In designing jewelry, I’ve always been passionate to blend my ideas with vintage and antiquarian style. When I first began, jewelry manufacturing was still an American industry. Every kind of production was available, from spot welding to chain making to injection molding. Warehouses were filled with inventories of vintage circa (1920s-1950s) metal components, beads and glass, mostly imported from European makers during and after WWII.
It was both challenging and joyful to acquire vintage materials and design around them to create pieces which melded together the fashions of yesterday and today. As the manufacture of almost everything went overseas, so did fashion jewelry. It became commoditized in a race to the bottom in quality. American makers folded. Inventories were closed out and I bought a hoard of vintage glass elements, enabling me to occupy a distinctive niche in jewelry design.
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