This month, I wrote about Rec League, a new word-of-mouth recommendations platform, for Fast Company. (As it turns out, two of the three founders worked at Substack.) I first learned about it from Simone Paasche and Sophie Fader of Spur Jewelry during our interview back in the spring. One of the first collections I built, if not the first, was dedicated to jewelry I’d come across in museum collections (above), spanning decades and genres, from Byzantine to art deco to studio jewelry.

What’s been so appealing — and fun, frankly — about Rec League is that it’s not only a repository for all the things I like and want to save, but also a place to connect over shared interests (there are many fellow jewelry-obsessed folks out there), and even an excuse to explore and hunt down finds. I suppose there are worse rabbit holes than scouring the collections of institutions like the Victoria & Albert, the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, or the RISD Museum online.

Next, I created a general “Jewelry Archive” collection for wide variety of pieces and designers that I’ve uncovered recently and over the years. And, I’ve even re-recced several from other Rec League-ers, incuding earrings from Slantt Studio and Zoé Mohmm, and classic Tiffany & Co. Bean Design Pendant Necklace by Elsa Peretti. Perhaps it is time to build a “Silver” collection soon …. Any recs?

Monika Krol’s well-appointed storefront, Meeka Fine Jewelry, sits on a quiet cobblestone street just a stone’s throw from one of Newport’s busiest avenues. Inside the bright, wood-and-beam shop, clusters of jewelry from different designers are arranged in simple glass cases — a reflection of Krol’s dual vantage as both retailer and maker.

Krol’s own work is notable for its craftsmanship and simplicity in form, with a persistent sense of history running through it. There’s also a pragmatism: an understanding that the smallest detail — the mechanism of a clasp — can be translated into something both useful and beautiful.

In July, right as Krol was preparing to officially launch her namesake brand, I had the chance to tour the shop, discuss her trajectory from art school to shop owner, and, best of all, get a preview of The Lyre collection — and find out what comes next.

I’d love to hear how you first got into jewelry design.

I went to the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, which has sadly since closed, and I thought I was going to go for photography. But I took an elective in jewelry making — I remember being in the studio until my stomach was growling, looking up and it was dark out, and the shop tech, Sean McMullen, telling me he was closing up. My elective teacher told me I was going to make jewelry, and that was the first moment I thought, yeah, I guess this is what I’m going to do.

Right after graduation my mentor and professor in college, Lola Brooks, hired me. I became her studio assistant. I honed my goldsmithing skills with her and learned about gemstones. The work I had been making in school was large sculptural pieces, found objects. I worked for her for eight years.

I didn’t fully realize at the time how unique she was. She was a great professor, and she also made her own art jewelry for exhibitions with Sienna Patti Contemporary, and she split her time making studio jewelry for stores as well.

How did you end up opening a shop?

At some point I got together with my husband, and he said, “Why don’t you open up this storefront and we can focus on your own work?” We found this beautiful little 750-square-foot space in downtown Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. I thought, if all else fails, I’ll have a really amazing studio space. A good friend of mine, Sean McMullen, built the cases. Lola agreed to have her work in the store. I had also been working for Gabriella Kiss for about a year and a half, and she agreed to have work in the store too. I filled out the collection with Rosanne Pugliese, Hannah Blount, and others. We opened the doors in 2014, right before the holidays.

Were you building your own collection at the same time you were running the store?

I was. I opened Meeka Fine Jewelry, and Monika Krol went into the store. It wasn’t like I had a clear brand vision for Monika — I just made the work I loved and put it in there. Opening up the store was truly just going by my gut, whether it was posting on Instagram or the way I curated it. Being a jeweler, I’m meticulous. I’m very clear about how I like things, and I was just trying to do that along the way. For the first three years it was pretty much just me. We bought a property down the street three years later and expanded the storefront — we moved there in 2017, and two years after that we purchased this property in Newport. So it was a lot of very quick growth, going from myself to a permanent location to a second storefront. Now it’s been twelve years.

How do you decide which designers to show in the store?

I want a collection that speaks — I want to be able to put someone’s work in a case and have it tell the full story. People can walk in, see Hannah’s work, and see that she grew up on Nantucket, is inspired by the water, her father’s a fisherman — barnacles and pearls, the color palette speaking her language. You need your own voice. If you know Hannah Blount, or Lola Brooks with her big, juicy gemstones and beautiful bezel setting, or Rosanne’s work, you’ll see it. I don’t think there was ever a jeweler I’ve not enjoyed working with.

I want to sell for my jewelers as much as for myself; there’s no preference between selling my own piece and one of theirs.

Tell me what prompted this brand launch and new collection?

I went to a trade show in February and something hit me while I was walking around. I thought, you know what, I might want to try this. Expanding in a way I haven’t done made for a really great deadline to focus on myself and my work.

How are you defining that story now that you’ve given yourself the space and time to make that work?

The biggest priority was getting back into the studio — to play again, to be at the bench, to be more thoughtful and strategic, but also to tell a story there. I chose the lyre as the focus of this collection. It’s lived within my work since very early on in Meeka. It started on the bail of a piece, and it’s since become a form on its own — this little design element I’m continually inspired by.

How does owning a store change how you’re seeing your own brand?

I’m curious to see how I do things differently than other storefronts. There are retailers who aren’t jewelers, and plenty who are doing both. To me it’s about diversifying the business, and building relationships is part of the fun.

How are you thinking about the collection from a business standpoint?

I was thinking about how I can focus on creating made-to-order pieces, so that from a business perspective there are staples — it’s not all one of a kind.

Can the whole collection be reproduced?

Anything that’s all metal, sure. Anything with a gemstone is one of a kind for the most part, but it can be replicated with another gemstone very easily.

Before this, were you creating pieces as they came to you, versus a cohesive collection now?

I’m a collector. Once gemstones came into the picture, I had my little drawers of them, and I like to organize them in color stories. I did a collaborative project called the Royal Loyals with my best friend Danielle Murray, an illustrator and painter. About three years ago we started with a collection every month, a color story and a theme for each. Each collection had one larger piece, and she’d do a painting to go with it. The year after, we moved to bigger, less frequent collections.

Design-wise, what are you drawn to? The stones or forms?

There’s the collecting of gemstones, which is super fun — the color, the sparkle, the glow. And then there’s inspiration: I love the vintage vibe, an old-world sense of history, which I think is the fun part of jewelry, because it’s meant to survive. I love movement and mechanisms. Each piece is hand-fabricated, and it moves, which is different from casting something. Simple, clean, beautiful design is some of the hardest to achieve.

What do you think jewelry means to the people who wear it?

I have a pair of earrings I got at a trade show in New York that reminds me of all my jewelry lady friends. I think of them as my tribe earrings. It’s tied to something — part of my identity, part of the full picture of ourselves — and it has the ability to carry all that meaning. And the story changes once somebody takes it and lives with it, taking on its own life.

Do you see yourself returning to making larger sculptural pieces?

I would love to. I’m so removed from that world now. Mostly it’s a question of finding where those collectors are and how to reach them. You have to put it out there enough that people eventually find you. But that’s part of the fun — finally building my own brand. I think it’ll open up ways of connecting more personally, whether with customers or followers.

More than a month after the Knicks' historic win, I'm still not quite ready to stop celebrating. Like so many, I got swept up in the fervor — Jalen’s shrewd command of the court, OG’s brilliant Hail Mary play in the final minutes of Game 4, and Jose Alvarado’s scrappy New York grit — not to mention witnessing the joyful redemption of lifelong fans like Spike Lee and John Turturro. But it was also that buzzy energy reverberating throughout the city, from the sidewalk watch parties to the nods exchanged when you passed someone sporting a Knicks hat or T-shirt. The win — and the lead-up to it — made New York feel like New York: rule-breaking of the best kind, loud goofy antics, and people of all stripes coming together.

During the final game, in all the excitement, I went looking for some nameplate Knicks necklaces, but my online searches mostly turned up cheesy stuff. Then, just recently, I came across Gray & Davis’s Knicks Subway Pendant, an exact replica of a 1953 subway token cast in platinum and set with orange and blue sapphires. As the description puts it: “New York is a city of people who believe in something bigger. Be it a better life or the best latte. This pendant is a nod to the city life and the network that connects us to our big dreams.” I think Spike would agree.

On Bastille Day, my friend Tom and his husband Richard kindly invited me to the opening of Modernity and Opulence: Women of the Wiener Werkstätte. Openings aren’t always the best time to absorb what’s on display, but it was a nice yet brief introduction to this exhibition on the key role Jewish women played in the movement. What stood out most was the sheer diversity of media, from ceramics and graphic design to jewelry and textiles, and how it shaped modernism more broadly.

It was also a chance to see the renovated third and fourth floors by UNStudio and New Affiliates Architecture, which open up the galleries and lend transparency to viewing the art, alongside glass cases filled with objects and relics — including a vitrine of 130 Hanukkah lamps — that together read as one complete artwork.

