Aaliyah Taylor Makes Bold Jewelry from Perler Beads

Inspired by childhood crafts, Aaliyah Taylor transforms Perler beads into bold, statement-making wearable art.

Kids can be the best creative consultants, according to Aaliyah Taylor. The jewelry designer holds a day job as a children’s librarian, and her young patrons don’t hold back with their innovation expertise. She says, “They’re like, ‘Ooh, well, Ms. Aaliyah, you should do this, or maybe add this color or maybe make it this big.”

Making it bigger, bolder, and brighter is Taylor’s apparent anthem, and more than a few admirers are singing–and styling–along. In fact, you need look no further than Taylor’s workplace to see that her highly hued creations are in circulation along with the books. “What I love about my library is [that] they’re very supportive of my business. You can come into my library and see various coworkers and patrons rocking my earrings,” she enthuses.

Turning kid’s craft materials into sophisticated jewelry

Taylor constructs her earrings with Perler beads, a brand of colorful plastic fuse beads often associated with children’s crafts. It was a soft-focus stroll down memory lane that led her back to them–and to Exalting in Beauty, Taylor’s wearable art business.

She recalls: “On a late night trip in Memphis, I went to a Hobby Lobby craft store, and I was just kind of walking around really and just seeing what [could] pique my interest…and I stumbled upon this craft section for kids, and I [was] looking at Perler.” She continues, “It was this moment of nostalgia where I was …thinking back of when I used Perler beads when I was in summer camp, and thinking about those memories and those feelings when I was using [them]–I was able to connect with my camp counselors. I was having fun with friends. It was a peaceful time for me.”

So sparked an epiphany–and entrepreneurship. “In that moment I was like, I think I can make earrings or badges out of this. And so from then on, I bought thousands and thousands and thousands of beads,” she adds.

That was in 2012. Later that year she went to study fashion at The Art Institute of Atlanta; it was then that she started making and selling earrings to weather a tough financial season.

At the time, “everybody was making jewelry out of the wooden cutouts,” Taylor remembers. “Being able to create jewelry from Perler beads has allowed me the space to stand up and to stand out.”

And Taylor, now based in Birmingham, Alabama, is definitely making adornments for the different drummer. Her work is quintessential statement jewelry–the statement being the pow! of vintage action comics. Her earrings look like patchwork quilt confections, in candyland colors often accented with checkered patterns of black and white. In addition, the accessories come in various eye-grabbing shapes; her body of work is a funhouse of psychedelic pixelated geometry for the human body.

Aaliyah Taylor’s jewelry design kits, made in collaboration with Perler, bring her vibrant creativity to DIY enthusiasts everywhere.

A family heritage of crafts

As unique as Taylor is, she is quick to credit the ecosystem of creatives that made her possible. There’s her mother, an academic and “late-blooming artist,” who always encouraged her daughter to make and blaze through life. “My mom always says that when I came from her womb, I just came out just ready to take on the world,” Taylor says.

There was her grandmother, “a closeted artist [who] hid her art supplies,” according to Taylor. Even so, the young artist still found her grandmother’s forbidden cache of “special crayons,” which Taylor now knows were oil pastels. There was also her seamstress great aunt–known for constructing patterns for any body type from just viewing a magazine clipping–who made her Easter dresses and other special-occasion clothing.

“I come from a line of beautiful Black women, and they are all creative in whatever field they’re in,” she asserts.

Creating a collaborative kit

In 2020, Taylor received the inaugural Minority Creative Grant from JOANN. This recognition put her on the radar of the IG Design Group, the entity that produces Perler beads. “They reached out with an idea to create a jewelry design kit–and they wanted to collaborate with me utilizing my designs and also using my face and just selling it to the masses,” she explains.

“What I really loved about Perler is that they truly involved me with the process such as the images, the graphics, which designs to utilize for the jewelry kit, and even creating a space for me to use their social media so people can know me more and be inspired.”

Her accolades extend into the sartorial realm. In 2022 she was named Birmingham’s top emerging fashion designer as part of Magic City Fashion Week. Her award-winning dresses are textile equivalents of her earrings: eclectic and electric exclamation points of color and shape.  “I didn’t have any intention of trying to win,” says Taylor. “I just wanted to push myself to do something that I’ve always been afraid of.” Her win supercharged her confidence and her body bedazzlements for sale will soon include apparel.

Just as Toni Morrison wrote The Bluest Eye because she couldn’t find the book she wanted on the shelves, Taylor insists on adding her story to the library of style. “Being a Black plus size woman, you don’t necessarily see yourself specifically in the fashion industry…slowly but surely we do see some inclusion in the fashion industry, but they’re still trying to control the body type and what people should wear,” she says. “And so for me, I felt like moving into fashion design is not necessarily just me creating, but it’s also…making sure that I’m telling my story through whatever I’m creating.”

Bigger, bolder, and brighter” defines Taylor’s mission to help everyone embrace their inner artwork.

Her foray into fashion is bigger than personal expression, however. Explains Taylor: “I know a [lot of folks] who desire to be and dress themselves as the art that they see themselves as, but there’s not a lot of faces and avenues for them to do that. And so I find it imperative now to expand and scale my business into fashion design because I feel like my voice and my artistry is not only needed, but it is also important for people to be the walking art that they actually are.”

Exalting in Beauty, in the end, is more than a business–it’s a mission. It’s also a missive written in vibrant ink, to the verve inside all of us. Her work is a reminder that we arrive in this world already adorned.

Taylor adds, “It is a love letter to any and everyone because my goal in creating is making sure that I’m promoting non-conformity and freedom. And even if a person doesn’t buy my jewelry or buy my clothes, I want them to come away feeling bolder, feeling more confident in the fact that they are, number one, beautiful, number two, that they’re works of art. And however they make the choice to express themselves, they are just adding, enhancing, and exalting the beautiful pieces of artwork that they are.”