Zycloom: The Cherry on Top

Talulah Brown
15 hours ago
4 min read

Jewelry designer, model, and New Yorker, Jade Boulton has always prized punctuality. Growing up in New York taught her freedom, but also disillusionment. “It’s so easy to live a dozen lives here,” she says, her tone both matter-of-fact and wistful. For her, that multiplicity is the city’s greatest allure—its promise of endless reinvention, understood only by those who truly know it.

Her earliest life was defined by her hands. Since the age of seven or eight, she’s been playing music, threading beads—plastic at first, then glass, then crystal, and eventually sterling silver. Jewelry-making is something tactile, therapeutic, and deeply personal. As her materials matured, so did her purpose. What began as childhood craftwork evolved into something artful, intentional, and entirely her own.

She’d tinker with pieces at night, stringing beads and shaping charms while her boyfriend looked on. “He kept saying, 'you should take this seriously,’” she recalls. For years, she’d been orbiting the fashion world anyway—modeling since fourteen, she later became a fashion assistant, often working for friends she admired. “It was a crash course in creativity,” she says. “I was surrounded by friends who were brilliant. It made me want to make things, not just help make them.”

The first piece in her collection, the knife necklace, was inspired by Rachel, an antique dealer who ran a shop across from her childhood apartment called Union Max. Rachel was a woman who could pick up an object and narrate its history. At fifteen, most Saturdays they’d scour flea markets at dawn, uncovering stories buried in silver and stone. At sixteen, Rachel gave her a tiny knife which she strung on a Tiffany’s chain. She wore it everywhere. When it finally fell off years later, she made her own. “I felt like something was missing,” she says. That homemade replica became the first piece she ever sold.

From there, things unfolded with a kind of organic inevitability. She began photographing her friends in her designs; word spread. Before she even had a website, MNZ carried her pieces. When an influencer discovered her anklets and wrote about them during a soft site launch, orders flooded in. Still a little astonished. “It was surreal.”

Wearing Archive Balenciaga dress – stylist's own bra – stylist's own scarf/pin – Archive Alaïa shoes

Now, she spends Saturdays cutting stones by hand. The knife necklaces and anklets remain her bestsellers, but she’s just as enamored with her Stone Age earrings and Petal pieces.

Zycloom encapsulates summer—fleeting, intangible, like a memory you’ve already lived. Each design feels like a fragment of her story, polished, imperfect, and undeniably New York. “Every piece is a little piece of me,” she says. From the website to the photography, from the stones to the colors, everything carries the intimacy. Slip on one of her ethereal stones, and you might catch a whisper—a fleeting glimpse—of the city’s secret, enchanting rhythm.

Talulah: Where do you call home?

Jade: New York! And more specifically the East Village where I live.

Talulah: How is it different from the house you grew up in?

Jade: I grew up in Carroll Gardens and then CG border of Red Hook. It’s pretty quiet and not as much going on.

Talulah: What is your favorite room in your home?

Jade: Bedroom!

Talulah: What's on your bedside table?

Jade: My homemade electrolyte water, a hair clip, a book and my journal.

Talulah: Do you remember your dreams?

Jade: Yes, I used to write them down and now I’m able to remember them right after I wake up. My dreams are jam packed. They feel like a long movie.

Talulah: Is there a scent, sound, or taste that makes you nostalgic?

Jade: Yes, scents for sure but they hit me randomly. It’s never something that I own. A scent is something I walk into and the feeling of nostalgia hits me. For sounds, I’d say when someone plays the piano. I think of my brother and how much he would fill the apartment with his music. Or a helicopter going by and the echo that follows.

Talulah: Can you tell me the story of Zycloom?

Jade: Zycloom is an alias I’ve been using for about 9 years, if not longer. I made cut out collages and would print them out 32x64” and sell them on instagram. My school had an HP ink jet poster printer. My teacher was cool and let me print my orders after school. I had a small group of people that would buy from me in that era. It wasn’t until I was 19 that I started to make jewelry again. It was a form of therapy and something I would do for myself. My boyfriend told me I should take it seriously for about two years. It happened overtime and organically and here we are almost two years later being full-time.

Talulah: How do you design the jewelry? Do you see a finished piece in your head beforehand?

Jade: Both. I see pieces in my head vividly. And other times, I source new things and have days where I’m just playing with my materials. That’s how it all started. With playfulness and an exploration to be free.

Talulah: Is there a specific atmosphere you create in your studio? Is it light or dark? Silent or loud?

Jade: There’s lots of natural light. That’s the most important thing to me when I’m spending lots of time at the studio. To feel a connection to the outside world. I listen to a lot of podcasts or music or Netflix. Other days I work in complete silence.

Talulah: What feelings do you hope wearing a piece of yours evokes?

Jade: 1. I hope it sparks joy.

2. I hope people feel it’s the part of their outfit that they deeply relate to and that feels most like themselves.

3. It’s an elevation piece, the cherry on top.

4. Wearing the jewelry like it’s a second skin.