Monthly Archives: January 2015

Downton Abbey is one of the most popular shows on television, and its authentic costumes and jewelry are part of its charm.

When Caroline McCall, costume designer for the show, wanted jewelry for seasons three and four, she turned to Andrew Prince, a designer with an encyclopedic knowledge of jewelry history and impeccable credentials. Prince created tiaras and jewelry for the 2005 British comedy, Mrs. Henderson Presents (starring Dame Judi Dench); jewelry for the 2009 film, The Young Victoria (starring Emily Blunt and Miranda Richardson); and is a successful designer of his own collection of period pieces.

Working for a show like Downton Abbey is a considerable achievement, and Prince shared his thoughts with GIA about the experience: “It was an absolute thrill to work with Caroline McCall and to be associated with such a hugely successful series. It’s wonderful to see my jewelry being worn by this amazing cast, and adding a little more sparkle to the sumptuous costumes and surroundings of Downton Abbey.”

Prince brought an art historian’s eye to his jewelry. Even the stones were fashioned to mirror the cutting styles of the Edwardian and Art Deco eras. Unlike most costume jewelry used on movie and television sets, Prince’s was made of bronze, brass, sterling silver, palladium, Swarovski crystals, cubic zirconia, and synthetic gemstones.

McCall selected items from Prince’s collection, and asked him to create appropriate pieces of jewelry for Lady Violet Crawley (played by Dame Maggie Smith), Lady Cora Crawley (Elizabeth McGovern), Lady Mary Crawley (Michelle Dockery), and several of the other actresses. The jewelry Lady Violet Crawley wears in the photo on the left says much about her personality.

Prince shared his thoughts on the cast photo. He explained that Lady Violet wore the most splendid, formal gems with an air of complete nonchalance, while the beautiful younger ladies had fun with more modern styles. By season four, Lady Edith Crawley (Laura Carmichael) has become much more fashion conscious and daring, while her wild young cousin, Lady Rose MacClare, (Lily James) has embraced all the latest styles of the Jazz Age.

Another character whose jewelry is telling is Lady Cora, who married into British aristocracy. Prince noted that, as an American heiress, Lady Cora would have had the money and access to the greatest designers of the age. These individuals could be very demanding, insisting on the latest designs and the highest quality. He added that there was no British reserve to hold them back.

The show has since moved through time, from the Belle Époque period (1871 – 1914) to the Art Deco era (1920s – 1930s). Lady Rose is a spirited and rebellious young woman who epitomizes the fashionable flapper of the 1920s. Her personality is revealed by a glittering bandeau. Prince shared some final thoughts on the artistic periods that are so much a part of Downton Abbey: “I particularly love the Belle Époque – such refinement and delicacy. Design mattered more than the monetary value of the stones and precious metals used. The beauty of jewelry from that age lay in its construction. It was all so different and opulent.”

Now that you know something about the creation and selection of jewelry for the characters of Downton Abbey, you might enjoy another aspect of the show. And you may find that you have a deeper understanding and appreciation of period jewelry

{Special thanks to the GIA for this article}

A unique, personal jeweler who works nationwide, Keith Saxe is GIA and FIT trained and has been a trusted high end diamond jewelry specialist for 26 years. He is the founder and president​ of NYC Wholesale Diamonds located at 47 West 47th Street Suite 3A in the New York City Diamond District. His website is www.NYCWD.com and he authors a blog www.NYCDiamondBlog.com. ​Keith has a full service store located across the street from his private office,​ and ​a San Diego factory showroom. He offers GIA Certified Ideal Cut Diamonds,​ and state of the art fine jewelry designs at low wholesale prices. Keith has been named the N.Y. Diamond District’s Favorite Jeweler by the N.Y. Post’s Savvy Shopper column, had his diamond education articles published, been recommended in the New York Times, CNN reporter Robyn Spizman’s ‘Perfect Present Guide’ and ‘The GIFTionary’, as well as having his Diamond Halo Engagement Ring design featured on ‘The Knot’

Enjoy my article that was featured in The San Diego County News back in June 2013

June 5, 2013 By sdcnews

Just click this link to view the entire estate…   http://eepurl.com/bbCiPP

Enjoy this preview of wonderful new jewelry design trends for 2015 just released from our trade publication National Jeweler

New York–It’s an exciting time for fashion in fine jewelry.