For years, museum shops filled their cases with hokey historical replicas or hippie beaded earrings. But over the past few years, as Gem+Jewels points out in “Museum Gift Shop Jewelry Is Getting Good,” merchandisers are getting more creative, tapping outside designers to reinterpret pieces from their collections into limited-edition jewelry. Author Amy Elliott does a nice job covering this shift, interviewing designers and museum staff, including Morgan Pearce, the Met Store's general manager of marketing, brand partnerships, and licensing.

I previously covered the Metropolitan Museum’s latest collaboration with designer J.Hannah in my inaugural March Monthly — one of several capsule collections the Met has produced with designers like Pamela Love and Munnu The Gem Palace.

Last December, the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) tapped local jewelry designer Jenni Stuart to create replicas of friendship rings inspired by ones 19th-century Salem resident Elizabeth Ropes Orne gifted to friends. And coinciding with the Frick’s renovation, the museum shop debuted the Off the Canvas collection with Donna Distefano, who has been named the museum’s official goldsmith.

I’d love to see more museums, especially those with impressive jewelry collections of their own, get in on this. What about the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum? RISD Museum? Or the Victoria & Albert? Hint hint.

Jewelry is many things — personal, symbolic, religious, decorative — but above all, it is deeply cultural, and whether or not it intends to, tells us something about our history. As we celebrate the country's 250th birthday, I started thinking about what categories, types of jewelry, or designers and houses feel distinctly American. The selection that came to mind is about as eclectic as the soupy cauldron of this country, from a Zuni silver and turquoise pin to a chunky gold nameplate necklace.

Southwestern Jewelry: Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, and Pueblo Craftsmanship

Any conversation about "American" jewelry has to start before the country’s founding — with how our fraught history, the land itself included, shaped the traditions and craftsmanship of what came after. I'd venture to say that some of the most quintessentially American jewelry is that which emerged from the nations that predate the country's 250 years.

Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni silversmiths in the mid-to-late 19th century crafted work in the form of squash blossom necklaces, concho belts, cluster and channel inlay, while artisans across the Pueblo nations, including Kewa (Santo Domingo), created heishi and other beaded jewelry dating even further back. Each nation developed distinct techniques — the Hopi known for intricate silver overlay, the Zuni for a fine stone needlepoint inlay, and the Pueblos for shell and mosaic-like stone beadwork — that came to define the range of Southwestern jewelry.

Tiffany & Co.

There's no jewelry brand more iconically American and entrenched in the nation's history than Tiffany. Its Robin's-egg blue box embraced by a white ribbon connotes a very recognizable kind of luxury to anyone lucky enough to receive what lies inside — and this has been the case for nearly 190 years, just 60 years shy of when the United States was founded. The company's timeline tells the story of the country — among the highlights: Did you know that Tiffany was the first retailer to publish a direct mail catalogue in the U.S., known as the "Blue Book," or that it redesigned the Great Seal of the United States that appears on the dollar bill today? Or that in 1861, Mary Todd Lincoln wore a Tiffany seed pearl necklace and earrings — purchased for her by President Lincoln — to the inaugural ball? Or that the Yankees logo was inspired by Tiffany's design of the NYPD's Medal of Valor, awarded to a wounded officer in the late 19th century?

Tiffany's trivia aside, the designs tell the story of the country’s aesthetic movements across decades, from Art Deco to the contemporary designs by Elsa Peretti and Paloma Picasso. If you spot a Sixteen Stone ring or the Infinity pendant out in the wild — you know, without a doubt, it is Tiffany.

Modernist/Postwar Studio Jewelry

The modernist jewelry movement in the United States was born in the early 1940s, during the same period abstract expressionism took root in this country. Designers experimented with unorthodox materials and forms, eschewing old conventions — status- and gem-focused jewelry gave way to sculpture on a small scale. As scholar Toni Greenbaum has written in great depth, these designers ushered in an unprecedented kind of jewelry, redefining the jeweler as sculptor and jewelry itself as sculpture in miniature.

New York City, particularly Greenwich Village, and San Francisco became fertile ground for the modernist and studio jewelry movements, creating a robust, creative community that included designers from all different backgrounds, like Art Smith, Bill Tendler, Jules Brenner, Ed Wiener, and Winifred Mason on the East Coast, and Margaret De Patta, Merry Renk, Peter Macchiarini, and Bob Winston on the West Coast. Jewelry-making during this era also came to be seen as a form of physical therapy for returning servicemen, with designers like Margret Craver teaching veterans through the G.I. Bill.

But most of all, the jewelry — in its abstraction and materiality — mirrors the zeitgeist of wartime and postwar America: skeptical, expressive, absurdist, and endlessly imaginative.

Nameplate Necklaces

Growing up in Brooklyn in the 1980s and ‘90s, nameplate necklaces were everywhere: around the necks of the teenage girls working at the local Italian bakery in Carroll Gardens, sold a few blocks away from my school on Fulton Street, reflecting the yellow light on subway passengers, flashing across MTV videos.

Wearing jewelry that bears your name is nothing new — people have done so for thousands of years, dating back to ancient Egypt. But when hip-hop emerged from the Bronx in the early 1970s, and as it entered the mainstream through the decade, nameplate necklaces became a signature piece of it — of New York, and of American hip-hop more broadly. There's a book — The Nameplate: Jewelry, Culture, and Identity, by Marcel Rosa-Salas and Isabel Attyah Flower — that does a well-researched deep dive into this history. As they put it: "Nameplate jewelry tells a story about the inextricable intersections between style and society, in which wearing one's name for others to see is also a symbolic site of struggle over selfhood, sovereignty, and social belonging." Nothing more American than that.

My dear friend Laura spent the spring in Florence, Italy, with her family for her husband’s job. One morning I woke to an email from her with several iPhone photos from the exhibition, I am an architect. Ettore Sottsass, that she saw at the Palazzo Buontalenti in Pistoia. Knowing my interest in jewelry, she kindly snapped shots of his sketches and newspaper clippings (above, bottom right). Sottsass had a groundbreaking and prolific career, with collaborations including Olivetti and Bitossi, among others, culminating in the founding of the Memphis Group. He also designed an impressive array of jewelry — such as Ring Mane, the lapis and gold ring for Cleto Munari (above, bottom left), and the Euphoria necklace for Acme Studios (above, top left), a signature Memphis-period piece in cloisonné and silver. His work comes up at auction from time to time, like this Double-Barreled ring at Sotheby’s, or as part of this somewhat more affordable collection of Memphis jewelry at Wright.

I will sadly not be in Tuscany to see the exhibition, but it is up until July 26 for those who are.

In jewelry adjacent news, my husband, Michael B. Dougherty, worked with watch experts Eric Wind and Charlie Dunne of Wind Vintage, on a new book, Vintage Watches: The Modern Guide. It will be available November 17th from Ten Speed Press.

As Michael wrote in Mensweird — his informative newsletter on menswear, which I highly recommend (no bias) — “To create this book I spoke with Eric and Charlie at length — I’m talking dozens of hours — distilling their immense knowledge into a single, definitive guide to the most important brands and references, plus essential collecting wisdom.”

My jewelry storage is far from streamlined. I have a habit of collecting little boxes, vessels, and dishes, where some jewelry is haphazardly kept. (It can, at times, feel like a self-imposed treasure hunt, requiring that I lift each lid to find the studs I want.) The bulk though has taken residence in a rather unremarkable glass-and-wood jewelry box. Nothing to write home about. It does its job just fine. But I recently came across this gorgeous handmade mahogany jewelry box by Judith Gefter, and I have suddenly found myself wanting to up my jewelry box game. This is currently beyond my budget, but it got me searching on 1stDibs, and I found some beauties, like this 1960s mid-century onyx jewelry box, or this solid wood American Studio Craft one "in the style of Sam Maloof" from the 1970s. Perhaps, there is a roundup on jewelry boxes in my future.

No jewelry here, but very excited about this chic — Shaker chic too on the nose? — collaboration between Block Shop and Hancock Shaker Village in the Berkshires. Shaker furniture is having a moment, and it is a welcome change to see textiles in the mix — especially an interpretation that isn’t too literal. Block Shop’s use of vibrant color paired with the simplicity of Shaker designs is near perfection.

For Simone Paasche and Sophie Fader, founders of Spur Jewelry, there are few projects they'd shy away from. The more challenging, the more compelling. They’ve transformed the likes of steel parts and feathers, hearts and marquise diamonds into skillfully crafted pieces that thread the new with the old. Their process — one they call jewelry renovation — is altogether different from most design studios: unusually personal and bespoke. Each design is informed by a backstory and recast for everyday wear. The results are pieces that feel distinctive and varied.

Back in April, on an unseasonably hot day, I had the chance to visit Simone and Sophie in their Manhattan studio, get a tour of their operations, and chat with them about how they came together and formed Spur, what projects stood out, and what might be next.

How did you both get your start in jewelry design and how did the two of you connect?

Sophie: We’ve known each other since childhood. We were in the same after-school arts program in our community. Simone rose to the top of our program and then got into RISD, which was a big deal to have somebody get into a top art school from our painting class.

Jewelry is actually a family business for me. My great-great-grandfather was a watchmaker and founded a jewelry store in St. Louis. My grandmother later started her own jewelry business in Kansas City. I grew up going there, so I’ve always had a long-standing interest in jewelry. I always did jewelry retail for work in high school and college — and then ended up getting a degree in computer science, and later found my way back to jewelry. After college, I was working in custom bridal for a while, and doing e-commerce websites for jewelers.

