All posts tagged: FINE JEWELRY

A Luxurious Vibrant Jewelry Garden of Earthly Delights

Published by Pamela Thomas-Graham

In the rarified sphere of high jewelry, the highest possible level is bespoke pieces, custom-made for individual clients. Like haute couture, haute joaillerie items are made to order and crafted by hand, with intense collaboration and interaction between the jewelry designer and the client. The items are heirloom quality and — like royal jewels – each one has a story behind it. If you’re operating at this price point, you have the option of working with one of the storied European jewelry houses: Asprey, Bulgari, Harry Winston, Van Cleef & Arpel, Graff, Cartier, Chanel and Dior all offer haute joaillerie designs that are essentially custom-made. An alternative that many sophisticated clients turn to is working directly with an artist who is classically trained in one of these maisons, but now creating work on their own. The advantage of that approach is that you are intimately involved in every step of the process, and you’ll receive highly personalized attention from a skilled artisan. You’ll also be the owner of a piece that is truly one-of-a-kind, created …

See Luxury in a New Light with: Sharon Khazzam

Published by Pamela Thomas-Graham

The Dandelion Chandelier Luminary Café is the place to find a series of personal interviews with fascinating people who are stellar achievers in their chosen field of endeavor. Our Luminaries are sharing their origin stories, life philosophies, secret songs, guilty pleasures and hidden talents. It’s guaranteed to be illuminating.  Award winning jewelry designer Sharon Khazzam is a star in the world of haute joaillerie. She was the sole in-house jewelry designer for Asprey for eight years. With Asprey’s support, in 1993 Sharon launched her eponymous collection, which reflects her tastes as an artist and also her expertise with gemstones. You can find her one-of-a-kind collection of earrings, rings, bracelets and necklaces at Barneys New York, Isetan and Mitsukoshi in Tokyo, and Ylang 23 in Dallas. Or you can work directly with her to create a bespoke piece, choosing stones that speak to you, and seeing the design and the final product come to life in her studio.

Luxury Legends: Can Rodeo Drive Measure Up to the Hype?

Published by Pamela Thomas-Graham

Rodeo Drive. The very words make the heartbeat of any devoted luxury shopper of a certain age accelerate. Long before Net-a-Porter there was Rodeo Drive: a magical boulevard with a median strip lined with palm trees and flagship boutiques for every designer and fine jewelry brand worth knowing about. Birthplace of so many iconic movie scenes about shopping: Clueless, Pretty Woman, Sex and the City – The Movie. The stuff of dreams. Fast forward to today, when retail is “dead,” everyone shops online, and direct-to-consumer is the way to get rich quick if you’re a purveyor of luxury goods. Is Rodeo Drive still relevant? Is it still fun? Or has the party moved on?

Lost in the Maze of Selling Luxury Goods on Amazon

Published by Pamela Thomas-Graham

One of the most intriguing business dilemmas I’ve encountered recently is the conundrum of how luxury brands should think about their relationship with Amazon (and its subsidiaries Zappos and Shopbop). The “core” global luxury market – personal goods and services – is a $250 billion global business with an increasingly anemic growth rate. Amazon, on the other hand, continues to grow at strong double-digit rates. Surely this is a marriage made in heaven?