has gone live. It’s all about David Webb, the brand’s new own­ers and the fab­u­lous jew­elry to come.

I invite you to read it here.

Her­shey Licensed jew­elry at JA Show, July 2010

My story for Elle.com has not gone live yet. There were some tech­ni­cal issues that need address­ing and when a link is avail­able, I’ll be sure to post it.

Today was the last day of the Jew­el­ers of Amer­ica Show at the Jacobs Jav­its Cen­ter in NYC. Walk­ing the aisles is a trea­sure hunt. I found every­thing, includ­ing Her­shey licensed kisses, and no, these may not feed your chocolato-fix, how­ever they are scrump­tious nonethe­less. Then there was CJ Recht’s new line of por­cu­pine rings with com­fort­able square shanks that were so bril­liantly done you could wear them as a ring or a pen­dant. Recht’s pieces have the sen­si­bil­ity  of a true met­al­smith, her designs evolve from an under­stand­ing of what metal can do, and how those prop­er­ties may be exploited. She’s cre­ated ban­gle bracelets that recall the sil­hou­ette of a gothic arch. Now I’ve never been one for the drama of archi­tec­ture so often fea­tured in thrillers and mur­der mys­ter­ies, but these cool and won­der­fully crafted pieces hang off the wrist more com­fort­ably than a tra­di­tion­ally designed bracelet — a huge sur­prise. If you are look­ing for a great pair of ban­gles that depart from the ubiq­ui­tous offer­ings seen on run­ways in recent years past, go for these. You won’t be dis­ap­pointed. And Recht works them in dif­fer­ent met­als and fin­ishes so the client can cre­ate her own look. Love this.

Emerg­ing arti­san, Nancy Edwards, crafted a metal intense moth dou­ble fin­ger ring for which I fell hard. I loved the way she treated col­oration, employ­ing pol­ished and dark­ened sur­faces to achieve, if not a real­is­tic sense, a bal­ance in char­ac­ter­i­za­tion. If I hadn’t already bought a bold, double-duty piece from Rebekah Price (more on this in another post), I would have splashed out on this hand-enhancing object.

Moth dou­ble fin­ger ring by Nancy Edwards

Gina Pankowski of Lat­tis Design cre­ates jew­elry with unusual shapes with move­ment that unwit­tingly stirs the senses. The intel­li­gence behind her archi­tec­turally inspired and engi­neered pieces is clearly evi­dent, ele­ments fit together like pieces of a puz­zle and in some cases you can­not make out where it begins or ends. Her “Swell” Bracelet should col­lapse, but does not, instead it rolls inside out so that a thread of gold floats over and under its sil­ver man­tle. How does Pankowski do this? Magic, I guess. She is rep­re­sented by my friends at Aaron Faber Gallery and you can see her jew­elry in their ele­gant space.

A quick sum­mary of The Fourth Annual Antique Jew­elry and Watch Show that took place last Fri­day and ended this past Mon­day. It was a bus­tle of atten­dees and many of my friends were busy show­ing the beau­ti­ful things they brought for sale. A few pics of the fun stuff are below. Much of the jew­elry was very high end, rare, and cov­etable. Actu­ally more than cov­etable, they were wear­able. Not every­thing you see at these events falls into that cat­e­gory because it is so costly and not nec­es­sar­ily the kind of thing you find your­self reach­ing for on a daily basis. But there were fab­u­lous 1960s and ‘70s pieces of superb cal­i­bre, eigh­teenth cen­tury rose-cut dia­mond rings and ear­rings tdf (to die for), and great invest­ment vin­tage watches — like a Bul­gari that wraps around the wrist — totally inno­v­a­tive and con­tem­po­rary. All of them not as wallet-prying as you might think, and as mod­ern as any­thing pro­duced just yes­ter­day. It’s not the age of design, but how the design ages that really matters.

Edwar­dian neck­lace and other jew­elry, Fourth Annual Antique Jew­elry and Watch Show 7/2010

As of today, the Elle.com new chan­nel launch is planned for Tues­day, July 27^th. That is when my story will go live. I’ll post a link.

I attended the fourth annual Antique Jew­elry and Watch Show at The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Pavil­ion this after­noon (it goes on through Mon­day). Lit­er­ally almost walked right into fash­ion writer non­pareil, Lynn Yea­ger. I excused myself, and then tossed a shout out of admi­ra­tion in her gen­eral direc­tion, which she gra­ciously and gen­uinely acknowl­edged with a huge, “Thank you so much!” That exchange made my day.

