Signature Pieces of Jewelry Alive and Well

A few years back I mentioned a specific type of very wearable jewelry, something that I have been designing and creating for my clients with sophisticated tastes for more than a half a century. Yes, it’s true I’ve been doing my thing and making a living from it for a very long time. A signature piece of jewelry is almost always a “custom made” creation and can be a one-of-a-kind piece. It can be a “WOW” piece or a very subtle but classy piece that one enjoys whenever one wears it.

Those seeking this personal style of jewelry - other than the massed produced versions - requires some one-on-one face time with me so I can understand to some extent what the customer likes and dislikes. Is it going to be a ring, a pendant or a bracelet or something else? I made scores of custom money clips, tie bars and cufflinks for gentlemen over the decades; since moving to Southwest Florida in 1994 my requests for custom made gold cufflinks is next to nonexistent due to the fact of who in the world wears long sleeve shirts that reside here in the tropics?

People’s taste in jewelry is all over the map, literally …jewelry that is popular in Los Angeles or New York, even Miami, would languish in my showcases here on Marco for seasons on end, if they even sell at all! 

So then what makes signature jewelry so special?

It’s a fact most of the jewelry buying population will walk into a big box or mall jewelry store see something that appeals to them, try it on, purchase it and off they go. Only moments later the salesperson replaces the empty jewelry display with an identical piece they just sold; it’s a good selling piece to the masses and it’s called identical backup. An excellent example would be the phenomenon known as the Pandora bracelet. It seemed to me at one point every woman including their brother owned one…something I refused to carry in my shop even with numerous requests. Today most jewelers and folks consider them a passé fashion statement. I’ll stick with the unusual and unique, it’s worked for me so far.

Most of my signature pieces are created for that one special individual and I never make another one without the original owner’s consent. I have destroyed many a mold or a prototype model to prove that point. I once had a woman who had seen a signature piece I created for her friend and asked me to make one just like it. I refused and she stood there dumbfounded. I explained it’s not something I would do again, besides if her friend saw her own personal signature piece on another woman, especially her close friend, I would probably catch some forthcoming wrath…I’ll pass. I offered to come up with something different for her and three weeks later she had her own special ring to enjoy.

I have prided myself to not only create my own designs for my customers to fall in love with - it would be impossible for me to make every piece of jewelry on display in my showcases – but my “backup” is unusual jewelry I discover when traveling abroad. I still travel to many European countries in search of unusual gold or silver jewelry to bring back to my shop. You could call it cherry picking because I don’t get duplicates of what I find. In many cases I won’t ever find another one a year later in the same country! That way I don’t always have to make every single signature piece that leaves my shop.

Some signature pieces are inexpensive, some are not, especially if diamonds or precious gems are involved. All custom created jewelry takes time and is labor intensive, all created by a skilled goldsmith where each piece is lovingly created by hand, sometimes using the same techniques the way jewelry was created centuries ago.

Today we have jewelry that can be created almost entirely by a computer. It’s called cad cam rendering and is huge in the industry - some massed produced pieces are hardly touched by human hands.

I personally feel that some pieces created that way have no soul. I admit I use 3-D cad cam design renderings in many cases to show the customer exactly what the finished piece will look like in a full color picture, complete with diamonds or gemstones. That way I can clear up any misgivings or uncertainties before the piece is completed.

My signature piece process involves several trips to my shop so the customer can see “the work in progress” alterations or any changes to the original agreed design can be completed before the finalization of finished piece. In other words there is no place for “Gee, I didn’t expect it to look like that!” jewelry surprises.

In closing, my signature pieces are extremely well designed for wear ability. Also when worn it makes the owner not only look good, but also feel good wearing it and are recognized by it, especially when it becomes your everyday wearable piece.