The story behind the yoreh® x VAHNA ring
Some collaborations come together in a week. This one took years, and honestly, that's part of what makes it mean something.
It actually started long before yoreh existed. Back in my early photography days, somewhere around 2018 or 2019, I came across a print motorcycle magazine out of the US called VAHNA, and from the very first issue I held I was completely hooked — the way they shot bikes, the way they framed their riders, the way the whole thing felt like an object you wanted to keep on a shelf rather than throw away. There were plenty of moto magazines around back then, but something about VAHNA's eye, their photography, their pacing, just sat differently with me, and it set a bar I've kept in mind ever since. I was a fan of theirs long before I was building anything of my own, and I think I even pitched them on a project somewhere in those early years, hoping I could shoot something for the magazine one day. It never went anywhere, but the brand stayed with me.
A butterfly that turned into a moth
Fast forward to a little over a year ago. I was sitting and sketching out a new ring for yoreh, originally a piece with a butterfly on top of it, and I kept drawing and refining until at some point I looked down at the page and realised that what I had in front of me wasn't really a butterfly anymore — it looked almost exactly like the VAHNA moth, their logo. That was the moment something clicked, one of those rare ones where a project quietly tells you what it actually wants to be.
I spent the next few days redrawing the ring properly, this time with the moth in mind but built the way only yoreh would build it: heavy 925 sterling silver, hand-finished detail, something that felt like it belonged on the hand of someone who genuinely rides rather than a costume version of biker jewelry. And I went all the way with it before even reaching out — carved the wax, cast it in silver, made the actual ring, then shot it on a black backdrop and sent the photos straight to the VAHNA team with a simple message: I made this. I'd love to do it together.
The reply
Ben, the founder, got back to me almost immediately and was in straight away — he loved the craftsmanship and the idea of telling the VAHNA story through a piece of jewelry, and within a few exchanges we'd locked the whole thing in. A few weeks later we shot the campaign here in Bali, with my good friend Kyle behind one of the cameras and Jason capturing BTS, and we brought in Dodok — a pro rider and arguably the best motorcyclist on the island — to actually carry the riding side of the shoot. Watching him work was something else; the kind of control and instinct you can only get from someone who's been on a bike longer than most people have had a license.
Our main location was Kintamani — a black, dried-out lava field underneath an active volcano that's genuinely hard to describe if you've never been there. The ground is dust, the air feels different, the whole place looks like another planet, and watching Dodok rip through it on the bike was one of those things that didn't even feel real on the day. We stayed up there for two days, slept in a cabin together, and rode until the light went, and it was one of those shoots where everything just works — the location, the people, the bikes, the energy — except for the first bike breaking down within the first hour of being there, which meant Dodok had to ride all the way back to the south of Bali to pick up another one and ride it back up the mountain again so we could keep shooting the next morning. Pretty mental commitment, honestly. But aside from that one detour, it was exactly the kind of shoot VAHNA themselves would be drawn to.
The wait
And then everything went on pause. yoreh went through a major restructuring through most of last year, and while I won't go too deep into it here, the brand essentially had to be rebuilt from the ground up before we could put anything new out into the world. The ring sat in the drawer, the campaign sat on the hard drive, and as frustrating as that was at the time, I think there's something to be said for letting a project wait for the right moment rather than forcing it into the wrong one. A year later things finally aligned, and we launched the ring together in April.
Where it sits now
Motorcycles have been around me my whole life — my dad rides, my grandpa rode, and I'm currently three months deep into building my own custom bike here in Bali — so this isn't a brand reaching into a culture it doesn't understand, it's genuinely the most personal collaboration yoreh has done so far. The response since launch has been beyond anything I expected, and watching people post the ring on their finger — riders, photographers, jewelry collectors, people who care about both worlds at once — has made the year of waiting feel completely worth it. There's something special about a piece that connects two brands that already felt connected long before anything was ever signed, and this is the first proper collaboration yoreh has done, which sets the bar pretty high for whatever comes next. More are coming, sooner than people probably think.
Whole lotta love,
F.
The yoreh® x VAHNA ring is available now in limited quantities, handcrafted in 925 sterling silver.
