Lauren Bray Collingnon

Age: 37
Occupation: Jewelry designer
Hometown: Baton Rouge

Lauren Collignon swings open the door to her Capital Heights home. She is wearing a bright vintage caftan with a swirling, psychedelic, meandering print, the sort you might expect to see in Old Hollywood, but it’s right here in postmodern Baton Rouge.

It suits her.

She’s one who insists on creating her own reality.

Collignon hugs generously, a pair of lotus earrings she forged jingling behind her laughter and a twirling blonde Mohawk pinned delicately behind one ear.

A picture of her mom, a smiling beauty queen whom Collignon resembles, sits in the center of her dining room, not far from a snapshot of a toothless, defiant Collignon that was taken after her first bike crash.

That kid clearly thought this was a rock ‘n’ roll moment—a milestone to be called on again and again.

Now, years later, Collignon faces another: cancer.

She’d rather not be going through this now, she admits, then quickly smiles. She was supposed to be in Paris today.

“I’m going to lose my hair, and I’m okay with it,” she says. “I love to do my hair, but I’ve secretly always wanted to shave my head. I think this is the universe’s way of saying, ‘Go for it. Let it go.'”

Tomorrow she will dye her locks like a My Little Pony doll. The colors will only last for a matter of days before the strands begin to fall as the chemo taken to treat her Hodgkin’s lymphoma takes root.

“I am not my body,” Collignon says.

Her jewelry is also designed to shift people’s outlook.

“I believe artists are modern-day shamans,” she says. “No matter how you look or feel, the magic of my pieces will lift your spirits and heal, like power totems and armor for life’s many battles.”

Her finely hewn gold and silver swirls, shapes, symbols and icons are growing a diverse following around the Deep South and beyond, and across generations.

“I have something for you,” she says, “and I have something for your grandmother.” collingnondesigns