Simone, you can tell yours …

Simone: At RISD, I thought I was going for painting, and then pivoted to jewelry and metalsmithing. After school, I started my own line of jewelry and was working to get into stores, attending all the trade shows, getting press, and all of that kind of thing. But I realized I was actually making a living doing more custom jewelry transformation work, and I found it more interesting than continuing to develop collections seasonally. So I thought it could be good to make a whole business completely focused on that. Sophie and I, around that time, kept getting coffee, reconnecting.

Sophie: We were both in jewelry and both looking for the next opportunity. And then we came together on this idea — what if you built an entire jewelry business completely focused on using people’s heirloom materials? We started talking to mentors and other people in the industry, who mostly told us it was not a good idea. But we went ahead and started taking on our first batch of bespoke clients. That was at the end of 2018 that we started working together, and we launched the business around the beginning of 2019.

So someone comes to you with stones or fragments of jewelry to reimagine into something new. Do you also take on fully custom work from scratch?

Simone: Yes — we do fully custom work for all kinds of different things, often for bridal, is where we see that. Sometimes people just have a fun, wacky idea that everyone else has said no to, and we’ll take them up on it.

Sophie: Because we do almost 100% custom work, and because we’re working with such a variety of materials all the time, we’re positioned very well to take on weird custom projects. A lot of other dealers refer people to us if they’ve turned down a project outside the scope of what their studio does — whether it’s a feather or resin. Of course we can do that, because we’re working with all kinds of materials all the time.

Tell me about a couple of your favorite projects — any that really stick out?

Sophie: What we do is not boring — it’s a constant stream of crazy stories. I think there’s a real mix: projects that have a crazy backstory but the piece itself is a classic design, and projects that don’t have such a crazy backstory but we’re working with a really interesting material. So it balances out.

Simone: One, more recently — I spoke with this woman who had a piece of steel that had been the pin holding her hip together after surgery. She had recovered really well and loved this object, and we found a way to make a ring using a small piece of this metal that had been in her body, combined with some other precious materials — diamonds and pearls.

Sophie: It became a cluster. You wouldn’t even necessarily notice the steel until you take a closer look at it. We’ve done a dog nose print. We’ve done dog tags. We’ve done baby teeth, molars, and puppy teeth. We’ve done feathers, ashes, all different kinds of remains, portraits, plastic beads.

There are very few things we can’t work with — but the materials will limit what we can do. Certain materials bring a lot of constraints in terms of what methods we can use in production. But if the client is open to the possibilities and doesn’t have a particularly specific idea in mind, we can generally come up with something.

You said people discouraged you at first, but it sounds like you’ve had a lot of success and picked up steam. How did you grow the business?

Sophie: Part of it was the manic energy of being cooped up in lockdown — that was one of the biggest growth times for us, in terms of the beginning of the business.

Simone: Because we had just started to pick up some steam right before that happened. We had this moment of, “We’ve worked so hard, we can’t stop everything.”

Sophie: We had just started paying rent for the space, and we’d done our first big travel event in Texas. That was February of 2020, so when New York shut down in mid-March, we were like, “okay, what’s next?” My mom, at the time, was working as an admin in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia, and she was talking to epidemiologists every day. She was very much on the cautious side of things, telling us that the scientists were saying you could be looking at a really long shutdown — and that really informed some of the decisions we made. What can we do if we’re not going to return to work right away? Before that, we had been meeting with clients in person for extended appointments and doing house visits with clients all around the city.

Sophie: So we changed formats to talking on the phone and looking at photos, and we found that that was actually an incredibly focused and effective way to work, because we could go through and methodically look at every piece in their collection, and have a really detailed conversation on the phone, and then put together our designs and proposals after that. It’s basically still the way we work today.

Simone: We found that when we were in person, it’s a little harder to stay focused on the task at hand. We’re looking at all of these sentimental items — there’s a million stories, and we love hearing them. So it’s easy to go down that path. But with a 30-minute phone call, someone is booking in because they’re ready to do this, and they want to get it done.

Sophie: And then we started really growing from there. It’s been a wild ride.

Simone: At the beginning, I was the only person doing all of our sketching. Sophie was the only person corresponding with clients. Within that time, we started getting so much demand, we hired another sketch artist, and we started hiring some of my friends from RISD, because I knew they had the same skill set. We pretty much can only work with designers who have a bit of a metalsmithing background, because they need to be able to understand the material limitations, and they need to be classically trained on the bench side of things to do the job.

Sophie, you head the business side?

Sophie: In the beginning, I was doing most of the sales, and now I do the admin and marketing.

Simone: Design and production leadership.

Has a client ever wanted a piece overhauled, and you’ve been hesitant?

Simone: We have two team members who have a background in antiques. We scan through all the materials we’re talking about every day, and when we see something that seems to have some value to it, we’ll talk about it with the members of our team who know more about it, and then we’ll advise someone not to take it apart — for financial reasons, or if it’s just too tragic to break up because it has too much historic significance.

Sophie: I’d say the vast majority of the work we do is taking sentimental but commercially produced jewelry and making it into a custom fine jewelry piece. So it’s almost always that we’re doing a huge upgrade in terms of craftsmanship and materials. A lot of what we work with is Sears, Kmart, and Macy’s jewelry from the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. But occasionally people do have something that feels important or significant.

Simone: And then we can either help them recoup the value with dealers we work with, or do a lighter process — updating it, doing a repair so it’s wearable, or adding a new bail or something, so they can wear it in a different way. But we’re really thoughtful — if it’s a Buccellati piece, say, and it’s a brooch, and we’re turning it into earrings, we’ll very carefully remove the brooch back and give it back to you in a way where you could hypothetically put it back if you want.

Sophie: Another thing we do — if it’s maybe not the most valuable or important but it is still desirable to wear it in some form — is set something else in that setting, something funky. We’ve done a hot pink sapphire in a vintage setting, and then taken the diamonds out and put them into something wearable. There are ways to hang onto something — walk that fine line, update it, and keep the right piece.

Anything else coming down the pipeline?

Sophie: So many things. We’ve built this amazing, talented team, and everyone on it is full of great ideas. I’d say right now we’re very well poised to take on much higher-end things as well. What we’re doing is amazing, but we do have the capability for some really avant-garde, crazy pieces. So we’re looking at how to bring that in.

Would that be a collection or more about the kind of clients you take on?

Sophie: It’s still taking form right now. It could be in the form of a collection, but I’d imagine in the nearer future, just that type of client — there’s a need for it.

Simone: I think we’re also really expanding our ability to have more of a circular economy in the business — offering the possibility of post-consumer gemstones that we could retail. So that’s something we might be able to offer to the public.

We’re also looking at expanding the storytelling we do. We have all of these amazing projects and stories to tell with our clients, and we’re really looking for new ways to share more of that.

Sophie: We live with these stories constantly — we have these really amazing conversations with people — and we’re trying to figure out a way to capture that, whether it’s an audio form or something else.

Simone: Everyone’s been joking about a reality TV show, which is kind of my worst nightmare, honestly. Maybe more like an audio format — an audiobook or coffee table book at some point — something where we could share more in depth. Some of our clients’ family stories are amazing, and can be very emotional for them too.

One of the things about working with heirloom materials is that there are no calibrated stones — if you’re doing a production line of jewelry, you set up your designs and order all your stones, and they’re all the same dimensions, the same depth. When you’re working with heirloom materials, not only are the stones all different sizes, but they were cut in different eras. But there are some designs we’ve really honed in on that we feel are successful across a wide range of materials, and we’re thinking about whether that becomes a collection, or designs we can offer in some other way.

To spend time with LAELIUS Antiques’s collection of 18th- and 19th-century jewelry is to discover how deeply material culture reflected the ideas, social mores, and eccentricities of the era. None of that is accidental—it comes directly from its founder, Ju Kim, who is as meticulous as she is curious.

Last month, while putting together a Mother’s Day vintage guide for Architectural Digest, I reached out to Kim for her expert insights on Victorian lockets. She walked readers through how to spot provenance and quality, along with some remarkable finds in her collection. But our correspondence surfaced so many fascinating details that couldn’t fit in the piece. So I asked Kim if we could continue the conversation—and she generously agreed. Below, she shares how she found her way to antique jewelry and what excites her most when it comes to collecting.

Could you tell me more about how you found your way to antique jewelry?

With my background in photography and fashion advertising, I’ve always been naturally drawn to beautiful things, but it was actually during graduate school that my appreciation for history deepened into a real obsession. It feels like many moons ago now, but I still vividly remember making my first serious purchase: a Georgian sepia miniature piece. That was the moment I transitioned from an admirer to a true collector. I became deeply captivated by the intricate symbolism and meticulous craftsmanship of Georgian and Victorian jewelry. What really drew me in was their singular character—almost every piece from those eras is one-of-a-kind. There’s something incredibly special about knowing there aren’t hundreds of identical versions out there.

