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JEWELRY DESIGNER INTERVIEWS

Alexis Bittar photo

Vermeil hands and amethyst drop earrings, $295 U.S., by Alexis Bittar

Alexis Bittar

Designer jewelry that is fine enough to mix with the real thing

It isn’t as easy to draw the line between fine jewelry and costume jewelry anymore.

“The excitement and exploration in the category of costume jewelry has been so new and fresh. And yet no one has come up with a good way to phrase it,” remarks New York-based jewelry designer Alexis Bittar.

Terms such as designer jewelry, fashion jewelry and luxury jewelry are being used to refer to this growing field, but don’t quite suffice.

Especially when you consider the work of an artist such as Bittar. One of his Lucite cuffs can take up to 6 hours to craft.

“This piece goes through seven different hands,” explains Bittar, cradling a cuff carved with leaves that have been handpainted in mellow earth tones and backed with gold leaf.

The piece retails for $470 at Holt Renfrew’s Toronto flagship, where Bittar has come to meet press and fans. One Hermes-clad customer has racked up a bill of $3,000 on Bittar’s Lucite earrings and cuffs in beachy hues of aqua and sand.

Part of the appeal is that the bulletproof Lucite has a luminosity that Bittar compares to turn-of-the-century Lalique.

No wonder fashion critic Cathy Horyn of the New York Times anointed Bittar as worth collecting.

Magazine stylists have gone wild over Bittar’s highly-polished metal cuffs inspired by Grace Jones and Brancusi sculptures and part of a grouping titled Miss Havisham.

New for spring ’09 are soft porcelain flowers held by vermeil hands. “They are from the Elements collection which is more bohemian and organic.”

Bittar’s appreciation for art and antiques came from his parents, retired computer science professors, who trotted him around to museums and opera from a young age.

He began selling vintage clothes while still in high school, then fell in with a bad crowd. As part of his recovery, Bittar began carving Lucite and street vending in Soho. A following quickly grew.

“I’d have people waiting for me to arrive, and I could make a few thousand dollars a day,” Bittar says.

His designs are now carried in more than 600 stores worldwide including Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus and The Museum of Modern Art. And such is the blurring between real and costume jewelry that some fine jewelry retailers and now carrying Bittar as well.

“Stores that in 25 years have never bought us are buying us for the first time,” Bittar notes. “They know their customer wants something that is not conservative or traditional that they can wear with their fine jewelry.”