Gorilla Glass is Online

Since 2002, Gorilla Glass has produced the finest in glass body jewelry—and we’re excited to start offering their products in our online store!

Founded by American ex-pat Jason Pfohl, Gorilla Glass occupies a huge industrial complex in Oaxaca, Mexico. After graduating from Santa Barbara City College in California in 1992, Jason spent five years working as a technical coordinator at Pilchuck Glass School, North of Seattle, where he had the opportunity to study with glass masters from Europe and the U.S. After years of making glass jewelry for NYC fashion designers, Jason began making piercing jewelry in 1999 and founded Gorilla Glass in 2002. Over the last decade Jason has taught glass workshops in the U.S., New Zealand, Taiwan, and Mexico. Jason is responsible for the technical innovation that makes Gorilla Glass famous.

Gorilla Glass products are handmade by a group of highly skilled craftspeople in Oaxaca, Mexico who are mainly women from the rural outskirts of Oaxaca City. These employees are provided an excellent work opportunity with a range of benefits that would be hard to match in the U.S.A. Furthermore, by hiring primarily women the earnings go straight to the home-keeper and the heart of the family. Buying Gorilla Glass means you not only get the best glass body jewelry available, but that you’re doing a small part to help a community of artisans in Mexico as well.

Jason’s most recent  project is the Gorilla Gallery, located in downtown Oaxaca, which promotes glass art and performances and  sponsors a residency program for artists to create projects at the Gorilla Glass production studio. The Gorilla Gallery has even sponsored side-show performances (acts such as sword swallowing, fire eating, and the human pincushion) in Oaxaca and Mexico City, by artists from Finland, Norway, Australia, and the United States.

Gorilla Glass produces a wide variety of products, from basic color-front plugs, labrets, and weights to more inspired creations like Power Plugs and Power Eyes. For these, Jason has teamed up with glass artist Orfeo Quagliata, founder and lead designer of Phuze design studio in Mexico City. Orfeo creates the colored glass in sheets (he is only one of two glass artists in the world to use a similar technique) and transports these to the Gorilla Glass factory in Oaxaca, where Jason’s team cuts out plugs and hand-finishes them to create unique jewelry. No two pairs are alike!

Every piece of their jewelry comes with a story. We’re proud to offer Gorilla Glass products in our studio and in our online store.