Even though my career started in high fashion, my true calling emerged much more quietly. Friends and colleagues kept asking to buy the jewelry I was wearing, and over time, my private collection naturally evolved into a curated business. My approach for the shop is actually quite straightforward: I only acquire pieces that I love 100%. If it’s not something I would personally wear or want to keep, it doesn’t make the cut. That might feel less commercial, as I have never been one to ride current trends, but it has allowed the collection to remain very consistent and sincere. Because I am the sole buyer for LAELIUS Antiques, every single piece reflects that personal connection. The shop is fundamentally a reflection of my own vision.

Over the last decade, since founding my business in 2014, I’ve built a wonderful community of clients. I’m just incredibly grateful to everyone who has trusted my eye, and who shares that same love for pieces chosen with real care and discernment.

What has surprised you about antique jewelry the longer you’ve been a collector?

For me, it always comes back to what I deeply appreciate about these pieces. I often think that people were simply more romantic and far more creative in the 18th and 19th centuries. Back then, jewelry served as this incredibly quiet, refined way to express deep emotions and share intimate narratives. For example, among all the floral motifs in antique jewelry, the pansy is my absolute favorite. I was recently captivated by an early Victorian blue enamel locket from around the 1840s, where three distinct symbols work together as a sentimental love token. The front features an enchanting trio crafted from rose-cut diamonds: a pansy, a key, and a heart, all set against a deep royal blue enamel. The pansy, which comes from the French word “penser,” meaning ‘to think,’ represents ‘thinking of you.’ When you pair it with the key and the heart, the sentiment becomes: “you hold the key to my heart.” It is just beautifully poetic.

I also wanted to show you this Victorian black enamel and diamond pansy locket. It actually sold years ago, but it’s one of those pieces I still think about. If I ever have the chance, I’d buy it back without a second thought.

The Victorians were also so incredibly good at whimsy. Even today, mainstream jewelry motifs tend to stick to things like butterflies, flowers, or birds—but a mouse?! Have you ever seen Victorian mouse jewelry? It’s this whimsical tribute to clever resilience and resourcefulness, and it perfectly celebrates the Victorian love for finding talismanic wit and charm in the smallest of nature’s creatures. The Victorian mouse brooch we have at the shop right now is particularly special. One of my favorite details is that the four mice are all in different postures, and each little mouse is crafted with tiny rose-cut diamonds for eyes. If you turn it over, the reverse displays the original English registry number ‘193307,’ which is a fun bit of decoding because it dates the piece specifically to 1884.

I love that there is some levity — I wouldn’t necessarily have expected that with Victorian jewelry.

While romantic and sentimental symbolism played a major role in 19th-century jewelry, one cannot overlook the era’s delightful sense of playfulness. The Victorians truly excelled at transforming everyday, often unexpected subjects into something uniquely charming. A perfect example is a recently sold treasure of ours: a late 19th-century French gem-set ‘fishbowl’ gold locket. You can’t help but wonder about its story. Was it a commissioned tribute for a sophisticated lover of goldfish, or a jeweler’s private flight of fancy? While we may never know who it was originally made for, the piece speaks volumes just through its artistry. The finely carved reverse crystal intaglio is of English origin—and it was almost certainly brought to a premier French workshop to be transformed into this one-of-a-kind treasure. It is a rare jewel where playful ingenuity and refined elegance coexist in perfect harmony. Finding a piece like this is an incredible encounter, and I will remember this one for a very long time.

Have you seen certain periods or objects grow in popularity?

Rather than chasing after specific motifs that suddenly spike in popularity, I do see certain shifts come and go—even within the antique world. But because my curation is quite focused and specific, rather than following the broader market trends, I tend to see what my clients are steadily looking for over time. Across the board, they are always searching for beautifully crafted pieces with a singular, unique character. For me, rarity and exceptional craftsmanship are the true foundation of a quality piece, especially when it’s made with materials intended to last a lifetime.

In our collection, I always prioritize substantial, high-karat gold—unless, of course, the pieces are meant to be lightweight and delicate for wearability. I also have a deep appreciation for hand-cut diamonds and natural gemstones. The only real exception is Georgian paste jewelry, which has a profoundly separate and valuable place in jewelry history... but we can save that story for another time.

Beyond the materials themselves, so much depends on the artistry. If a piece involves carving, for instance, we look for fine quality in the skill. Condition is also something we hold in very high regard. We love finding treasures that have been preserved with the care and respect they deserve. Finding pieces where history, condition, and artistry all align is a genuinely meticulous process. I always look for the ‘uncommon’ because the collectors who visit us aren’t just looking for jewelry; they are looking for a genuine, individual, and lasting connection to the past.

What are the hallmarks or construction details that help date a Victorian piece?

Reading a full set of British hallmarks is relatively straightforward. Pieces from the 19th century often consist of five stamps: the purity mark which indicates the gold karat or silver, the town mark, the duty mark (which was used until 1890), the date letter and the maker’s mark. The letter indicates the exact year. For example, the London assay office used the letter ‘E’ within a shield to signify the year 1880.

While hallmarks provide a clear record, we also look closely at construction details to define a piece’s era. Such details often reflect the cultural trends of that period, such as mid-Victorian Etruscan and Archaeological Revival pieces from the 1860s and 1870s. Inspired by ancient excavations, the most skillful jewelers of the period mastered incredibly intricate techniques like granulation—the application of tiny gold spheres to a surface—as well as delicate rope-work and pierced openwork. Authentic examples from this period naturally possess a rich gold patina—unless, of course, they have been tragically cleaned or polished! The rich patina in gold is earned through decades of history and cannot be manufactured overnight; it is this soft, lived-in glow that truly confirms a piece’s long journey through generations.

Any additional clues you look for to determine provenance?

Other tell-tale signs of age include how gemstones are set. Until the early 19th century, stones traditionally had closed-back settings, often with foil underneath to enhance their color and shimmer. As the Victorian era progressed, a desire to showcase the natural brilliance of the stones led to the development of open-back settings. This was also a great practical upgrade, as open backs meant the jewelry wouldn’t be permanently ruined if it accidentally got wet. The classic technique of setting diamonds in silver over a gold gallery is also a key indicator of age, which you can see in our blue enamel Love Token locket.

The evolution of hardware, specifically the style of brooch clasps, offers another reliable reference. For instance, the simple, handmade ‘C’ clasp with a tube or block hinge was the standard pretty much up until 1900. Then, around the late 19th and early 20th centuries, transitional ‘locking’ C-clasps began to emerge alongside trombone, barrel, and lever mechanisms, before eventually giving way to the modern roll-over safety catch utilized today.

While the checklist of details I look for is quite extensive, these are a few of the most dependable clues I use to pinpoint the age and ensure the authenticity of a Victorian treasure.

Each year, TEFAF takes over the Park Avenue Armory, drawing blue-chip art galleries from around the world and becoming a stage for art-world theatre. Elaborate floral displays line the walls and globes of yellow, green, and purple flowers are suspended from the Armory’s dark cavernous ceiling. Inside the booths, you come across works from art heavyweights, such as Joan Miró, Willem De Kooning, Alexander Calder, and Yayoi Kusama. Visitors in need of a reprieve can sip on champagne at an oyster bar or nosh on a Bemelmans-esque trio of snacks while overlooking a grid of stark white-walled booths. A crowd of Upper East Side women in their 70s wearing Gucci loafers brush past aspiring Gen Z TikTok influencers. A young woman asked me to take a video of her posing on the balcony because her “makeup matched the flower display.” (I reluctantly obliged.) Serious art collectors are welcomed warmly by gallerists and hold hushed conversations at the tables or in private corners of their booths.

But amidst the rows of coveted artworks, there are a handful of jewelry exhibitors. Most you can spot by the jewelry on display, of course, but more noticeably the security closely eyeing you. These booths tend to be quieter. A 6’5” security guard doesn’t scream “come on in.” Once I mustered the confidence to walk into Hemmerle, I found myself whispering as if in a library as I stepped in close to the displays. Among the collection was a trio of pieces set with deep green emeralds, and a pair of one-of-a-kind earrings featuring crimson-hued tourmalines embedded in a marbled, cloud-like patterning of mineral discs, each one enclosed in patinated copper.

At Ana Khouri’s booth, minimalist glass displays feature pieces by the designer, whose forms and unexpected materials come closest to sculpture. An amorphous-shaped necklace in 18k brown, white, and yellow gold with rock crystal and diamond is even more beautiful in person. Khouri also introduced a necklace and earrings with delicate tulips, composed of rock crystal and diamonds—the first time she has incorporated flower motifs into her work.

On the opposite end of the jewelry spectrum was Didier Ltd, the London-based dealers who specialize in 19th- and 20th-century jewelry by leading designers, architects, and artists. Unlike the other exhibitors, Didier’s booth packed its vitrines with photos of celebrated artists and the jewelry they created.

Each drawer revealed an artist’s oeuvre—only in miniature: There was Salvador Dalí’s gold and diamond leaf necklace, a simple brooch by Keith Haring of his signature figure on all fours, an array of brutalist-like pieces by Louise Nevelson, Harry Bertoia’s silver feathered-wing earrings, and Michelle Oka Doner’s silver Frond necklace, and more.

