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The authors of Jewelry Creators: Dynamic Duos and Generational Gems are a dynamic duo of their own. Beth Bernstein – a jewelry historian, author, journalist and former designer – says she and Sonia Esther Soltani, a longtime editor of Rapaport Magazine, had the idea for the book at the same time.
“We were both really interested in the human relationships behind the jewelry, because we felt that was very much the core of the jewelry industry and the backbone from way back when,” Bernstein says. “[At houses like] Bulgari, Buccellati, Van Cleef & Arpels and Cartier, everything went back generations, and we wanted to talk about more of the people we had worked with in the jewelry industry, the duos and the generational people. We just thought that was such an interesting topic to get behind.”
Together, they selected 22 diverse brands to interview, drawing on their vast collective knowledge from years of covering the jewelry industry. They divided the book into two parts, per the title: The “Dynamic Duos” section takes a closer look at the relationships and friendships that have brought the featured brands to life, while “Generational Gems” focuses on jewelers who are following in their families’ footsteps.
“We wanted to ask the more specific questions, like: What is your aesthetic? How did you meet? Who does what in the business?” Bernstein relates. “Then we wanted some more human questions: What are the mistakes, if any, that you made? What is a secret that nobody knows about you? What would generations before you find shocking now? [These questions] made it more interesting, and that’s where they can get a little bit looser and a little bit more heartfelt or funny.”
Among the brands in the “Dynamic Duos” portion are Auroro, the jewelry business that two high-school friends started in Los Angeles, and Coomi, where the eponymous designer and her son work together to bring her audacious jewels to the world. The book also tells the stories of the two sisters from Denmark who founded New York brand Lionheart, and the husband-and-wife team behind vintage-inspired Los Angeles jeweler Single Stone.
“We also wanted as many varied cases as possible,” says Soltani. “If it had been a book only about husbands and wives working together, only siblings, only fathers and daughters, maybe some of the stories would’ve kind of felt the same.” Besides that, she adds, “we needed different jewelry styles.”
The “Generational Gems” portion of the book, Bernstein notes, features not only jewelers carrying on the family business – such as Omi Privé’s Niveet Nagpal, and Martin and Mark Klein of Julius Klein Diamonds – but also those who have branched out on their own with what they’ve learned from previous generations. In that category are New York jeweler Jade Trau and UK-based designer Nadine Aysoy, both of whom come from a line of diamantaires.
For the authors, it was important to make the book appeal to non-industry readers as well. “There had never been a coffee table book focusing on work relationships in the jewelry industry – that went so much into the personalities and the back story of a brand, and at the same time was inspiring for people way outside the industry,” explains Soltani. Their aim wasn’t to write “an insider’s book; it was very much about sharing inspiring stories.”
Alongside those stories, the book showcases the brands’ work, with images of their signature pieces both on models and against solid white backgrounds to let the jewelry really shine.
Jewelry Creators: Dynamic Duos and Generational Gems, published by ACC Art Books, came out in the UK in May and the US in June.
Main image: Sonia Esther Soltani (left) and Beth Bernstein. (Ben Kelmer; Beth Bernstein)
