Summer is the easiest season to buy jewellery for, because the rules of the season are also the rules of the category — small, refined, sun-warm, slightly tanned skin showing it off. We have spent the last three months going deeper into the independent makers we follow on Instagram and visiting their stockists in person when we travel, and Summer 2017’s jewellery roundup is the first time we have a real list of names whose work has earned a permanent spot in the rotation. The big-house jewellery brands still set the tone of the conversation, but the small-batch designers — the ones who answer their own emails, who ship from a Brooklyn studio or a workshop in Copenhagen — are where the actual best value lies in 2017. Here are the six independent makers we have spent the year watching.
Sophie Buhai — the silver that anchors a wardrobe
The Los Angeles–based jeweller Sophie Buhai has spent the last two years quietly turning a former fashion-design partnership into one of the most thoughtful contemporary jewellery lines we know of. Her sterling silver pieces — the dripping-egg earrings, the heavy chains that have become a sort of New York Magazine signature — sit at the high end of the independent price range but read as small heirlooms rather than seasonal purchases. The aesthetic borrows from 1970s sculpture, modernist studio jewellery, and the very specific mood of a Joan Didion photograph. We bought a single chunky chain bracelet in May from her e-commerce site and have not taken it off. The piece sits on the wrist, weighty but not heavy, and reads as both modern and ancient. Sophie Buhai’s bracelet of the year is the one to put on the list.
Sophie Bille Brahe — Copenhagen pearls, made wearable
Danish designer Sophie Bille Brahe has built a small empire of pearl pieces that re-position pearls as something young and modern rather than inherited. Her Bille Brahe Studio earrings — single freshwater pearls hung from a thin gold thread — became one of the most photographed pieces on European fashion editor Instagrams through the spring, and by June her US distribution at Bergdorf and Net-a-Porter had stabilized into something you could actually order without a wait list. We bought a single pearl drop in the Italian-made gold setting and have worn it almost every day for two months. The pearl conversation in jewellery has been quietly returning for the last three years, and Bille Brahe has owned the modern reading of it.
Beck Jewelry — Brooklyn-made gold every day
Brooklyn-based Beck Jewelry, founded by Becky Kintzing, has become the source for the everyday gold pieces that sit on the wrist alongside an Apple Watch and a Sophie Buhai bracelet. Her thin solid-gold bangles, the linked chain bracelet that was on every editor’s wrist through 2017, the small initial discs — the line is exactly the kind of thing you forget you are wearing until you reach for the soap and feel the warmth of the gold on your wrist. Prices are accessible by independent-jewellery standards, which has made the line a frequent gift between editors. We bought a thin bangle and a small horseshoe charm necklace in May, and both pieces have moved into permanent everyday rotation.
Foundrae — the talismanic gold
The line that has reframed the medallion-and-charm conversation in fine jewellery is Foundrae, founded by Beth Bugdaycay in 2015. The brand’s medallion necklaces — heavy 18k gold pendants engraved with symbolic motifs, hung on chunky chains — have built one of the most distinctive visual languages in independent jewellery. Each medallion stands for a quality the wearer wants to carry: passion, courage, strength. The price point is genuine fine-jewellery — these are pieces in the four-figure range — but the design vocabulary has cascaded down into the rest of the independent jewellery world over 2016 and 2017. We are watching this brand carefully because it has become the rare independent that gets photographed as much as the established houses.
Anita Ko — diamonds that look like they belong on a t-shirt
Los Angeles fine jeweller Anita Ko has built a celebrity-favorite line that nonetheless reads as eminently wearable. The hexagon-cut diamond studs, the small ear cuffs, the thin horn earrings — the line photographs better in a bathroom mirror than on a red carpet. Anita’s pieces have shown up on Beyoncé, Rihanna, Kendall Jenner, but the design philosophy treats fine jewellery as something you wear with a tank top and jeans rather than a gown. The aesthetic has been increasingly influential through the decade. Pieces are stocked at Barneys (the New York jewellery floor remains the best in the country) and at Net-a-Porter, with a strong direct e-commerce site as the primary channel. We are saving for a single hexagon stud.
Jacquie Aiche — California gold and the boho fine-jewellery genre
The line that has carried the boho-luxe aesthetic into proper fine jewellery is Jacquie Aiche, the Los Angeles–based jeweller whose body chains, layered necklaces, and stack-able rings have built one of the most distinctive looks of the decade. Aiche’s pieces are 14k gold with raw-cut stones — diamonds, sapphires, opals — set into shapes that read more festival than gallery, but the price point and craftsmanship sit firmly in fine-jewellery territory. The rolling-stone Sophia Loren-meets-Coachella aesthetic that defined the mid-2010s owes a great deal to her. We are picking up a single thin chain in 14k that we will layer for the rest of summer.
Closing
The independent jewellery roundup for Summer 2017 has come together around a small set of principles — solid metals only, pieces small enough to layer, designs that read as deliberate rather than seasonal, and price points that reward saving for the real thing rather than buying multiple cheap versions. The six lines above will continue to be on our radar through the rest of 2017 and into 2018, and we will revisit each in winter when the holiday gift lists land in earnest. We will see you on the first Tuesday of July for the next monthly roundup.