The owners took out additional pieces to show a collector, who said he once stayed at the artist’s studio. I did several loops around the intimate, yet lively space — no security guards keeping careful watch, no one seeming to notice how long I lingered on each piece.

When I started this newsletter, I feared jewelry might be too limiting — not because there isn’t enough to say on the subject, but because there’s so much to say about design more broadly. The bulk of my freelance work is in architecture and interiors, and quite a bit of non-jewelry material crosses my desk that I’m tempted to write about. As my husband likes to remind me, “you make up the rules here.” So alas, this is my discursive way of announcing a tangent — one that might just become a series here on DesignTeeth — to share a few discoveries, thoughts, obsessions, whatnot.

First up: Iris van Herpen. This morning I got dressed up earlier than usual to attend the Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses press preview at the Brooklyn Museum. I am not a regular on the museum exhibition press circuit, but this one I was eager to see. The comprehensive show features 140 haute couture pieces alongside the materials and ideas — scientific artifacts and artistic collaborations — that drive Van Herpen’s work and process. We see how the underwater world, the cosmos, and nature in its many forms become literally and conceptually part of the fabric of her creations. Wearability is not really the point, though in some instances — the “Red Mother Dress” and the “Genesis Dress,” for example — the silhouettes are far more attuned to a woman’s body, and certainly more imaginative than what most designers are doing today. She pushes the limits of technology (I doubt Dior and Lanvin use 3D printing very often, if at all), yet fundamentally her approach is closely aligned with traditional couture in its precision and craftsmanship.

The exhibition snakes through several rooms: intimate spaces lined with gowns inspired by the ocean’s depths open into a larger room dedicated to process and her atelier, where mannequins in white flowing garments recall Cyd Charisse in Singin’ in the Rain; a cabinet of curiosities holds dresses in miniature alongside specimens and otherworldly objects; a hall pairs gowns with works from the museum’s permanent collection; and the whole thing concludes in a room transformed into the Cosmos.

Below, I’m sharing a few favorite looks, along with some insights from Van Herpen, who guided us — dressed in her own creation — through the exhibition at the press preview.

For Architectural Digest, I put together a guide to shopping vintage for your mom. With Mother’s Day just around the corner, I assume most people have already figured out their gifts, but if you’re a last-minute shopper, perhaps it will inspire you to take a quick trip to Housing Works or your local flea market to see what you can unearth — or, at the very least, consider going vintage next year. While the guide includes everything from 19th-century American quilts to Italian midcentury glass, there’s also a section on Victorian lockets. I spoke to Ju Kim, founder of Laelius Antiques, who shares her expert insights on assessing quality and provenance in Victorian lockets. Here’s an excerpt:

Stay tuned for a longer conversation with Kim about her path into antique jewelry and the business she built around her passion for it.

Speaking of lockets and mothers … my mother gave me this sweet Victorian crescent-and-star locket while I was expecting my son three years ago, from Thea Grant. In the 19th century, the crescent motif became a popular symbol of female empowerment, femininity, and the cycles of life — all of which are intrinsically linked to motherhood. Inside the locket is a photo of Colum, and now that he’s older, he loves opening it and asking me who the baby is. It is, indeed, meant to be worn close to the heart.

Last Sunday, we took our son to see the dinosaur exhibits at the American Museum of Natural History. After chasing him around Tyrannosaurus rex and Stegosaurus bones, we eventually ended up in the Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals. Our visit to the hall was all too brief because our son needed a nap, but it is on my list to return to. Fortunately, it has a pretty snazzy interactive website with plenty of information and gem-world glitz.

When I started DesignTeeth, I was pretty green when it came to the world of jewelry — particularly the journalists and historians who write about it. Had I been paying closer attention, I might have talked myself out of the project. (I’ve always been shy about writing on subjects where I’m not an expert.) But the more immersed I’ve become in all things jewelry, the more I’ve gotten to know — and appreciate — a few Substacks that do a thoughtful job covering the topic.

Top of my list is jewelry historian and writer Beth Dawson’s Precious Things. Her posts are both elucidating and accessible. I particularly enjoy her vertical on notable female jewelers and her series “Jewelry I’d Buy at Auction Right Now,” which feels like the ideal cheat sheet for the best work at auction.

Rob Bate’s The Jewelry Wire is a no-nonsense newsletter focused on the jewelry business. As his tagline says: “The news you need in one quick read. Full of good stuff, not fluff.” As you’d expect, he keeps you in the loop on the latest developments and breaking news in jewelry, from the diamond market to the ups and downs of mall jewelry retailers.

I’ve been thinking a lot about clouds recently—in no small part because I just subscribed to artist and crossing guard Christine Tyler Hill’s The Cloud Report. While the monthly printed newsletter offers a meteorological account of clouds, it is really a space dedicated to wonder and observation. I received my first edition serendipitously on my birthday: a bite-sized reminder of the value of slowing down and taking a moment to notice what’s around you—the beauty found in the overlooked crevices of everyday life. As Hill closes out in her welcome note, “I hope The Cloud Report brings you joy and helps you look for the good parts.”

Speaking of the good parts, I’ve been singing one of my favorite (non-lullaby) songs to my son at bedtime: Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” from her Clouds album. In the song, the clouds serve as a bittersweet metaphor for life’s dualities: “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now / From up and down and still somehow / It’s cloud illusions I recall / I really don’t know clouds at all.”

But clouds aren’t just fodder for artists and songwriters; jewelry designers have also depicted them for centuries. Somewhere between the monthly cloud reports and lullabies, I came across two beautiful pieces: a French Art Deco lapis lazuli, diamond, and jade topiary brooch (1925) from FD Gallery, and Sophie Gardner’s hand-carved aquamarine cloud with a diamond and South Sea pearl drop.

The New York Times ran a thoughtful obituary on art jeweler Thomas Gentille, whose boundary-defying work straddled the line between sculpture and jewelry. I first learned of Gentille—who died last month at the age of 89—when I worked at Modern Magazine. At the time, Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum in Munich was presenting a comprehensive exhibition of his work, bringing together more than 180 pieces that traced the full arc of his practice.

Here’s an excerpt from the article that ran in Modern, by Bella Neyman, who described his work so eloquently:

A recent post on Rosanne Pugliese’s Instagram caught my attention: the Cave of the Crystals—also known as the Giant Crystal Cave—connected to the Naica Mine, nearly 1,000 feet below the desert in Naica, Chihuahua. The crystals have been forming for over half a million years, the largest reaching more than 39 feet and weighing an estimated 55 tons.

This discovery led me next to the incredible Pulpí Geode—one of the largest geodes to date—located in Spain. Different from the Giant Crystal Cave, a geode is an ordinary looking hollow, rounded rock on the outside but that is lined with crystals or mineral matter on the inside.

Speaking of geology, Rosie Li’s latest collection, Jewel Block, draws from an eclectic mix of sources: 20th-century pressed-glass architectural tiles, train signal lights, and—yes—crystalline formations.

Li’s collection brought to mind architect and designer Ashley Hicks’s 2024 exhibition Manhattan Stones at R & Company, which interpreted gemstone forms into bold sculptural lighting and furniture.

Late-night Instagram scrolling rarely pays off, but a longtime obsession with lapis led me to a pair of circular studs rimmed with pavé diamonds. They had the satisfying proportions of a Barbara Hepworth sculpture and the deep azure of Yves Klein’s monochrome paintings. I soon learned the designer behind the striking earrings is Matthew Harris of MATEO, a 2017 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalist whose pieces have been worn by celebrities—Rihanna, Zendaya, Michelle Obama, to name a few.

The Jamaican-born designer got his start in New York City in the mid-aughts, launching a men’s collection before expanding into women’s several years later. In a career spanning two decades, Harris’s sleek, sculptural pieces have become a touchstone for design that is as wearable as it is statement-making. Today, he splits his time between Houston, Jamaica, and Lisbon, and is bringing his aesthetic to architecture and interiors—a move that might seem like a hard right, but one he insists always circles back to jewelry.

How did you make your way to New York City and to jewelry design?

I came to the U.S. from Jamaica around 16 after finishing high school. My first degree is in hotel management, and my mom sent me to Orlando for my internship because you needed credits for university. After that I moved to New York and modeled part-time. I never really liked it, but I gave it one last shot after college and ended up in the Jewelry District asking questions.

My mom has a running joke in the family that you should always have good jewelry because if something goes wrong, you can take it to the pawn shop and get money for it. So I grew up around good jewelry—a cross around the neck or a tennis bracelet—and I wanted to make it for myself. When I started, everybody was making skulls, and I refused to wear them. I come from a religious family, so I set out to make jewelry I would actually want to wear.

I happened to meet a Russian guy on 47th Street who said, “Come, sit on a bench. Let me teach you how to make jewelry.” He lit up a torch, and that’s how I started. YouTube became my friend. I watched a lot of videos and learned because I’m self-taught. The first time I studied jewelry formally was last year at the Van Cleef & Arpels school in Paris, where I studied gouache.

How did you go from learning the trade on 47th Street to designing a men’s collection?

I went to Home Depot and bought a man’s toolbox. That’s how the All That Works collection started, which is still one of our best-sellers. We literally took tools and made jewelry out of them. I didn’t plan to reinvent the wheel.