Many groundbreaking trends launched on the red carpet last year and plenty of them, though not all, found a foothold at retail, sometimes in modified forms. Look for layering and wrapping, color and texture, and mixing and matching in the new year.

“We have not seen such an abundance of fashion trends in this industry for 15 years,” says Helena Krodel of Luxe Intelligence. “Fashion jewelry is starting to influence fine jewelry and it’s amazing to see how many trends have trickled up and down. The line between fashion and fine is sort of hazy now.”

Here’s a look at the trends that found traction last year, and where they’re heading in 2015.

1) Ear climbers. “Ears, in general, are going to continue to be important,” said Amanda Tropila of the Platinum Guild International (PGI-USA). “I think you’re going to see designers expand on ear climbers in particular.”

Unusual earrings took off last year after several celebrities walked the red carpet in lobe-hugging pearls (Rashida Jones) and diamonds (Lupita Nyong’o, Sandra Bullock). Expect more modified versions of the radical looks they wore.

“Ear climbers are doing fabulously, with so many different styles available,” said Amanda Gizzi, Jewelers of America’s director of public relations and special events. “But the trick is they have to fit the ear. Every woman’s ear is shaped differently and larger cuffs don’t fit every ear.”

It’s one of those fun styles everyone covets but often ends up disappointing. The key to user-friendly ear climbers seems to be keeping them small and focusing on in-store purchases, a point jewelers could make to those debating between buying them online and in store. “You definitely have to try them on,” Gizzi said.

2) Double-sided earrings. Demand also is strong for double-sided earrings, typified by the Dior pearls worn by Portia de Rossi at last year’s Academy Awards.

Mismatched and layered earrings also will continue to gain popularity, Krodel predicted. Look for more earrings with a component on the post, visible beneath the lobe, or studs with a corresponding earring.

“It lends versatility to have an earring that can be worn more than one way or earrings that don’t exactly match,” Krodel said.

3) Two-part rings. Some of the jewelry spotted on celebrities last year didn’t do well at retail, Gizzi said.

Midi-rings (rings designed to be worn at the top of the finger, between the knuckle and fingernail), for example, proved subject to falling off and hand jewelry failed to get a solid foothold at higher price points. But radical looks like these influenced pieces being produced now, such as two-part rings attached with chains or a “V” on the bottom, resembling stacked individual rings.

4) Seventies styles. Look for jewelry to complement the 1970s styles in apparel this year.

“Fringe and fauna and flora lends itself to that style of clothing, especially in earrings and necklaces–tassel earrings, long necklaces,” Krodel said.

5) Eighties styles. Madonna-style layering and bangles are finding their way into fine as well as fashion jewelry, and so are the bolder, geometric looks of her heyday.

“We’re also seeing the converse of that fringe style–very abstract jewelry, modular and modern looking, like a grid bracelet that has lines that go either north-south or east-west, and anything with cutouts,” said Krodel. “Think Space Age with not a lot of detail: linear lines, geometric, very clean.”

This look is showing up big and small, she said. Look for smaller versions to dominate fine jewelry.

6) Longer necklaces and bold chokers. The delicate layered chains and tiny pendants of last year are morphing in two directions this year.

“We’re seeing longer chains, especially in gold, and multiple pendants on one chain, more substantial pendants but nothing too big,” Gizzi said. “Look for the Y trend to resurface too, with a new emphasis on layering.”

Even as longer layers take off, another ‘70s throwback is surfacing, closer to the throat.

“We’re seeing more chokers lately, some metal-intensive, a lot of vintage styles,” Tropila said. “We’re still seeing long necklaces and pendants, cool charms, delicate layers, but chokers seem to be up-and-coming.”

7) Layering and mixing. Perhaps the most important thing to note with fashion-forward jewelry is the way it’s being styled.

