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