You have to love peo­ple who col­lect vin­tage jew­elry. Lynn is among them. How can you not be happy perus­ing the stalls and hav­ing the oppor­tu­nity to try on a rare 18^th cen­tury brooch, an orig­i­nal David Webb, Buc­ce­latti, or VCA. Some­times there is a find among finds, but in truth, the hunt and peck is the ulti­mate in week­end pur­suits. If you are in NYC, please go. It’s going to a steamy day tomor­row and this is a fun way to spend a few cool hours.

More on the show anon…with a few images too.

John Paul Gaultier Cou­ture Fall 2010

So the mys­tery of my absence from the blog last week may now be solved: I was work­ing on an exclu­sive story for Elle.com’s new chan­nel. The launch will take place this week and when my story goes live, I’ll post a link. I had the oppor­tu­nity to work with Exec­u­tive Acces­sories Edi­tor, Kate David­son Hud­son, who is as gra­cious and pro­fes­sional as she is lovely. I’m afraid that the sub­ject mat­ter will have to remain a secret until it is pub­lished. Still, I’ll can (and will) let you in on a lit­tle secret: Jew­elry is about to get very bold — and per­haps just a bit wild too. The ring on JPG’s cou­ture fall run­way is the  begin­ning of trends to come…

Over the week­end, I’ll be report­ing on The Fourth Annual New York Antique Jew­elry and Watch Show which begins this Fri­day. Then the Jeweler’s of Amer­ica Show opens Sun­day. There will be lots to talk about…

The JCrew/Miriam Haskell col­lab­o­ra­tion has already been touted much and loud by blog­gers and main­stream web sources. J.Crew’s new stand-alone bridal store in NYC is the place to find these made-to-order pieces. They are, admit­tedly, won­der­fully spec­tac­u­lar and seem to pos­sess every vin­tage nuance that Haskell did so well. The col­lec­tion itself is special.

HOWEVER. There are some ideas that work only in the­ory — in the mind, and per­haps across the con­fer­ence table. J.Crew is known for cool, sub­dued chic. Miriam Haskell, not at all. MH jew­elry is all about fan­tasy and over-the-top, lush details. Famespy.com, lift­ing a quote from a WWD arti­cle about the col­lec­tion, reports J.Crew’s Cre­ative Direc­tor and avid MH col­lec­tor, Jenna Lyons, who  has styled pieces from her own col­lec­tion in the company’s cat­a­logs, as saying,

“We want the bride to look gor­geous and we’re not about giant, over­whelm­ing cup­cake dresses,” Lyons said. “It’s about sim­plic­ity in sil­hou­ettes and pair­ing it with great jew­elry pieces.”

The jew­elry takes cen­ter stage at a wed­ding? Since when? Isn’t this a funny/ironic/strange thing to pro­mote if your pri­mary objec­tive is to glo­rify J.Crew’s bridal cou­ture? And more impor­tantly, any kind of adorn­ment worn for one’s nup­tials should emphat­i­cally high­light, under­score, and in all other ways, enhance the bride with­out over­state­ment. Never, ever, should it out­shine her. I’m all for sim­plic­ity in dress, be it wed­ding or any for­mal occa­sion, and I even love the occa­sional “cup­cake” ensem­ble, depend­ing on who is wear­ing it and how. Wed­ding jew­elry may seem pub­lic, but is prob­a­bly the most uniquely pri­vate choice the bride makes with regard to how she would like to be per­ceived. Which why this col­lab­o­ra­tion feels in many ways a lit­tle off kil­ter. There is no bal­ance between the J.Crew bridal aes­thetic and the jew­elry. It’s all and noth­ing. Some­thing akin to putting whipped cream on a home-made, del­i­cate and deli­cious sugar cookie. The com­bi­na­tion isn’t awful — it is just too much and too lit­tle to really cre­ate a sen­sa­tion that lingers on the tongue and in the memory.

What I think could be a more com­pre­hen­sive idea is hav­ing Miriam Haskell cre­ate a line for J.Crew that blends their sen­si­bil­i­ties. When you have two extremes, meet­ing some­place in the mid­dle can be a really pro­duc­tive place to begin. From there you can tweak the designs to the left or right, up the glam fac­tor by addi­tion, or lower the wattage by sub­trac­tion, depend­ing on the look you desire, and tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion the sim­ple sil­hou­ettes Lyons alluded to above. It also might be a good idea to help the bride with build­ing a great jew­elry wardrobe that can be worn with the company’s col­lec­tions before and AFTER the wedding.