“People are not wearing jewelry the way they wore it before,” Krodel said. “They are layering it on, personalizing it. They are making it their own–styling fashion with fine, mixing an heirloom piece with an [inexpensive] ring that they bought at Forever 21–and it’s OK.”

Krodel thinks the selfie craze has a lot to do with this trend. “Mixing and layering styles is so fun,” she said. “It just looks good and it ties into the whole world of Instagram, showing off what you’re doing in your life and how you’re wearing something.”

Personalization and layering is where it’s at, Gizzi agreed. “Layering is a great trend at retail,” she says. “It allows people to easily add pieces, pair things with existing pieces.”

8) Wrapped and coiled looks. Snakes will figure strongly in jewelry design this year, both literally and figuratively, especially in rings and bracelets.

“That wrapped style, things climbing up the finger and the arms, metal wrapping around the stone, all that is definitely going to play a part for 2015,” Gizzi said.

Stacking has led, in part, to single pieces that have the appearance of multiples, which can be a costly look to pull off. “Coiled and wrapped rings and bracelets allow people to get that layered look with one piece,” she said.

The rock above, found in Russia’s Udachnaya diamond mine, is a geological rarity. The golf-ball sized chunk of rock comes from deep within the Earth, and has more than 30,000 tiny diamonds nestled inside of it.

Diamonds have the distinction of being the hardest natural substance on the planet, and they’re also some pretty popular baubles: In 2013, the global demand for diamond jewelry reached a record high of $79 billion. And even though the United States doesn’t produce many diamonds (Russia produces the most by volume, and Botswana produced the most by value we’re responsible for buying more than 40 percent of them.

Humans mine diamonds from close to the surface, but the gems actually form about 100 miles down in the planet’s mantle. The heat and pressure forces diamond crystals to grow out of carbon. Every once in a while (though not during recorded history — the most recent one was probably about 20 million years ago), a very violent volcanic eruption would push these gems up inside bursts of magma. In the upper crust of the planet, this magma would cool into rock — and that’s the rock we tap into to get our sparkly jewelry.

But the diamonds don’t usually stay in their original settings. The rock of the mantle is (unsurprisingly) traumatized by its journey upwards, so finding a chunk of mantle rock full of diamonds (as opposed to diamonds that are seated in the cooled magma of those ancient explosions) isn’t very common.

That’s just what you’re looking at in the photo above: A tiny chunk of rock that survived a very long journey to the surface.

Why do we care? Because this rock comes from the source, the scientists studying it hope it can teach them new things about diamond formation. They’ve already found that the diamonds, while tiny, are perfectly formed — and are unusually well spread out through the rock.

“It is a wonder why this rock has more than 30,000 perfect teeny tiny octahedral diamonds — all 10 to 700 microns in size and none larger,” Larry Taylor, a professor at the University of Knoxville who’s studying the rock, said in a statement. “Diamonds never nucleate so homogeneously as this. Normally, they do so in only a few selective places and grow larger. It’s like they didn’t have time to coalesce into larger crystals.”

This fascinating piece comes from today’s Washington Post…hope you enjoyed it!

A unique, personal jeweler who works nationwide, Keith Saxe is GIA and FIT trained and has been a trusted high end diamond jewelry specialist for 26 years. He is the founder and president ​ of NYC Wholesale Diamonds located at 47 West 47th Street Suite 3A in the New York City Diamond District. His website is www.NYCWholesaleDiamonds.com and he authors a blog www.NYCDiamondBlog.com. ​Keith has a full service store located across the street from his private office,​ and ​a San Diego factory showroom. He offers GIA Certified Ideal Cut Diamonds,​ and state of the art fine jewelry designs at low wholesale prices. Keith has been named the N.Y. Diamond District’s Favorite Jeweler by the N.Y. Post’s Savvy Shopper column, had his diamond education articles published, been recommended in the New York Times, CNN reporter Robyn Spizman’s ‘Perfect Present Guide’ and ‘The GIFTionary’, as well as having his Diamond Halo Engagement Ring design featured on ‘The Knot’ http://www.theknot.com/weddings/album/a-preppy-upstate-wedding-in-aurora-ny-144122