Pets & People

Meet Luna, the Dachshund Who Runs Security at NYC's Most Radical Jeweler

At Automic Gold, the recycled-gold, size-inclusive label founded by Al Sandimirova, a jet-black dachshund holds the title of Big Boss. Her job description doubles as a window into how a values-first studio actually runs.

By Jordan Ellis, Certified Dog Trainer

July 28, 2025 · 5 min read

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Most companies have an org chart. Automic Gold has Luna.

On the brand’s website, founder Al Sandimirova is listed as, well, the founder. The title of Big Boss, along with the role of security detail and the pronouns That/Bitch, belongs to a jet-black long-haired dachshund who takes all three responsibilities extremely seriously. It is a joke, obviously. It is also a surprisingly honest description of how a tiny, values-driven jewelry studio in New York City actually operates, with a small dog at the center of it. So this is partly a profile of Luna, and partly the story of the brand she “runs,” because the two turn out to be inseparable.

The job: full-time security, zero days off

Ask Sandimirova what it is like working for Luna and the answer is immediate. “Amazing. She’s the best. Demanding, of course; she likes to micromanage me every second.”

Luna’s workday is structured. “First thing in the morning when she comes into the office, she has to say hi to everybody,” Sandimirova says. Then comes the part where she tries, and fails, to relax. “She tries to calm down, tries to sleep, but she can’t sleep because she thinks of herself as full-time security.” The studio has a camera feed of whoever is at the door, and Luna treats it as her monitor. “If it’s me, she’s fine, she’s not bothered. But if it’s someone else, she really barks.”

Here is where Luna stops being a cute aside and starts being apt casting. Dachshunds were bred as scent hounds to go to ground after badgers, which is to say they are bold, vocal, and deeply territorial in a body built for tunnels. A small dog with an outsized alert instinct is, functionally, exactly the security temperament a storefront studio would hire for. Luna is not pretending to have a job. She is doing the one her breeding pointed her toward, just with a camera feed instead of a burrow.

The brand she guards

What Luna protects is genuinely unusual. Sandimirova, an Indigenous, queer, non-binary refugee from Russia who arrived in the United States in 2009 at age twenty, built Automic Gold against the grain of an industry they came to see as both gendered and opaque.

The origin was practical before it was political. “Because I’m an immigrant and I didn’t know English, I couldn’t work for anybody else,” Sandimirova says. They started in 2011 buying, repairing, and reselling pre-owned jewelry on eBay, expanded to selling at jewelry shows, and around 2016 reached a breaking point with the industry’s culture. “I realized how toxic the industry is, and I thought, well, I have good sales, I think I’d like to represent myself as a non-binary person, because everything is so gendered and there’s no transparency.” The brand was born when a friend bought 15 pairs of the pieces Sandimirova was making for themself.

Two values that read as marketing at other brands are, here, just consequences of how Sandimirova works. The jewelry is handmade in NYC from 100% recycled solid 14k gold and platinum, with reclaimed and ethically sourced stones, and the sizing runs an inclusive 2 to 16. Sandimirova is almost dismissive about how those choices came to be. On sustainability: “Commercial brands with huge investments will go to different countries to find the cheapest gold. I don’t have those investments. I can only buy small batches, so it’s naturally better to buy from small businesses locally.” On extended sizes, the framing flips entirely. “People always ask me this. I don’t understand the question. People come in all sizes, so why not include all sizes?”

That last point is personal. “I’m a small size, but I prefer more masculine rings, and they don’t really come in my size, so I make my own,” Sandimirova says. “Other trans people come to me and say, I want something very feminine but I’m a very large size, and I’m like, perfect. I will design it. I love it.”

Where the dog and the design meet

The throughline between Luna and the work is play. Sandimirova designs jewelry they would actually want to wear as a non-binary person, which means pieces with movement and wit, a chain with scissors on it, a nod to the lesbian symbol, things that “do a little extra” and are hard to find anywhere else. The same impulse that makes the jewelry joyful is the one that named a dachshund the CEO.

It even loops back into the catalog. Among Automic Gold’s pieces is a dog ring inspired by Luna herself, which is about as on-brand as a studio mascot can get: the security guard became a product. (If you want it, buy it straight from Automic Gold, since this is a small queer-owned label worth supporting directly.)

What Pride means at the studio

For a brand this rooted in queer identity, Pride is not a marketing season. “Pride Month is my Christmas,” Sandimirova says. “Regular Christmas, I’m like, oh, it’s nice, I love the lights. But Pride is my real Christmas. I like to dress up, I like the decorations, I like all of it. It’s holy for me. It’s like salvation.”

Luna, presumably, supervises the decorating. She is the Big Boss, after all, and she did not get where she is by taking days off.