Soon after we launched the collection, Mel Ottenberg, Rihanna’s creative director, pulled some pieces from What Goes Around Comes Around in SoHo. That’s how things started organically. I didn’t set out to start a brand. I was just making jewelry for myself.

I love the idea that Rihanna’s creative director is shopping at What Goes Around Comes Around. How did you end up selling there—a place that is mostly vintage?

I knew Seth Weisser, the owner, and the manager at the time, John Hall, said, “Give us the jewelry. We’ll put it in a vitrine. If something sells, we pay you.”

I took the B/D train down to Lafayette and walked to the store with the jewelry. A week later there was a headline on a website called Just Jared: “Rihanna wears Matteo signature zipper necklace.” That’s how it started.

From there you pivoted and started a women’s collection?

Yes. I did men’s jewelry from 2009 to 2015. I thought we had done as much as we could with the men’s line. I have five sisters and they were always borrowing the jewelry or asking for a women’s collection. My mom kept asking the same thing.

The truth is a man will buy a bracelet here or there. Now the market is growing and you can scale it up, but before it wasn’t so.

I launched the women’s collection, called La Barre, in 2016, at Colette in Paris, TSUM in Moscow, and Bergdorf Goodman. It was a simple bar of gold turned into sculptural forms, and people gravitated toward it. Women’s jewelry has since become the bread and butter of the business.

What draws you to designing jewelry for women?

I love making women’s jewelry. I can sit on a train, see how a woman moves and walks, and know what piece would work on her.

I understand women because I’m close to my mom and surrounded by strong women. When I’m in Jamaica my bag always has jewelry in it. I ask my mom to try things on. She’s 71. If it’s too heavy, I know it’s not right.

What inspires your collections?

Inspiration always comes from modern art. I collect it, live it, breathe it. My first collection was inspired by Alexander Calder. We still have mobile earrings in the Kinetic Objects collection. I also love artists like Wassily Kandinsky. If you look closely, you’ll see soft interpretations of his work in gold, diamonds, and pearls.

I also pull from Jamaica—not in a literal way. We use blue topaz, green amethyst, and turquoise. You see the Caribbean Sea and the rivers in those colors. We use a lot of yellow gold, like the warm sunshine of Jamaica.

My culture is very much in the work, just not in a typical Bob Marley way. I actually don’t wear color at all—I’m always in black. But my mom loves color. We have emerald rooms in the house and chiffon-yellow rooms. I grew up surrounded by color, and that’s why my work expresses it in a toned-down, elegant way.

Architecture also plays a role. I love architects like Norman Foster, Le Corbusier, and the brutalists from Brazil. I try to bring those ideas into the work in a subtle, wearable way. I never want to make jewelry that a woman can’t wear all the time. It’s too expensive to sit in a jewelry box.

It’s interesting how many people save their jewelry instead of wearing it every day.

I grew up with a mother who only wore jewelry at Christmas time. It’s insane to me. I wanted to change that.

The ethos of the brand is simple, affordable jewelry you wear all the time. I probably have seven pieces on at a time and I never take them off. They become part of you.

You mentioned stepping back from production recently. What led to that decision?

I’ve taken a step back from the wholesale business with what happened with the Saks group. It took a nasty hit on the business because we weren’t paid by Bergdorf. This is the second time, so when I saw it happening again, I stopped wholesale in the U.S.

The only store we kept is Twist. I love the owners, Lauren and Paul. They’re fantastic people and they see the human side behind the business and love craftsmanship.

So we scaled back. Our website does very well, and I’m living lightly this year and spending time in different places. I was in Brazil recently because I’m building a villa in Jamaica.

Are you designing new collections?

Yes. We just launched two new men’s collections. One is a fun play on the screw—we call it the Screw You collection—and the Knight collection. Our men’s business has grown tremendously, so we had to expand the offerings.

We also launched the La Baguette collection, which is unisex with baguette diamonds set in platinum. This is my first time working in platinum, and we’ll continue to expand it. We already shot it on a male model because we want to see men play a little more with sparkle. A little diamond doesn’t hurt anybody. It’s a collection I personally would wear.

We’re still making jewelry, just at a slower pace. The world has so much noise, so we’re trying to take our time after everything that happened.

I’m particularly drawn to the Donut collection. What was the impetus behind it?

I’ll give you a funny story. We made that collection in 2017 and barely sold a piece. It was originally part of a collection called Elements, inspired by shapes from the periodic table. You could buy a donut, a pavé diamond circle, a pavé triangle—different “elements.” When something did sell, it was usually the donuts.

So we redid the collection and focused only on the donuts. Today it’s one of our most successful collections.

Maybe it was ahead of its time.

We also reduced the size and the price point. I think our sweet spot in jewelry is about $350 to $1,500. A customer can shop at that price point without thinking too much or feeling guilty afterward.

She’s still getting fine jewelry—gold, natural diamonds, and gemstones that are often hand-cut. I think that’s why the collection works.

Can you tell me about the size of your business?

You’ll be shocked. The team is very small. It’s me, my nephew Kahlil—who joined last September and handles e-commerce—and one person who handles marketing.

All the newsletters come from one person and the website is handled in-house. It looks like a massive ship, but it’s really just four of us.

Are you based in Houston while production is in New York?

Production is in New York, on 46th Street now. I’ve been working together with Wilson, the owner of Tabatha Nicholle & Gabriella Inc. for 13 years. Some things are done in Hong Kong—more commercial pieces like the huggies.

I also work with Myron Toback in New York. They’re a jewelry findings company that’s been around for at least 50 years. They handle chains, earring backs, and other components.

Do you still create prototypes yourself?

I sketch. I have a million sketches everywhere. I send them with precise dimensions. They send me batches of stones, I select what I need, and then everything goes into production.

I’ve been doing this a long time, and the team is very intact. My nephew Kahlil is even sketching now. I hope to pass the business on eventually.

Quality control is essential. I’m not physically in New York anymore, so I rely on people there to check everything. My name is on the jewelry, and I don’t want someone to buy something that falls apart.

We also offer a lifetime warranty on the metal. If something goes wrong, customers send it back and we fix it. If you spend more than $150 on jewelry, you should have it for a long time.

Tell me about the villa you’re building in Jamaica.

My first degree is in hotel management, so in a way I’m returning to that. I bought land in Jamaica six years ago and finally decided it was time to build. It’s more like a villa people can rent. Everything will be inspired by jewelry. It will feel like the home of Matteo.

I can’t share too much yet because the project is promised to a magazine.

I’ve been doing more interior design and have worked on projects for private clients. I was on the cover of Elle Decor two years ago, and the Texas house I live in was also featured in Vogue. Real estate is the next step.

When will the villa in Jamaica open?

Hopefully 2027, maybe early 2028. It’s essentially three homes on one acre on Half Moon Hotel and Cinnamon Hill Golf Course in Montego Bay. It’s a historic piece of land and quite special.

Many jewelry designers seem deeply interested in architecture. Is there a connection?

Absolutely. I need to be in a beautiful space to create beautiful jewelry. I want to look at art and be surrounded by beautiful objects.

A chandelier in a room is like an earring. A necklace also has to be architecturally sound so it sits correctly on the neck. Architecture and jewelry go hand in hand.

Nowadays, collaborations—whether in fashion or design—can sometimes read as thinly veiled marketing ploys designed to drive sales, with little concern for a potential brand mismatch. But when done thoughtfully, and with the right collaborators, the result can feel exactly what it is: a true artistic endeavor. Such is the case with the recent partnership between The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Jess Hannah Révész, the Los Angeles–based designer behind the jewelry studio J.Hannah.

In a follow-up to her first capsule collection for the museum—based on etchings found on ancient scarabs at the Temple of Hatshepsut—Révész has turned to Renaissance and Baroque European portraiture for her latest designs. Highlights include the Diptych Ring, featuring carnelian and sapphire, and the Quatrefoil Ring with a diamond at its center, both referencing Gothic and Renaissance architectural motifs.

I’ll be the first to admit that when it comes to the Oscars—or really any red carpet event—I pay little attention to the jewelry. It usually plays second fiddle to the dress. Unless you’re at the ceremony in person, it’s nearly impossible to get a clear glimpse of what adorns the necks and ears of nominees. From afar, the jewels often blur into a jumble of sparkly, blinding diamonds. Glitz is the point; otherwise, how else would anyone see a necklace from the audience—or, in my case, on TV from the comfort of my Brooklyn apartment?

However, one standout calls for praise: Rose Byrne’s cognac diamond and chocolate enamel choker from Taffin by James De Givenchy. Its subtle, sinuous—yes, serpent-like—form wrapped around her neck with a reserved elegance that few pieces manage to achieve at these events. It’s the same kind of restraint Sharon Stone showed when she wore a crisp white button-down with just one piece of jewelry: a diamond bracelet. An argument, if there ever was one, for less-is-more on the red carpet.

