About De Petra
Art You Wear. Made by Hand. Made Once.
In 2008, Lorena Medinilla sat down with raw brass, a handful of gemstones, and an instinct she couldn't ignore. She wasn't thinking about a brand. She was making something she'd never seen before.
Eighteen years later, De Petra is carried at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. It has been sold in every Anthropologie store in the United States and the United Kingdom. It has hung in the windows of Free People. It has been worn by singers, actors, and artists who recognize something singular when they see it.
None of that changed how Lorena works.
Every piece is still made by her hands, in her atelier in Houston. Raw gemstones chosen personally for their character. Solid brass shaped and finished by touch. Fine leather cut and wrapped with intention. Master crochet and embroidery techniques refined over nearly two decades. No factory. No mold. No second run.
When a De Petra piece sells, that exact piece is gone. What you find here exists nowhere else in the world.
The Work
De Petra jewelry begins with materials that carry their own history — raw turquoise, Pietersite, citrine quartz, jasper, cultured pearls, hematite. Lorena selects each stone herself. The brass is solid, not plated. The leather is fine. The crochet and embroidery are executed at a level most people have only seen in museums.
The aesthetic has evolved from its Boho Chic roots into something more precise: Urban Chic. Sophisticated. Confident. Unmistakably alive.
Pieces from De Petra have been described as wearable sculpture. That is accurate. They are also deeply wearable — designed for the woman who moves through the world with intention and doesn't need to explain her taste.
The Atelier
De Petra is made in Houston, Texas, inside a working studio where everything you see on this site was born. The atelier is also home to the De Petra shop at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, where visitors encounter the work in its proper context: as art.
Lorena does not mass produce. She does not take shortcuts. She makes what she makes, when she makes it, and every piece reflects the full attention of someone who has spent 18 years perfecting this craft.
One of a Kind. Always.
Every product on this site is a single, unique object. There is no restock. There is no "back order." When it sells, it is replaced by the next singular thing Lorena makes — which will be different, because she never makes the same piece twice.
This is not a limitation. This is the point.