Is this con­cept a one-off? Given its pricey price point, this foray into the vintage-done-for-today comes off in some mea­sure as ersatz for J.Crew, and not nec­es­sar­ily a bridal shop­ping expe­ri­ence that is exclu­sive or unique. Miriam Haskell, after her death and sale of the com­pany, is pro­duc­ing jew­elry again. And let’s not for­get that authen­tic vin­tage pieces, the Holy Grail of col­lectibil­ity, may be had at sim­i­lar cost (or, pos­si­bly lower, if you are very clever), and will likely retain or even improve in value in the long run. The efforts of this col­lab­o­ra­tion may not see news­wor­thy auc­tion esti­mates for a very long time…if ever.

Dia­monds owned and worn by Marie Antoinette. Smith­son­ian Institution

Dia­mond neck­lace Napoleon pre­sented to his sec­ond wife, Marie Louise. Smith­son­ian Institution

I spent the last three days in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., our nation’s cap­i­tal, with my fam­ily. We vis­ited The Smithsonian’s Gem Hall. It’s a pil­grim­age I make every time I’m in the city. As per usual, the lines were long and crowded, two deep, to view Marie Antoinette’s dia­monds as well as the neck­lace Napoleon gave to his sec­ond wife, Marie Louise. The gems never cease to mes­mer­ize and remind me that all of these wildly col­or­ful and bril­liant geo­des are an acci­dent of nature. This is imper­fec­tion at its most per­fect moment.

The jew­els, blink­ing in their cases like stars stolen from the night­time sky, astound with the power of their pres­ence, his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tives, and cer­tainly by their unpar­al­leled beauty. The Hope Dia­mond was dis­played unmounted from its famous white dia­mond set­ting. View­ing the stone sans its daz­zling sur­round really offers a rare per­spec­tive. Its depth of color is round, full, and sump­tu­ous, not unlike a Beaux-Arts chaise cov­ered in mid­night blue mohair-velvet. One just wants to sink deeply into that heav­enly plush and wal­low within it’s confines.

On an unex­pected note: QVC and The Smith­son­ian will be col­lab­o­rat­ing on a jew­elry col­lec­tion this com­ing fall. The pieces will be repro­duced from the museum’s hold­ings, includ­ing Marie Antoinette’s dia­monds (which were  later re-set into the mount­ings you see here), and the Hope Dia­mond. Plus ca change, plus c’est le meme chose.

The Hope Dia­mond. Smith­son­ian Institution

GemKitty.com’s Emma ear­rings, gem­stones selected by Lori Ettlinger Gross (www.jewelhistory.com)

The ear­rings arrived just yes­ter­day, beau­ti­fully wrapped, boxed, and berib­boned. The pack­ag­ing was lovely and gift-worthy. Once I got past the pre­sen­ta­tion, I was pleas­antly sur­prised and pleased with my own hand­i­work — the com­bi­na­tion of gem­stones turned out exactly as I had planned: a pretty sum­mer palatte that would pro­vide a light shot of color, yet blend with my col­or­ing and act as a neu­tral when it came to my clothes. The one thing I hadn’t antic­i­pated is that I didn’t care for the way the ear­ring fit my frame. Some­how with my short, boy­ish do, the length of the ear­ring was a bit off, a tad long and didn’t fall along my neck grace­fully but swung away from it. The fault in that was mine and mine alone.  I choose a style of ear­ring that was more gem-intense so that I could get a bet­ter sense of  the qual­ity of the stones. which was good, not great.

I ordered an orange jasper 8mm round bead at the top, and Ama­zonite 12mm faceted brio­lettes for the bot­tom, the whole set in ster­ling sil­ver. The stones are very included (which means they have a lot going inside the gem, the less inclu­sions in a gem­stone, the more desir­able it is as far as value and beauty) That being said, the ear­rings sell for  around fifty-five dol­lars, not inex­pen­sive, how­ever you are pay­ing to have them made with your selec­tion of gem color, and they are crafted by hand in Port­land, OR — not mass man­u­fac­tured in a fac­tory in Asia. The work­man­ship for these sim­ple ear­ring is quite nice, the wires are tightly and neatly wound, there isn’t any ragged edges or scratchy wires hang­ing around. The find­ings come with lit­tle stop­pers so that the ear­ring doesn’t slip off your lobe — a very thought­ful plus since tak­ing t-shirts and sweaters on and off can some­times grab the ear­ring with the gar­ment and pull it off your ear. I’ve nearly lost a cou­ple in dress­ing rooms that way.

