Heller, who has been in the jewelry industry for two decades, is the founder and CEO of Janet Heller Fine Jewelry in Calabasas, California. Biles reached out to her five weeks ago to commission the custom necklace.
"We visited a couple different iterations of it," Heller said. "We kept working on it until we got to this final iteration, which is one that she loved and approved."
It took her team five weeks to make the "GOAT" necklace, which features 546 diamonds — each one drilled and set by hand. They surprised the gymnast by making the goat three-dimensional, wanting the necklace to truly shine and "encapsulat[e] the essence of [Biles'] extraordinary career," the jeweler wrote on Instagram.
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"[Biles] was so blown away," Heller said. "When she received it, she sent us a text saying, 'Oh my God, it's 3D!'"
The jeweler said she had freaked out and gotten chills when Biles, who had just won the individual all-around final, went offstage and put on the necklace while teammate Jordan Chiles cheered her on.
"We go into these projects not expecting anything," she said. "So for her to have been so loud and proud it — we couldn't believe it. We were just so honored."
Throughout the five-week process, Biles was easy to work with, according to Heller.
