Plus Foundrae pendants arrive on Melrose Place and Spinelli Kilcollin’s first boutique joins Melrose Hill’s mix
Words by CAROLINE CAGNEY, KERSTIN CZARRA, DAVID NASH, and ELIZABETH VARNELL
Express Yourself With Foundrae Baubles
Beth Hutchens’ modern heirlooms are making a West Coast debut on Melrose Place. Wooden crescents hold FOUNDRAE’s solid gold chains in varying lengths, while pendants and medallions drawn from symbols across cultures and eras — favored by Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, and Gwyneth Paltrow — sit in beguiling vitrines. Also inside is a workshop with a bench jeweler and hand engraver to personalize designs that become a second skin. For Hutchens, the new neighborhood feels like a community. She created a new symbol for the opening that she calls “a cherub for the city of angels,” which is only available here. “I’m looking forward to spending more time in L.A. It will add richness and depth to my life,” she says. 8405 Melrose Pl., L.A., 323-424-4304; foundrae.com. E.V.
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David and Sybil Yurman’s Mind Meld
Artists Sybil and David Yurman led parallel lives. They traveled in similar Greenwich Village, Haight-Ashbury, Venice Beach, and Big Sur circles; knew some of the same people; and posted notes on the board outside Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights bookstore in San Francisco. But they had never met. Once they did, in 1969, the couple developed an artistic language and launched a jewelry line in New York, sparking a lifelong partnership cataloged in a new volume, SYBIL AND DAVID YURMAN: ARTISTS AND JEWELERS (Phaidon, $69.95). Their creative journey, stoked by Sybil’s painting and ceramics and David’s sculpture, yielded signature bauble designs alongside stark images shot by Peter Lindbergh. Sketches, behind-the-scenes shots, and archival photographs including the couple’s son, Evan — who is now at the forefront of the line’s continued evolution — are all gathered in the new volume. phaidon.com. E.V.
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Lugano’s Custom Cuts
On the eve of its 20th anniversary, Newport Beach–based LUGANO is honing gemstones into the innovative one-of-a-kind rings, bracelets, earrings, and necklaces that have launched the jewelry house into the vanguard of fine and high jewelry design over the past two decades. House founders Moti and Idit Ferder established their California workshop to create modern pieces that often incorporate intriguing cuts, such as champagne diamond hearts, emerald-shaped solitaires, and half-moon baguettes. These are set in gold or innovative materials including tech-based carbonium, colored ceramics, prestige rubber, and sports car–grade titanium, plus ebony and other woods. The resulting pieces are thoroughly modern, jettisoning rigidity. Admirers of Moti’s boundary-pushing cuts and looping, twisting, and often unexpectedly light designs include Warhol muse Jane Holzer, equestrian and philanthropist Georgina Bloomberg, and BET cofounder Sheila Johnson. 545 Newport Center Dr., Fashion Island, Newport Beach, 949-625-7722; luganodiamonds.com. E.V.
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JB Blunk’s Ring Redux
American sculptor JB Blunk worked on a large scale with natural materials, but he also created pieces of jewelry that were often gifts for friends and family. For the first time, the JB BLUNK ESTATE is issuing reproductions of four rings in collaboration with Los Angeles jewelry designer Jess Hannah Révész, founder of J. Hannah. Produced in limited editions of 50, each piece has a deep connection to Blunk and has been reimagined in sterling silver or 18-karat gold, including Presence, which is based on a sculptural jade ring designed for his wife, Christine, in 1980. The other three rings, Continuum, Muse, and Crown (designed for his daughter and the estate’s director Mariah Nielson), share similar origin stories. All of them are certain to be conversation starters. jbblunk.com. D.N.
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Spinelli Kilcollin’s Melrose Hill Perch
SPINELLI KILCOLLIN, the L.A. house that has reworked the codes of high jewelry with modern shapes and iconic mixed-material linked rings, has opened the doors to its first L.A. boutique. The art-gallery-store hybrid, whose sleek lines echo the brand’s fluidity, features multimedia pieces by contemporary talents like Olivia Erlanger and Morgan Canavan, while showcasing its core collections of Galaxy rings, yellow gold chain necklaces and bracelets, and a divinely original selection of wedding rings. Choose from ready-made pieces (like the platinum and white diamond Thalia stack ring), or if you fancy flexing your design skills, rings can be customized using conflict-free diamonds, which can be positioned individually or in layered compositions. 747 N. Western Ave., L.A.; spinellikilcollin.com. C.C.