The New York Times reported this weekend that the mystery of Lily Collins’s missing ring has been solved. Swiped years ago, it ended up in the hands of second-generation Chicago jeweler Joe Hakimian, who learned from a stranger that the bezel-set rose-cut diamond ring he had recently purchased at a trade show—and posted on his website—belonged to the Emily in Paris star. Thanks to the diligence of internet sleuths, and above all the integrity of Mr. Hakimian, the ring has now been safely returned. Perhaps the Louvre would be so lucky if its lost jewels ever found their way to this Windy City shop.

As a relative newbie to covering the jewelry design world, I didn’t quite realize—though it makes perfect sense—that the GEM Awards, presented by Jewelers of America, are a thing. And this thing took place just this past week. Essentially, the Academy Awards of jewelry. The very talented Ana Khouri, known for her sculptural pieces using unorthodox materials, received the High Jewelry Excellence award. Maybe I’ll make the guest list next year …

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Part of jewelry’s appeal is that it isn’t as susceptible to the caprices of taste as, say, fashion. That’s not to say trends don’t come and go, but when done well, a designer’s work can retain its relevance decades later. There’s a timelessness to it—which is exactly how I’d describe the work of designer Rosanne Pugliese.

Since launching her eponymous line more than 25 years ago, Pugliese has been known for her pared-down, modern designs. Thanks in part to her time at Calvin Klein in the 1990s, she understands how to make minimalism interesting—and even luxurious. Whether necklaces or earrings, her pieces often center on gemstones that, through cut and color, create a sense of depth within their simplicity.

Pugliese met me at a café—wearing some of her covetable designs—to discuss how she got her start, the materials that continue to inspire her, and what she’s working on now.

Can you tell me how you got started in jewelry design?

I went to FIT and worked in the fashion industry for about 15 years. My last job was at Calvin Klein, which is very topical right now with the show Love Story. I was there for about five years, and it was an incredible time to be at the company. But when I started having kids, I knew I wanted to be closer to home. I ended up taking a soldering course at FIT, and I fell in love with the handwork of it—the labor of making things. The kids were little then, and slowly I worked my way toward having a studio/workshop outside of home.

At first I had a small setup and a handful of customers. Then I began selling at Barney’s in 2001 or 2002, which was really the moment it started to feel real. At the time Barney’s was very supportive of artisans and took the time to nurture small designers.

How did the studio evolve from there?

I hired a woman named Toyo Kurokawa, who is from Japan, and she worked with me for 20 years. She recently left to spend more time with her new baby, but her style and her hand influenced much of what I did. Over the years I’ve also worked with freelancers and outside contractors, depending on the project.

Do you still make much of the jewelry yourself?

For many years I made most of the pieces alongside Toyo. At a certain point I stepped away from the bench to focus more on running the business, but I really missed it. I realized the direction wasn’t as strong when I wasn’t personally making the first prototype—playing with forms, experimenting, and going through the trial and error of it all. So now I’m back at the bench again.

What are some of your influences?

At the foundation is simply a love of beautiful things. The materials themselves often provide the inspiration. We work with very high-karat gold, which is like butter to handle. Even when we melt down the scraps, the color is incredible. I also love the process of selecting gemstones.

What is that process like?

Dealers are always coming into town, and many ideas begin with the gems themselves. I’ll try to push things creatively, but I often end up reining it in and focusing on the simplicity of the stone—the beauty of its color, shape, or form—rather than reinventing the wheel every time.

How often do you introduce new designs versus producing signature pieces?

I’m always looking at historical jewelry—Byzantium and ancient Greece are constant sources of inspiration. We have a core group of classics that evolve slowly over time, and then I’d say about twenty percent of the collection consists of new experiments. It’s not so risky because gemstones and certain materials can be reused. I like playing with classic forms, which tend to be delicate, smaller, and a little more accessible.

Are the larger, bolder pieces part of those experiments?

It waxes and wanes depending on what’s going on in my life and what I find when searching for gems—whether I’m feeling more conservative or more experimental.

Which designs have become favorites with your customers?

There are a couple of gold and gemstone earring styles that are really centered on form that I can’t believe are still so popular. They date back to around 2001 and people are still buying them today, although the price has gone up quite a bit with the rising cost of gold.

The price of gold has become a challenge for many jewelry designers.

Yes, absolutely. Like everyone, I’m trying to introduce new materials—using some platinum or even silver—but approaching them in a fresh way.

I was thinking about the rise of smaller jewelry studios in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with designers like Ted Muehling. For so long it was just large houses like Tiffany or David Yurman. Do you feel that generation helped pave the way?

That’s an interesting question. Ted Muehling was certainly an early inspiration. You’re right that there weren’t many independent designers back then. There was Gabriella Kiss and a few others who are still around today. I think many of us inspire one another, which pushes the work forward and keeps me honest without repeating what I’ve already done.

Are there any new pieces you’re particularly excited about?

The jeweler who works with me now is an expert at making beautiful bezel settings. I’ve long been known for using prongs, so it’s been fun to explore that. I’m working with larger, bold gemstones set in 22k gold bezels—something reminiscent of ancient Greek jewelry—but done in a very modern way, without a lot of detail. Just a simple cut of the stone and letting the silhouette tell the story.

Do you have favorite gemstones?

I’m always drawn to Tourmaline. There are a million color variations in the gemstone and I can’t resist them. This season, there is a soft, natural blue topaz from Brazil that I’ve used that are almost like big chunks of candy. I also love using Rutilated Quartz, Moonstones, and Aquamarine.

Your son recently got married and one is about to, right? Did you design jewelry for their brides?

My daughter-in-law is very stylish and loves fashion, so we had fun putting together her bridal jewelry suite. And for my future daughter-in-law, we designed her engagement ring—a beautiful periwinkle-blue sapphire with a very simple setting.

Anything fun coming up this summer?

I just signed up for a class at Haystack Mountain School in Deer Isle, Maine. It’s a two-week bespoke shoe design course on campus, which I’m really excited about. It will be fun to try something completely different.

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The heart may be the most ubiquitous symbol of love today, but for centuries—if not millennia—it was the snake that people wore around their necks, wrists, and fingers to signify eternal love and fidelity. Partial to serpent jewelry myself, I decided to dive into its history and share a few favorite pieces from museum collections, notable antique and estate shops, and contemporary designers.

The Story Behind the Serpent

While the snake may conjure more menacing images—most famously, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden—it has also held powerful symbolism rooted in both history and mythology. In ancient Egypt, the serpent was associated with royalty and divine power: the goddess Wadjet, protector of Lower Egypt, was depicted as a cobra and worn by pharaohs as a symbol of sovereignty.

In Greek mythology, the snake came to embody protection, healing, femininity, and wisdom. It coils around Aphrodite’s arms and legs in ancient artworks; Hygieia, the goddess of health, is frequently shown offering a serpent a drink from her hand; and her father, Asclepius, the god of medicine, carries a staff entwined with a snake—an icon that remains synonymous with medicine today.

The Victorian Revival of Snake Jewelry

During the 19th century, archaeological digs in Pompeii and Rome unearthed ancient Roman jewelry, spurring renewed interest in snake motifs. Prince Albert proposed to Queen Victoria—known for her fondness for serpent jewelry—with a coiled snake ring set with an emerald, her birthstone, at its head.

Royals weren’t the only ones exchanging snake rings: the motif quickly became popular among both men and women as a symbol of devotion and enduring love.

Snake Jewelry Today

For those, like me, who have had their eye on serpent motifs, there’s no shortage of covetable vintage and contemporary options. One that has long topped my list comes from Gray & Davis in the West Village. While the shop often carries a selection of beautiful vintage snake rings, the owners also design their own Victorian-inspired gold bands shaped as coiled serpents—what I especially love about this piece is how decidedly modern it feels, even as it draws on historic influences.

I also wouldn’t mind snagging a pair of these playful diamond snake studs by Lori Leven, founder of the Soho store Love Adorned. Who needs hearts when you can sport these fun, wriggling snakes on your ears?

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I first became acquainted with Erie Basin, Russell Whitmore’s wunderkammer-like antique jewelry shop, nearly two decades ago while writing a guide to Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood. I remember stepping inside and feeling as though I’d wandered into a curios-filled shop on the Maine coast—or into a 17th-century Dutch interior painting. Since then, I’ve purchased a few pieces, including a Victorian crescent brooch (sadly lost) and a 1930s standing vanity mirror that now rests atop my dresser. So, when it came time to pick our wedding bands five years ago, my husband and I naturally found ourselves at Erie Basin. I fell for a circa-1930 Art Deco band with single-cut and baguette diamonds; my husband gravitated toward a Dutch, 19th-century gold band.

Eclecticism has always been one of the hallmarks of Whitmore’s collection. His choices reflect a sense of humor and whimsy, an enduring interest in material culture, and an eye for the unusual. In 2014, he brought this very sensibility to his own in-house fine jewelry line, EB Modern, centered on antique gemstones he discovers. These days, much of Whitmore’s business happens online, with a number of customers ordering from the Midwest and West Coast. (The shop is open primarily by appointment.)

A week ago, I stopped by his store on a snowy afternoon to talk about how he got into antique and estate jewelry, the rising cost of gold, shifting generational tastes—and a radioactive necklace for sale.

When did you open the store?

That would make this year 20 years—20 years in the fall of 2006.

Happy almost anniversary. Can you remind me how you got started?

