The New York Times and The Inter­na­tional Her­ald Tri­bune are sep­a­rately fea­tur­ing sto­ries by Suzy Menkes about couture-level, or neo-couture level design­ers, who are work­ing the mid­dle ground: Jil Sander, for Uniglo and Olivier Theyskins, for The­ory. The lat­ter was a new announce­ment. The ded­i­ca­tion of design­ers, both of which have worked at the high­est level of the fash­ion chain, to their craft is not only palat­able but now pos­si­ble for every­one else. and this is a truly great thing. I, for one, wear Sander’s Uniqlo won­der­fully cut pieces and absolutely love them. They are my go-to’s for prac­ti­cally any event, or meet­ing — I even audi­tioned for a Chee­rios com­mer­cial in one (no, I didn’t get it, and yes…I’m exper­i­ment­ing with my career at present. Not sure what direc­tion to take so I’m try­ing ALL of them for size to see what fits best right now. Hon­estly, if not now…when??). Even my 21-year-old son has a cou­ple of great things from her mens col­lec­tion hang­ing in his closet; we shop together when he’s home from school. For any­one doing the math just about now: I had our our three hand­some sons early in life and now I reap the rewards of hav­ing young adult chil­dren and being able to shop in the same stores as they do (well, kinda-sorta).

Ok, back to my main point…why can’t jew­elry do the same as Uniqlo and The­ory? Tar­get has tried, with vary­ing degrees of suc­cess, to bring high-level jew­elry design­ers to a mass mar­ket plat­form but, to our more than occa­sional dis­ap­point­ment, it hasn’t always worked. Why? Some might respond and say that the intrin­sic mate­ri­als are just too expen­sive, and to that I would prof­fer a polite lit­tle cough…and then stick my tongue out. Gold, yes, is expen­sive, how­ever sil­ver is a great, afford­able option, and one that arti­san jew­el­ers are embrac­ing with gusto. What about other met­als like bronze, or even cop­per? These take on a fab­u­lous, warm patina and work with black like a bread and but­ter. No, the cost of mate­ri­als can be worked out, with the price points remain­ing fair and rea­son­able, and pro­vided that blind avarice isn’t fac­tored into the equation.

What then? Crafts­man­ship? This is where they may have an argu­ment. There isn’t really a way to make high qual­ity, fast fash­ion for jew­elry from mass mar­ket man­u­fac­tur­ing. The con­trols just aren’t there for qual­ity details, such as hand fin­ish­ing the way Lib­erty did for their period Art Nou­veau lines. Some cos­tume jew­elry design­ers are able to do this, but the cost of these pieces is still quite high and the pro­duc­tion is usu­ally lim­ited. Yet, there is some­thing to be said for mak­ing jew­elry in smaller quan­ti­ties. If done very (very) well, it affords a desir­abil­ity that per­haps that would have been miss­ing if avail­able to every­one. Not a demo­c­ra­tic con­cept, I know, how­ever the pos­si­bil­ity of mak­ing an afford­able, bet­ter piece of jew­elry, one that may become col­lectible in time, is some­thing the indus­try hasn’t addressed, and actu­ally hasn’t explored fully, as far as I can see. This is also true of more exclu­sive col­lec­tions and Madi­son Avenue jew­el­ers and not just endemic to the mid­dle or even less expen­sive mar­kets. Qual­ity should be every­thing in jew­elry. After all, as  far as neces­si­ties go, its com­pletely optional, isn’t it? In most places in the world, cloth­ing is required, but jew­elry is a per­sonal state­ment, and more impor­tantly, not com­pul­sory for any occa­sion — save a coro­na­tion. How would you rec­og­nize the monarch otherwise?