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Wishes Granted by Graff
Throughout history, jewelry has paid a fitting tribute to life’s biggest celebrations, perhaps most notably engagements and weddings. Primed for such a fête is the new I Wish showcase from GRAFF. Bold and brilliant precious stones serve as the focal point of each treasure. A bangle made with white diamonds and Pigeon-blood cushion cut rubies — a symbol of love, commitment, and passion — communicates modern femininity. A pear-shaped emerald necklace, earring, and bracelet suite offers the dreamiest punctuation to a bare neckline. For brides looking to make a jaw-dropping statement with their ode to the tradition of “something blue,” there’s a cuff made with baguette-cut diamonds complemented by a sensationally commanding sapphire. graff.com. C.C.
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Faberge and Gemfields Join Forces
Fiery red rubies responsibly mined in Mozambique and set in rose gold amplified by white and brown diamonds, pink sapphires, amethysts, pearls, and intricate guilloche enamel form a feather-like pattern of wings accenting a new oval-shaped FABERGÉ x GEMFIELDS collaboration. The newly completed Malaika egg — Swahili for “angel” — holds an additional unearthed treasure: a five-carat Mozambican ruby inside the filigreed sphere. The project nods to the jewelry house’s penchant for hidden treasure and Gemfields’ support of Mozambique community projects through its nonprofit Gemfields Foundation, which is slated to receive $100,000 from the egg’s sale. The English design perches on a pearl ring that turns to unfurl wings covering the removable ruby — a stone that is ready to be reset as a bespoke bauble. gemfields.com. E.V.
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Van Cleef & Arpels’ Early Standouts
VAN CLEEF & ARPELS’ intricate, imaginative jewels have graced the ears, necks, and wrists of Hollywood actors, socialites, and style icons for nearly a century. For the first time, the venerable French jewelry maker lets us peek behind the curtain for a study of the pieces from the first half of the 20th century. The Van Cleef & Arpels Collection (1906–1953) (Atelier EXB, $238) reveals nearly 700 jewels, precious objects, and watchmaking pieces and the stories behind them. “We hope to show that jewelry is not an isolated art,” says president and CEO Nicolas Bos. “It is in constant interaction with other disciplines, which inspire it and which it influences in return. As such, it forms part of the great history of the arts.” Available at MoMA Design Store and Amazon. K.C.
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CAST’s Latest Flip Ring
Beauty entrepreneur Nyakio Grieco is the latest to collaborate with San Francisco fine jewelry line CAST, joining a roster of creatives — including artist Windy Chien and actor Eva Mendes — who have dreamed up new designs for the company since its inception. Grieco’s Mombasa Flip ring, a mix of pink sapphires, white diamonds, and turquoise — all set in gold — is named after her favorite beach in coastal Kenya, the country where her parents were born. Like the rest of Cast’s line of transformable rings, the piece can be adapted to pair the stones with a given mood or look thanks to a rotating mechanism within the design itself. Whether discovered online or inside Cast’s candy-colored boutiques, a portion of the price of each Grieco-designed ring goes to L.A. nonprofit Art of Elysium. 1536 Redwood Hwy., Corte Madera, 415-802-9839; 660 Stanford Shopping Center, Palo Alto; 650-507-5599; castjewelry.com. E.V.
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Graff’s Fresh Facets
Diamonds inspire the angular new LAURENCE GRAFF Signature collection. The line’s first unisex offering, a tribute to the founder’s diamond-cutting legacy and the facets that have become its signature, includes a trove of pendants, earrings, rings, and a stackable new bracelet design based on the shape and geometry of the sparkling stones that launched the jeweler’s ongoing enterprise. Although the architectural pieces take cues from the angles and planes cut into compressed carbon, the line includes sleek yellow, white, or rose gold versions in addition to those adorned with pavé diamonds. 9570 Wilshire Blvd., Saks Fifth Avenue, Beverly Hills, 310-205-2400; 3333 Bristol St., South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, 714-398-8178; 237 Post St., S.F., 415-926-7000; graff.com. E.V.
Feature image: Limited edition rings from JB Blunk.
Portions of this story originally appeared in the Fall, Fashionable Living, and Winter 2024 issues of C Magazine.
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