Nomad Women Stories: Meet Christina Bjenning, The ‘Desert Nomad’

Nomad Women Stories is a new series honouring remarkable women from our community who are redefining what it means to live, travel, and dress authentically in this chapter of life.

Last week, we introduced you to Leslie, a Hunter Valley nurse who visited every continent on earth and never waited for the timing to be right. This week, we travel to the high desert of California to meet Christina Bjenning, a sustainable jewellery artist, lifelong equestrian, scientist, and writer. She’s also a woman who has spent a lifetime moving between countries and continents without ever losing herself in the journey.

Christina lives near Joshua Tree in California’s high desert, on a ranch she shares with her horses and Spanish greyhounds.

For more than twenty years, she has run Emeralds Designs, a sustainable fine jewellery company built on the conviction that beauty shouldn’t come at a cost to people or planet. She works with recycled silver from electronics, fair-trade gemstones, Australian diamonds, and stones sourced from small artisan collectives as far afield as Pakistan. Five days a week, she takes up her post as resident artist at the Joshua Tree Trading Post, where she sells her work and talks to visitors about the desert.

What feels different now is my perspective. I feel a lot of pieces in my life falling into place. I’m learning to choose happiness rather than to be right. And I’ve reached a sort of memento mori agreement with myself.

A few years ago, I was evacuated from a horse at high speed. Were it not for my helmet and the safety vest I was wearing, I would likely not be here. I learned that once you hit forty, you don’t bounce anymore. The earth literally comes up to greet you in a most uncomfortable manner. That moment shifted my lens, not towards fear, but towards presence and the things that actually matter.

My journeys are better planned, better researched. And I’ve finally learned to heed my favourite auntie’s advice and mercilessly remove half my luggage, adding that money to my experience budget instead.

One of my recent trips was to Utah. A few years ago, I would have driven the fifteen hours. Instead, I flew, travelled in my Crusoe Cargo Pants in olive and charcoal. Between my Daisy Organic Cotton Blouse, Sasa Bamboo Top, and Giana Linen Tops, paired with sneakers, I had countless outfit options.

It’s amazing how travelling lightly, hand luggage only, adds hours of pleasure to every trip. No nervous waiting at the baggage carousel for luggage that has decided to visit a different continent. Getting ready for dinner with friends on a minute’s notice. This is freedom.

My journeys to India have greatly influenced me. My perspective on life, my sense of easy elegance, and my deep fascination with old mine-cut diamonds all stem from those journeys.

One memory in particular comes to mind. I was travelling with friends who knew of a place in Lucknow where you could find beautiful carpets. Later that evening, after a long, lazy dinner, I found myself walking down a few steps into a large room filled with rolls and rolls of carpets, each more beautiful and intricately patterned than the last. I’m fully convinced some of them were flying carpets.

I found it. A tiny prayer mat, 600 knots, silk on silk in olive and golden tones, the motif a simple tree. Beautiful and soothing to look at. I was mesmerised. My friends, realising I was in love and therefore shouldn’t be negotiating, insisted on helping agree on a price. I was too overwhelmed to argue. That carpet is here now, in my desert home. Still scented magically of cardamom and jasmine.

India is full immersion. Those journeys changed how I see the world, how I connect with people, and how I find beauty in the gemstones I choose for my work.

Feeling comfortable is the basis of feeling confident. When you’re in a foreign culture and don’t speak the language, if you carry ease and confidence, you connect with people more freely and are less prone to being taken advantage of.

The algorithm! Nomad the Label did a photoshoot in Palm Springs and Joshua Tree, and the Instagram algorithm showed me the most beautiful designs made from sustainably sourced materials. The styles, cuts, and colours are my desert palette.

The Portillo Pants in tea rose and the Daisy Blouse in ivory are my uniform. They’re easy to wear together or mixed with other pieces. I wear Nomad at the trading post every week, where the desert climate is extreme, and comfort is non-negotiable. I always receive compliments, and I always direct people to Nomad the Label website, especially Australians.

You’re strong, you’re beautiful, and you’re courageous. Just go for it. You’ll regret the things you didn’t do more than the things you did.

I know this from my own life. When my daughter was young, I made the painful decision to relocate my entire business from California to New York so she could grow up near both her parents. I built the company again from scratch in the cold. Winters indoors, a freezing studio, everything from the beginning. When my daughter finished her education, I drove back to California alone with four large Spanish greyhounds sleeping in the back of my vintage Land Cruiser.

The beauty of life (a key to sanity) is realising we never have a parallel timeline. We make decisions in the moment, with everything we feel and know in that moment, and we can’t go back. Each moment is the result of many moments before it. Going forward and realising how strong and beautiful we all really are, that is the key.

I believe deeply that fragility and transparency are important parts of my life and my art. And I believe that, as women, it’s important to share our journeys with each other as a way to stay real, as a counterbalance to the edited images and edited lives on social media. Nomad’s Comfort Club on Facebook does exactly that. It’s a wonderful place, and I encourage everyone to visit.

Desert Nomad.

My life is nomadic, born in Sweden, living and working across the world, finding myself here in the desert, building a life, a sustainable business, a ranch, and a community. My collections are influenced by this nomadic life and by the desert — the warm blue hues of the oases, the amber and golden tones of the sand, the pinks and lavenders of the sunset.

Christina’s story is one we don’t often see told: a woman who has spent decades moving between hemispheres, rebuilding, reinventing, staying true to what she believes in, from her art, her ethics, to the way she moves through the world.

She collects silk carpets that still smell of cardamom. She races greyhounds across the desert at sunrise. She turns recycled silver from old phones into fine jewellery. And she packs, finally, only what she actually needs.

If Christina’s story resonated with you, come and join us in the Comfort Club, our private Facebook community where Nomad women share travel stories, styling tips, and honest conversations you don’t often find online. We’d love to have you there.