Our (Hi)Story
We are Mirela & Leonard, two Romanian expats who fell in love with the Adriatic Sea and decided to leave our big-city lives behind and make Dalmatia our home.
If someone had told us 10 years ago that we would have a jewellery shop in Split, we would have thought they were insane. In 2014, I was a former BBC radio journalist, working as Chief-of-Staff and Communications Manager for a fierce Romanian member of the European Parliament. My partner, Leonard, was a real estate developer building stunning minimalist villas in Bucharest.
But something was missing: we really, REALLY wanted to live by the sea. More specifically, we loved the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic, where we spent each summer holiday.
So, in October 2015, we took a leap of faith and moved to Split.
Our Beginnings
This is how Break Time handmade jewellery was born: from our love for the Adriatic, sailing, and endless sunny summers.
Leonard was making nautical bracelets as a hobby long before we moved — a way to disconnect from the stress of running a construction company in Bucharest.
After our move, we planned to continue building villas, but Croatian bureaucracy made us put those plans on hold (we did manage to finish building our first villa - Mar Escape Villa Croatia - ten years later, in 2025!). So we decided to give his hobby a real chance. After all, we were in a seaside destination.
Our Journey
It’s been quite a journey in the (almost) ten years since we opened our very first Break Time shop in Trogirska 8, Split, in December 2015 — just two months after moving to Croatia, without speaking the language and knowing fewer than 10 people here.
The 2015 summer season success took us by surprise. We were selling out in one day what Leonard produced the day before. We regrouped over the winter and opened our second shop in spring 2016 in Dubrovnik (photo below — the two of us preparing for the opening).
From 2017 to 2019 we opened four more shops — two in Istria (Poreč and Rovinj)...
...then a second one in Split...
...and one in the centre of Zagreb...
All selling exclusively our own brand of nautical bracelets — handmade by Leonard (yes, each and every one of them!).
Then the world changed with the covid-19 pandemic. In 2020 we closed everything but our original Trogirska 8 store — which is also our atelier. You can find us here: Store Locator.
Saving that one shop and getting through 2020 and 2021 was only possible thanks to our customers in Croatia and around the world. We’re truly grateful.
You can read more about our story on Total Croatia News: article one or article two.
Our Split Flagship Store & Atelier
Stop by our shop when visiting Split. Explore our handmade nautical jewellery — and if you’d like a truly personal souvenir from Croatia, we also offer custom engraving.
Our Way to Give Back
Join our #SaveMarineLife campaign
When you order a bracelet from our online shop, our flagship store in Split, or our partner stores, 2% of each sale is donated to the Blue World Institute — supporting research and conservation of marine life in the Mediterranean Sea.
Learn more about how the campaign works here: Help preserve marine life (details & impact)