As I was inspect­ing and try­ing on the ear­rings, there was that one unabat­ing ques­tion, “Aren’t these avail­able else­where, and at a lower price point?” That, as it turns out, is a more dif­fi­cult ques­tion to answer because this is a prod­uct in which you, the cus­tomer, par­tic­i­pate in its man­u­fac­ture. That will always up the ante. Yes, the style is fairly com­mon, and in fact all four ear­ring designs are rather straight­for­ward — you cer­tainly couldn’t call them pro­pri­etary. If GemKitty could cre­ate some­thing really unique in terms of design, per­haps a day and night ear­ring (an old 18^th cen­tury style) where you could wear the top sep­a­rately and then add the bot­tom at will, that would really set them apart on many lev­els. The price for a custom-color selected, American-made, ear­ring of this genre would cost more, but then they would be offer­ing both a ser­vice and style that couldn’t be pur­chased elsewhere.

All in all, I like GemKitty’s con­cept. The web­site is easy to nav­i­gate, and shipped out  and arrived in a timely man­ner. The choice of ster­ling sil­ver find­ings is nice, the gold-filled ver­sion is ok, it would be bet­ter to have a ver­meil (gold over ster­ling sil­ver) choice instead. The idea of involv­ing the cus­tomer in the design is absolutely fan­tas­tic, and if you are look­ing for an ear­ring or neck­lace to work with a spe­cial out­fit, this is an option that just might come in handy. The odds of see­ing some­one in the same dress you bought at one of the big box stores make be likely, how­ever pair­ing that lit­tle num­ber with ear­rings in which you had a hand in design­ing will make the look all the more yours.

As I men­tioned last week, today I placed my order at GemKitty.com for a pair of ear­rings. The site states that the ear­rings are custom-designed, which is true when it comes to only select­ing the gem­stones, not the over­all design. There are four ear­ring types to choose from, and each has its own per­son­al­ity. The gems are orga­nized by color, then once you’ve made that selec­tion, you then choose the stone size, shape, and place­ment (ie, top or bot­tom), again, depend­ing on the style of the ear­ring. All of this was easy enough to nav­i­gate and the site speed is excel­lent. One draw­back was the fact that not all gem­stone cuts were avail­able for every style of ear­ring. Also, hue dif­fer­en­tial was too murky for some of the images of the darker gem­stones, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to really get a sense of the gem’s char­ac­ter and how the over­all com­po­si­tion will work for you. Basi­cally with this ser­vice  you can be cre­ative with color, just not gem cut or pro­por­tion. Now that would be a truly inno­v­a­tive option. A nice plus for those who would like to encour­age com­merce in the US — the ear­rings are crafted in Port­land, OR, not farmed out to Asia. Since I haven’t yet received my ear­rings, I can­not com­ment on the qual­ity of their crafts­man­ship or gem mate­r­ial. After I’ve given them a test drive, I’ll report back on those details.

As for this Work­ing Girl Col­lectible post, the focus is on vin­tage watches. While I love and wear men’s watches, on my petite wrist they just don’t pass the seduc­tive test for evening wear or even slightly-dressier wear. In a world where watches are no longer a neces­sity — they’ve become a fash­ion state­ment more than any­thing else — one  that is dis­tinc­tive, beau­ti­fully made, and vin­tage is another way of assem­bling a great jew­elry col­lec­tion. The exam­ples below are all taken from Aaron Faber Gallery’s web­site. A cou­ple of them are men’s watches; they sported an androg­y­nous atti­tude so I included them in the mix. Ladies vin­tage watches are often less expen­sive than their mas­cu­line coun­ter­parts, and  there are won­der­ful choices in terms of design too. A signed watch is always nice, but if you are just begin­ning to col­lect them, don’t be overly con­cerned about acquir­ing a top drawer name. This is where work­ing with a rep­utable and knowl­edge­able dealer is a good idea. Once you’ve become famil­iar with what you like and the mar­ket for that watch genre, you are off to a great start invest­ing in some old-school style.

Pink Gold Cock­tail Watch — Aaron Faber Gallery

Blue Dial Rolex Date­just — Aaron Faber Gallery

Bulova Curved Dri­vers Watch — Aaron Faber Gallery

Patek Philippe 1940s Cock­tail Watch — Aaron Faber Gallery

Next week I will be review­ing a soon-to-be-launched jew­elry design ser­vice on GemKitty.com. Cur­rently the web­site has a create-your-own-beaded-necklace plat­form and will be offer­ing a sim­i­lar one for ear­rings. With the company’s knowl­edge and per­mis­sion, I will be design­ing my own pair, tak­ing them for a test run, and then return­ing them back from whence they came. When review­ing jew­elry, my pol­icy is that I must han­dle it first­hand in order to give my read­ers an objec­tive cri­tique. Return­ing the items, unless I have cho­sen to pur­chase them for my own col­lec­tion, is also a part of the process. This keeps my hon­esty and integrity intact. I hope you will  stay tuned…

Have a lovely weekend!