Oloof and Dujanah Jarrar Invite Us Into the World of House Janolo
- Sheri Roushdy
- Features
For sisters Oloof and Dujanah Jarrar, fine jewellery is an exercise in duality: a meeting of instinct and intention, individuality and permanence, the familiar and the unexpected. Raised in Abu Dhabi and shaped by the creative pulse of New York, the co-founders of House Janolo draw on two distinct worlds to build a jewellery house with a perspective of its own.
Photo provided by House Janolo
Their debut collection, Wild Beginnings, looks to the natural world for inspiration, translating its colours, patterns and untamed forms into expressive pieces crafted in 18-karat gold and natural gemstones. Eschewing conventional ideas of perfection, the sisters celebrate the singular character of each stone, allowing its individuality to inform the design.
Photo provided by House Janolo
At House Janolo, luxury is not reserved for special occasions, nor is self-expression bound by convention. It is found in pieces that become part of everyday life, carrying personal meaning while standing the test of time. In conversation with Grail Middle East, Oloof and Dujanah Jarrar reflect on the origins of their shared vision, the art of embracing contrast, and their ambition to build a fine jewellery house defined by character, craft and longevity.
Photo provided by House Janolo
House Janolo brings together your experiences growing up in the UAE and living between Abu Dhabi and New York. How did the idea for the brand come about, and what made you feel the time was right to create it together?
House Janolo started from a very simple place: we were the customer.
We loved fine jewellery, but we kept finding ourselves choosing between two extremes. On one side were pieces that felt timeless and beautifully crafted but lacked personality. On the other were pieces that felt creative and expressive but lacked the permanence and substance we wanted. We felt there was space for something in between. When we couldn’t find it, we decided to make it.
Where we come from shaped what that looked like. Abu Dhabi and New York have given us very different things, and we love being able to draw from both.
Abu Dhabi is where we grew up. For eighteen years we watched a city constantly thinking about its future and the lives of the people in it. It gives you calm, clarity and perspective. It makes us think more carefully about permanence, proportion and intention. There’s a quiet confidence to it that we admire: the sense that something doesn’t need to be loud to have presence.
New York wakes you up in a completely different way. It trained our eyes. The city is loud, diverse and unapologetic. Being surrounded by so many different people and ideas makes you question things, experiment and take risks you might not have considered otherwise. Creativity feels urgent there. You can’t spend too long overthinking an idea; you have to act.
What has influenced us most, though, is how we feel in each place. New York gives us an adrenaline that makes us bolder and more curious. Abu Dhabi gives us warmth, comfort and a feeling of being grounded. You can feel both in House Janolo: the excitement of discovery, in pieces that feel effortless to wear. One city pushes us to challenge convention; the other reminds us to make something that lasts.
Photo provided by House Janolo
As sisters and co-founders, how do your individual personalities and perspectives influence the creative direction of House Janolo? Are there moments when your differences lead you somewhere unexpected?
The contrasts you see throughout House Janolo come from the differences in our personalities. We’re both curious and willing to experiment, but each of us brings her own nuances to an idea, and those differences add layers to the designs. A piece can be playful and unexpected while still feeling easy to wear. We’re expressive and considered, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously, and the house reflects that.
And, as any sister knows, there’s also a kind of shorthand between you. We understand each other’s instincts, so an idea can go back and forth without much explaining. That closeness makes the work feel true to us.
What surprises us every time is where a piece ends up. We go through a lot of rounds of iteration, and by the end the final piece is often something different. Dialogue is crucial in our design meetings, because the smallest changes can make the biggest difference.
What we try to convey through House Janolo is that freedom to explore, with a certainty of taste.
Photo provided by House Janolo
You describe jewellery as a language of self-expression. What do you hope someone communicates about themselves when they wear a piece of House Janolo?
More than anything, we want people to feel more like themselves when they wear House Janolo. Jewellery is emotional. It sits on your body, so it easily becomes part of your routine, your memories and your sense of self. It’s also chosen entirely out of admiration, love or desire, rather than need. It’s a choice that can last forever when a piece is made with the right materials. That’s why we want to make things that feel honest and true. No trends or tropes, just a connection to a concept, an idea and the pieces.
We’re drawn to things that feel thoughtful and intentional, and we want our pieces to carry that same energy. That choice and connection is what makes jewellery such a powerful language for self-expression.
Photo provided by House Janolo
Your debut collection, Wild Beginnings, draws inspiration from the natural world and embraces a more expressive approach to maximalism. What was the starting point for the collection, and how did that idea translate into the designs?
It changes every time. Sometimes a collection starts with a stone. Sometimes it’s a colour combination, a pattern or a random detail we come across. There’s always a world around the collection, but within that world we leave a lot of room for instinct. We don’t want the process to feel too controlled. The best ideas usually begin as a feeling before they become a design.
With Wild Beginnings, we kept coming back to the wild beings that inhabit nature. What fascinated us was how much they rely on their exterior. Colour, texture, pattern and form can help them protect themselves, attract, adapt or disappear. We started thinking about the ways people use what they wear to do some of those same things.
We use nature as a reference, not a template. We take a detail that interests us and interpret it, so the pieces stay abstract rather than becoming literal copies of something that exists. The Cheetah Pendant, for example, was inspired by the cheetah trout, a fish with markings that resemble a cheetah’s. Its silhouette hints at the fish’s form, while the aquamarine at its centre echoes an eye, which the fish depends on to navigate. The blue also speaks to its underwater world.
