For her second coronation as Olympic champion in the all-around, Simone Biles had planned the perfect accessory. It was more than just a gold medal.
Minutes after winning gymnastics’ most coveted title, Biles put on a white gold necklace and held up a diamond-studded goat pendant to the camera.
Since then, Janet Heller’s social media pages have not been the same.
The Calabasas-based jeweler was the mastermind behind Biles’ viral accessory. Heller designed the piece featuring the Olympic star and worked with a team of master artisans to hand-drill and hand-set 546 diamonds in white gold in the shape of a goat. Janet Heller Fine Jewelry is now taking off like Biles flying through the air on a jump.
“Honestly, it’s just magical,” Heller said.
After working with Heller on a diamond necklace made from Olympic rings after the Tokyo Games, Biles reached out in late May to create a new piece. She wanted a necklace that would be fitting for the GOAT – “Greatest Of All Time.” They went back and forth on the design, tweaking the goat’s leg length, trimming the beard shape and adjusting the angle of the horn. Once they settled on an idea, the work began.
Heller’s team, which includes jewelers and artisans from downtown Los Angeles, worked overtime to complete the piece in five weeks. Normally, the entire process for a piece of this nature would take three to four months, Heller said. But this time, they were pressed for time.
With her ninth Olympic medal in the all-around last Thursday, Biles became the first gymnast to win multiple Olympic titles in the same individual event in non-consecutive Games. The 27-year-old was already the most decorated American Olympic gymnast when she led the United States to gold in the team event. She extended her lead in the all-around and won another gold medal in the vault final two days later. On Monday she will compete in the balance beam and floor finals for the last time at these Games.
With 11 Olympic medals and 30 World Championship medals, Biles is arguably the most decorated gymnast in history, but after her shocking withdrawal from the Tokyo Olympics, some may still challenge her reign as the true GOAT
It didn’t stop Biles from proudly wearing her necklace.
“Some people love it and some people hate it, so it’s the best of both worlds,” Biles said after the all-around final. “But at the end of the day, it’s crazy that I’m listed as the greatest athlete of all, because I still think I’m Simone Biles from Spring, Texas, who likes to do flips.”
Heller “couldn’t have been happier” with the finished product. Heller grew up in South Africa, where she admired her grandmother and mother’s jewelry, and dreamed of having this business. Her parents moved the family of five to LA when she was 18 to escape apartheid. For 15 years now, Janet Heller Fine Jewelry has run her own business, becoming the jeweler of choice for top Olympians and Paralympians.
It started when long jumper Tara Davis-Woodhall, who went to school with Heller’s daughter, asked about a diamond necklace with Olympic rings in the run-up to the Tokyo Olympics. Biles and her U.S. gymnastics teammate Jordan Chiles saw it and wanted to know where it came from.
Now, Heller has designed several items for Chiles and a necklace for Davis-Woodhall’s husband, Hunter Woodhall, who won a bronze medal in the 400-meter race at the Tokyo Paralympics. Heller recently designed a new piece of jewelry for Davis-Woodhall that features the two-time Olympian’s silhouette leaping through the air. Heller, a married mother of four, feels she has “definitely achieved the American dream,” especially since the country’s top athletes wear her jewelry.
“I’m so proud to have made jewelry that has been represented by elite athletes,” Heller said. “The biggest surprise to me was that they are such megastars, yet so humble and down to earth. … There are no other words to express how I feel other than that I absolutely love them.”
Heller, whose companies include her daughter, two other full-time employees and two part-time assistants, values personal relationships with her clients. The increased attention Biles’ necklace garnered hasn’t motivated her to expand her operations to maximize production. She wants to be the one talking to clients. She wants to help design pieces that tell their stories.
This is her true passion.
Read more:Simone Biles leads dominant USA to gold in Olympic gymnastics team competition
“It’s just a very visible and tangible representation of achievements, milestones and celebration,” Heller said. “Whenever I see that goat at Simone’s and whenever she touches it or looks at it, it’s really indicative of what she’s accomplished.”
New fans have asked Heller how much a replica of Biles’ necklace would cost, but she refused to share. This goat, just like its owner, will not be copied.
“She is the one and only,” Heller said, “so this necklace will also represent the one and only.”
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