So I always liked antiques. I grew up around them, and my parents took me to antique shows and antique shops as a kid, and then in college, I did a little antiquing for fun, and sold some things. I went to school in Ohio, which is famed antiquing territory, and then we moved to New York. I worked at The Future Perfect for a while, and got the idea that it would be interesting to try to run an antique store.

And so I started buying things on eBay at first, and built a small collection, and then this space came up for rent when I was living in Red Hook, and I thought I would try it. I didn’t really have much when I opened. I also started with some new things, too.

I remember in the beginning it was more of a mix of art objects, furniture, and jewelry?

Yeah, I had more furniture in the beginning—thinking I would sell half furniture—but over time, the jewelry became more interesting to me. With furniture, you see the same things all the time, and it’s just a pain to move.

And what about jewelry was most interesting to you?

You know, there are a lot of novel things that you find. You rarely find the exact same thing twice, especially in older and prewar jewelry, where there was just so much creativity. Even things that were mass manufactured or mass manufactured on a very small scale, you still don’t very often see the same thing twice. And practically, it’s just portable and easy to store, and much less expensive to get repaired too. Restoring furniture is very expensive, like reupholstering chairs, and even the most expensive jewelry repair is less than that.

I started getting into selling wedding bands and engagement rings, and that was kind of nice because it’s something very significant and symbolic. People’s purchase of furniture and artwork is more practical. It’s fun to deal with things that people find significant, and participate in that moment.

How did you learn? As you went along?

When I started, I really didn’t know much about jewelry. I was buying costume jewelry, and I got books, and then some older antique dealers helped me figure it out too. I was able to spot things over time, handling them, reading quite a bit, and learning. I think the best way to learn about antique jewelry is to handle it, figure out what’s old and what’s not. Almost everything that’s really old—from the 19th century—has been modified in one way or another for the most part. There’s a certain amount of forensics, and I’ve had a couple of good jewelers who have helped me decipher pieces, learn what to look for and what to avoid.

Can you give an example of what to avoid?

Before laser soldering, heat-sensitive jewelry was often repaired with lead solder. A lot of old jewelry has lead solder in them. It’s not necessarily a deal breaker, but if additional repairs are needed, the lead becomes a problem because it is very brittle and can create porosity in the surrounding metal over time. I try to avoid jewelry with lead repairs.

And how can you tell?

By looking. It looks black and gray. Sometimes it’s subtle, on the inside. It can be difficult to notice. Sometimes it was plated over, so you might not see it right away depending on the piece.

And then over time, you started to design jewelry. When did that happen?

It started because I was doing a lot of restoration work, and occasionally something wouldn’t be salvageable. I had a nice Art Deco ring with a marquise diamond that had repairs on top of repairs. My jeweler said it didn’t make sense to repair it and suggested making it new. I didn’t want to reproduce it, so I took the stone and made something modern. That was the first ring that we continued to make, probably in 2013.

Did you continue making them, experimenting with other styles?

Yes. I had other antique stones that I thought about making mountings for. I design starting with a stone. Sometimes I don’t know right away what I’m going to do with it, but eventually I work up a design. Some pieces have stayed in the repertoire, like the marquise ring and emerald-cut one. Others are one-offs.

Which is the most popular?

This [marquise] ring has probably sold the most. We’ve probably made about 100 of those. We also make simpler solitaires with round diamonds. We do some custom work too. Sometimes people bring a family stone, and we either repeat an existing design or work through a new idea.

Do you have a favorite design?

I don’t really have a favorite generally speaking. My current favorite is a cup-shaped bezel with a completely round wire shank that tapers in size. It’s simple and very comfortable to wear.

And you also do earrings and necklaces?

Yes. The rings tend to be minimal. Necklaces and earrings are better canvases for experimentation.

Why do necklaces allow more experimentation?

They are larger pieces, and I’m amusing myself. Rings just have to practically fit.

This necklace here—can you talk about it?

This is uranium glass. I bought stones from a customer whose uncle was a gem collector. He wasn’t professional but attended many trade shows. This is glass tinted with uranium. It fluoresces because of the uranium and is radioactive.

Is it safe to wear?

Yes. I checked the radiation. You wouldn’t wear it constantly, but it’s safe.

Are there certain styles or historical periods you find yourself drawn to?

I’ve always liked bugs and birds, and they often appear in Victorian jewelry. But then, things have changed recently with the price of gold. So that’s been a limitation. What is always most exciting is just finding something completely novel, such as this signet ring. It has an intaglio of an oak tree wrapped in ivy, which is unusual symbolism to see. And then inside it has an inscription that says, “Father Died Dec. 19, 1891.” It was probably worn by a man, which is unusual in itself. The Victorian culture around mourning jewelry was that it was mostly women who outwardly displayed grief. And so this was interesting because a man wore it to remember his father. But it’s very different from the typical Victorian mourning jewelry because of its subtlety and stoicism—it really captures Victorian and male grief.

You mentioned the price of gold. How has the uptick changed what you look for?

When I opened, the price of gold was $375 an ounce. Now it’s today, it’s $5,300 an ounce. So the little gold rings that I used to sell for $50 are maybe $1,000 now. That really limits the accessibility.

In 2006 and 2007, when gold was very low, collecting antique jewelry was not necessarily expensive. Now it’s a much smaller audience that’s buying. A gold chain can have $7,000 worth of metal in it now.

How have tastes changed?

When I started out, there was always an audience for yellow gold, but most people still preferred white metals. Around 2010, it switched to almost all yellow gold, and it has remained that way, except in the last couple of years. My younger customers don’t want yellow gold.

When you look at history, certain metals definitely come in and out of style. In the 1910s through the 1930s, yellow gold was pretty much the style, right? And then in the 1940s, during the war, the government limited the use of platinum in jewelry because it had some use for the military. And so it became the style to wear other metals that were white because you wanted to appear patriotic.

That’s so interesting.

Then in the 1940s, yellow and rose gold became very fashionable, and in the 1970s and 80s, yellow gold was really popular, and then fell out of favor until the early 2000s.

Does your wife ever help guide your choices?

She’s not in the business, but she likes it. When I started out, she helped a lot actually, because I wasn’t always so sure if my taste translated to what a woman would be interested in. Also, when I started buying I didn’t realize that some of the earrings were way too heavy to actually wear. And there are a fair share of earrings in the world that were probably designed by men.

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Few objects are more personal than jewelry. We wear it close to our bodies and, in some cases, rarely take it off. It can be ritualistic, nostalgic, or simply pretty to look at. (Take the gold-and-diamond necklace I inherited from my grandmother: it isn’t real, but I wear it religiously, as if it were a crown jewel.)

Whether a beloved keepsake or a meaningful gift, jewelry almost always carries a story. DesignTeeth is a space for telling those stories. Here, I will be exploring the craft, history, and unexpected edges of jewelry design.

My interests—and tastes—run the gamut. I have a special place in my heart for Art Deco, a firm belief that you can never go wrong with an Elsa Peretti Bone Cuff, and an abiding curiosity about what contemporary designers are making in their studios today. And every so often, I’ll wander off on a non-jewelry tangent. Lately, I have quite a bit to say about toddler fashion, as a mother of a three-year-old.

While I’ve written a lot about big design—furniture, rooms, buildings—jewelry was my first love. I’m not an expert so much as an enthusiast—someone endlessly curious about what people choose to wear, and why. Jewelry seems to always invite a closer look.

To kick this off, I thought I’d share a few of my own pieces—not necessarily my fanciest, but steeped in personal history.

I bought these earrings at a thrift store in Providence for about $15 when I was in college. For nearly 20 years, I’ve rung in almost every New Year wearing them—glitzy, plastic-mirrored things that call to mind Audrey Hepburn’s amazing Paco Rabanne look in Two for the Road. A fitting way, I think, to celebrate—or brace for—the year ahead.

A few years ago, my mother asked if I wanted to borrow a ring she rarely wore: a thick gold band set with a diagonal stripe of baguette sapphires and diamonds—maybe circa the 1980s. At the time, it wasn’t really my style, but I kept it. Fast-forward to late pregnancy, when my wedding band no longer fit but I still wanted something on my ring finger. I began wearing my mother’s ring instead.

The morning I went into labor, I slipped it on before calling an Uber to the hospital. I remember looking down at it as I labored, finding comfort in its weight and familiarity. I remember it on my hand as I held my newborn for the first time.

My wedding band is back on my finger now (more on that ring in a future post), but I still wear this one almost daily. I suppose now it has become my style.

Lastly, a shout-out to my husband, who has been relentlessly encouraging me to launch this project (I highly recommend his edifying Substack, Mensweird—no bias here). Thank you as well to my very mini focus group—Jax, Jenn, and Emily—for your feedback, and to the very talented Oscar Saylor for my brand identity and logo. Given Oscar’s admiration for Massimo and Lella Vignelli, the influential graphic and industrial designer duo, it feels only right to close with a sculptural necklace by Lella Vignelli for San Lorenzo, circa 1972/75.

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Thank you for reading. More to come soon … In the meantime, you can find me on Instagram at @design_teeth or @nicgates (for mostly kid and flower content).

sign Teeth.

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