Annika Thomas has been an artist, a teacher, and a physical therapist, all in pursuit of self-expression and a deeper meaning—but the one thing that has achieved that goal for her has been creating her jewelry brand, The Finest Stack.
Think of it as jewelry as therapy. The Finest Stack creates jewelry that lets people tell their life’s story through how they mix pieces together. Each layer is another moment of love, heartache, happiness, or transformation, Thomas says, just as her life has been.
“Our stacks of stories are what give us depth,” Thomas says.
Thomas grew up in Bristol, Va., with a close family including three step-siblings. It was a first marriage for her Swedish mom and a second marriage for Thomas’ dad. Thomas says she grew up in a loving setting, especially with her three fashion-forward aunts: Jean, Hope, and Margie.
Thomas says one of her favorite stacks includes a turquoise necklace ($2,800) with a diamond tennis necklace and a diamond cloud pendant (price upon request).
In addition to her influential aunts, Thomas says a childhood illness served as a major milestone in her life. When she was in first grade, Thomas needed major hip surgery to correct a birth defect. As a result, she had a year of hospital stays, long bouts of physical therapy, and endless hours learning how to walk again.
During that year, Thomas says she developed a talent for drawing and became a whiz on her Fashion Plates, a toy that helped budding clothing and accessory designers come up with…unique apparel options. But spending all that time with physical therapists put Thomas on her first career track.
She got a Bachelor of Arts from Hollins College in 1993, studying English and art history. She received her master’s in special education from the University of South Carolina in 1995. Thomas taught school for three years. Then, at the age of 27, she went back to school and got her physical therapy degree from the Medical University of South Carolina.
Thomas worked as a physical therapist for 18 years. Her dad’s death in 2016 put her in a tailspin, she says, and she calls this period in her life one of the darkest times she has ever experienced.
“I felt like I had lost my rudder,” Thomas says. “He was a strong, gruff man. He worked as a labor lawyer, so he was tough as nails. But he was a muffin inside. And he was so funny. Plus, he loved jewelry. He loved turquoise and tiger-eye rings.”
Thomas stacked multiple necklaces together for this look, including the small Cloud love pendant, pink opals, and seed pearls with a “love” charm ($2,800).
To process her grief, Thomas says she spent hours outside. This closeness to bugs, plants, and animals made Thomas realize she needed a change—and that change would be going back to her childhood love of fashion and jewelry.
“I just needed to be out in the vastness of the universe to feel like I was going to be okay,” Thomas says. “I thought about how strong and beautiful nature is—everything just keeps going. You never see a cloud going backward. That’s what resilience is: how you come back. You might be a little bit different, but that’s okay.”
She had been making jewelry pieces on occasion, but she decided to go all in by 2021. She started with some help but soon realized she had to find her own way, debuting The Finest Stack in 2022. She created the brand’s name from the acronym FINE.
“Our lives and our stories make us interesting, story-filled, captivating beings, and we are all struggling along together, and we are all FINE: F*cked up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotionally unavailable,” Thomas says with a laugh.
Thomas looked at clouds as her main inspiration for The Finest Stack. An example is the Love Cloud necklace, which features a white diamond cloud with the word love on it. This piece shows life’s ebb and flow, Thomas explains, reminding us that even in the darkest times love is a constant force for good.
“I wanted to make something meaningful for my dad, for me, and for all of us,” Thomas says. “It’s all about putting one foot in front of the other.”
Top: Annika Thomas says her jewelry career started in childhood but took off when she began to see jewelry as a way to tell your life’s stories (photos courtesy of The Finest Stack).