Before I begin my post on Chris­t­ian Streit, I’d like to take the time to acknowl­edge the late Stan­ley Siegel­man. Mr. Siegel­man, a for­mer WWD assis­tant man­ag­ing edi­tor and poet, died yes­ter­day at his home in Great Neck, New York at the age of 87. In his later years Mr. Siegel­man wrote poetry in Yid­dish and Eng­lish for The Jew­ish For­ward, and if you’ve never had the plea­sure of read­ing his adroit verse then grab a mug of some­thing deli­cious and click the pre­vi­ous link. You will not only be exquis­itely enter­tained but learn some­thing new about both lan­guages. I knew Mr. Siegel­man per­son­ally as the father of my col­lege roommate/BFF, Karen Ste­in­feld. It wasn’t until later in my life that he and I real­ized a shared love of lan­guage, as he hap­pened to read an arti­cle that I wrote and sent to his daugh­ter for her amuse­ment. His response is one of the grand­est com­pli­ments I’ll ever receive pro­fes­sion­ally. He said, “I’d hire her!” Thank you, Mr. Siegel­man. Kisses to heaven.
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Ear­rings by Chris­t­ian Streit at Aaron Faber Gallery: Oxi­dized ster­ling inlaid with sworls of pure gold, and cut out in ran­dom pat­terns, set with a round gar­net at top, on 18K earwires.

Jew­elry arti­san Chris­t­ian Streit has a pas­sion for rings. The designer’s early child­hood mem­o­ries of a fam­ily friend influ­enced his future aspi­ra­tions. He recalls, “a tall, stout man, very quiet, smok­ing cig­a­rettes, and he wore a huge ring.” Trained as a clas­si­cal gold­smith in a tra­di­tional work­shop, Streit then worked as an assis­tant at the Ate­lier Michael Zobel for two and half years. After­ward he stud­ied at Escuela Mas­sana in Barcelona with Ramón Puig Cuya. He mixes met­als and pro­duces pieces that speak to eth­nic and period influ­ences while pro­ject­ing a con­tem­po­rary urban pres­ence. A bezel of dark­ened sil­ver against bright gold is set with a loom­ing smoky quartz and a tiny rose-cut dia­mond accent for play­ful­ness. The nar­ra­tive of his jew­elry seems to have more in com­mon with Jane Austen than LBD’s and cock­tail con­ver­sa­tion about Don­ald Trump’s tee­ter­ing bid for the pres­i­dency. Streit feels the depth of his designs, and knows that it isn’t all gloss and per­cep­tion. He believes that, anthro­po­log­i­cally speak­ing, jew­elry is one of the old­est cul­tural arti­facts of human­ity and that its rela­tion­ship between the mind and the body is unique. This is evi­dent in the small­est details: com­pare the shanks of the rings below. Nuance is every­thing and his sub­ti­tles are provoca­tive rather than showy. More of Chris­t­ian Streit’s work can be found at Aaron Faber Gallery in New York.

Ring by Chris­t­ian Streit at Aaron Faber Gallery: over­size ring ref­er­ence antique jew­elry in faceted smoky quartz set in a bezel of pure gold, and embell­ished at top with an 18K gold pen­ta­gram, set at cen­ter with a rose-cut dia­mond. Oxi­dized ster­ling sil­ver ring shank, detailed in 18K and 24K gold

Ring by Chris­t­ian Streit at Aaron Faber Gallery

News:
–Begin­ning April 18^th Loehmann’s will have for sale a rare col­lec­tion of vin­tage Chanel jew­elry at their NYC Chelsea and Upper West Side stores. This is by appt. only, con­tact the per­sonal shop­per…
–Christie’s recently announced that they will be auc­tion­ing off Dame Eliz­a­beth Taylor’s jew­elry. Stay tuned…
–SOFA New York begins tomor­row at The Park Avenue Armory. The best in con­tem­po­rary jew­elry can be found there. Aaron Faber Gallery will be an exhibitor. If you are vis­it­ing the show, be sure to stop by…
–On a per­sonal note: I just com­pleted an Equinox Pilates mat cer­ti­fi­ca­tion this past week. VERY intense but I feel great. Yes, me, a Pilates mat instructor…who knew? Explore your pas­sions, it’s the best way to meet new peo­ple, make new friends, and learn more about the world around you…