The collection includes pendants, bracelets, rings and brooches, with natural stones ranging from about five to nearly one hundred carats. At its core, Wild Beginnings comes from the belief that what we wear can work as armour. Like wild beings, our exterior can be both expressive and protective: a source of presence and strength.
Photo provided by House Janolo
Colour and natural gemstones play such an important role in the House Janolo aesthetic. What draws you to a particular stone, and how much does its individual character influence the final design?
When we choose a stone, we’re not looking for perfection. We’re looking for presence. It has to make us stop and look again. The sourcing world is endless, so choosing the right stone isn’t just technical; it’s emotional and instinctive too. Sometimes it’s an unusual tone, an inclusion, any sort of hidden beauty. And for those things to be there, the stone has to be natural.
At a time when lab-grown stones are becoming more common, we want to shine a light on the wonders of nature. Natural stones are irreplaceable because of their individual beauty and the stories held within them. They’re the heart and life of our brand.
We personally select our stones, and quite often the stone leads the design. Its colour, shape and character can change everything we thought we were going to make around it. That’s what we love about working with something that exists exactly as it is: each stone brings something we couldn’t have planned for, and it gives each piece its own life. It’s hard to explain, but anyone who works closely with gemstones understands the feeling.
You embrace inclusions, tonal variations, and imperfections rather than seeking uniformity. Has your understanding of beauty always been this way, or has it evolved through your work with gemstones?
We never refer to inclusions as imperfections. To us, they’re characteristics.
In terms of beauty, we believe beauty is individual. What draws you to something can be completely specific to you. Over the years we’ve built our own taste and our own sense of what’s beautiful, and when we set out to make something, the only honest way to do it is to trust that.
Beauty to us lives in singularity: in independence, in confidence, in the unusual. When something doesn’t feel perfect, it brings curiosity and excitement to the work.
So the belief hasn’t changed, but working with gemstones has changed how it shows up. It’s the same philosophy, now expressed through natural stones and what they make you feel. We connect most with included stones, because they feel rich in history and life. That rawness is what inspires us. What other people call flaws are, to us, the beauty of the brand.
House Janolo moves between bold, expressive jewellery and more understated everyday pieces through your House Signatures. How do you approach that balance, and what does everyday luxury mean to you?
For us, balance isn’t about making everything look consistent. It’s about letting contrasts coexist.
House Janolo is built on different worlds coming together: old and new, playful and precise, bold and wearable. We want each collection to feel different but still carry the same DNA. We like giving people the freedom to be expressive without feeling they have to mute themselves. We start with an idea and follow our taste.
Then we get very practical. We think about a piece’s proportions and weight, how it sits on the body, and how someone might style it with the jewellery they already own. The mechanisms and construction matter just as much as how it looks.
Everyday luxury means living with beauty, not saving it for later. Luxury, to us, isn’t only about price or rarity. It’s about care, intention, material and feeling. A piece can be bold and still be everyday. It can be precious and still feel natural. That tension is where we like to work.
Every piece is crafted in 18k gold and natural gemstones, combining traditional artisanal techniques with contemporary craftsmanship. How important is the process behind a piece, and what do you look for when deciding how a design should be made?
Jewellery is something people invest in emotionally and materially. In turn, we have the responsibility to make sure that it lasts. So, from the beginning, working with the right materials was non-negotiable. Quality is the foundation of the brand, and we hold ourselves to it because we’re also the customer. We wear these pieces. We test them. We judge them closely. We want to be proud of what we make, not only now but years from now.
Growing up in the UAE while developing a brand with an international outlook gives House Janolo a distinct cultural perspective. How has the region shaped your aesthetic, and what do you think makes the contemporary jewellery scene here particularly exciting?
We’ve only been in the industry for around a year, but it’s already very clear that jewellery is built through generations. There’s a lot of history in it, which is beautiful in many ways, but it can also make the industry feel comfortable, and sometimes repetitive.
What feels exciting right now, especially in this region, is that a younger generation is entering the space and bringing a different energy with them. Newer brands are approaching jewellery in ways that feel less traditional and less expected. There’s more experimentation, more personality and more emotion behind it. People are also reconnecting with the idea that jewellery should actually be lived in. Fine jewellery is made from durable materials for a reason: it’s meant to become part of your everyday life.
What’s most refreshing is seeing more women entering the industry and building brands from their own perspective. Jewellery has historically been a very male-dominated space, so seeing women design for women in a more personal way feels like a really important shift.
Photo provided by House Janolo
House Janolo is built around longevity, individuality, and pieces that can be collected and passed down. When you think about the future of the house, what do you hope it will come to represent, both for the people who wear your jewellery and for the next generation of fine jewellery?
We want to build a house with longevity: a bold fine jewellery house with a point of view, and one people can trust. A piece should be exciting the first time you see it, and every other time you see it. We want people to love our pieces, live in them and, one day, pass them on.
We’re ambitious and have too many aspirations for our own good. We also know that growth and recognition in one thing can make it tempting to dilute the things that make you different. And so what we know for sure is that we don’t aim to make jewellery for every person. We’d rather keep experimenting and surprising people while staying true to our standards of craft. If someone collects House Janolo over time, we hope it’s because the work keeps evolving while still carrying the DNA that was there from the beginning.
We also hope the house becomes a place for more than our own ideas. We’re creatives who are constantly inspired by other people’s work, often from outside jewellery. The craftspeople who make our pieces, the references we draw on and the people we collaborate with are all part of the house we’re building. Jewellery is what we make, but we hope to build something that gives those ideas and people room to meet.