of confidence as her business took off after graduation.  

D’Elia also made her professors aware of her jewelry business early on at Saint Michael’s, and this allowed her to use her own jewelry business to complete coursework and projects, she said. 

“I was able to take whatever we were learning in class and pretty much directly apply it to what I was doing in my business that year,” she said.  

D’Elia said that Business Professors Karen Popovich and Paul Olsen were particularly supportive as she was navigating Homegrown’s role in the business realm, making themselves available for business advice and providing guidance as her business grew.   

For her final project during her senior year at Saint Michael’s, D’Elia displayed her jewelry at Vermont Marketplace.  

“A bunch of my professors came, and it was just like, so nice to know that I had that support,” she said.  

En vogue in British Vogue  

Now, five years after graduation, D’Elia is seeing even more success after being featured in British Vogue. 

“The first issue was released mid-November,” D’Elia said. “I had known about it since the start of October, and I hadn’t told anybody because I knew it was happening, but there was that 1% of me that was like, this feels like a prank.” 

Homegrown Jewelry, a company founded and run by Francesca D’Elia ’20, was featured in British Vogue for three consecutive months in late 2024 and early 2025. A screenshot of the page from the January 2025 edition of British Vogue shows she was among jewelry designers from around the world (Homegrown Jewelry is at bottom left). (Credit: British Vogue)

D’Elia was mindful about the pieces she put forward to be featured in the magazine and said she approached it artistically, including a face ring, big flower earrings with a pearl in the middle, and technical stone pieces with a ring and a bracelet.  

“All three of those pieces just felt like they flowed and felt like that’s how I wanted to represent the brand as a whole,” she said.  

In light of D’Elia’s recent spotlight in British Vogue, she said she is especially grateful for Homegrown Jewelry’s success – and the people who helped get her to this point.  

“It was definitely a moment where I kind of like sat back and reminisced on the full 11 years of running the business,” she said.