JEWELRY DESIGNER INTERVIEWS

David Yurman photo

David Yurman cable bracelets

David Yurman

David Yurman discusses how he got started in jewelry design and why jewelry matters

By Bernadette Morra

David Yurman is one of America's best-known and most-loved designers. FirstwaterNews.com sat down with Yurman at Holt Renfrew's Toronto flagship:

Which came first for you, jewellery or sculpture?

I made sculptural jewellery in high school. They were little Giacometti-like figures in direct-welded bronze. Then my father said 'If you continue to almost burn the house down, you'll have to go to the garage.' And I said 'Oh great, I can have the garage?' And he said 'You can have the garage, but you have to show me that you really can make something.' He knew a hand was very hard to render so he said, 'if you can sculpt a hand, I'll let you keep the oxycetaline torch and do welding. As long as you finish your school work and do your homework.' So I got a card from the school of the deaf and I learned sign language and I sculpted the alphabet. My father thought the pieces were amazing so he let me keep the torch and work in the garage. And I sold all the little hands in the school cafeteria for like 10-15 bucks apiece.

Do you look at jewellery as sculpture?

Jewellery is more complex than sculpture because it has to conform to the body and it has to have a contemporary sense of fashion, style, and consistency of a language. Then I have to repeat it, maybe 1,000 times, in four different workshops and make sure there's consistent cutting, setting and finishing. So no matter where it gets shipped, it looks the same even though it's handmade. It is a lot more involved than sculpture.

The relationship we have with our jewellery is very different from the relationship we have with our clothes. Why do you think that is?

There's an attraction. I don't particularly love digging around flea markets or antique shops, but when I do and I see something I like, it's like, 'Wow. I'd like to wear that, I'd like to hold that.' You feel connected to it. And if you have that unconscious connection to things of beauty and things that have history, it's meaningful. I have a bracelet I've been wearing since 1975. If I forget it, I will call my house and say 'you have to FedEx this to me. I can't believe I forgot this.'

Where did the initial idea for the cable bracelet come from?

This is not my invention. The Celts did it in 590-something. It was to show ownership before branding. A collar with a specific marking went on an ox so you knew that ox belonged to that guy.

Are all of your designs made in New York?

All designs, prototypes and engineering are done in our shop in Tribeca. Then we'll make it in China, India, Bangkok, Israel, France and Italy. Sometimes we make a piece in three countries and assemble it somewhere else. Because the hand setting in India for certain products is better than anywhere in the world, so India gets it. Basically it's designed in America, made in the world.

What's the David Yurman club?

About 10 years ago in Wichita, Kansas I went to do a show at a place called DJ The First Place. And he said 'We're going to have this luncheon, and the requirement of this luncheon to meet you is that one, you had to arrive and give the gentleman a piece of jewellery, and two you had to have owned at least five pieces. So the luncheon was for about 100 women and he said 'David, we turned away about 300.' In Wichita!

People who are into jewellery are different than people who are into fashion. They really don't care about clothes.

I'm on the board of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. They group jewellery in with accessories like handbags but really, we should be a separate category. But the Council think clothing is everything. In fact, for the women who love us, the jewellery is it and they think, 'what clothing will I wear with this piece?' It's the reverse. For them, clothing is the accessory.

What are your newest designs for women?

Moonlight Ice is a brand new collection. It's a combination of moon quartz which is a quartz material that appears to be like moonlight. It's like moonstone, except it's much more available, much more consistent. We cut it and then we back it with a specific kind of mother-of-pearl, from a specific kind of mollusk. Around this moonquartz stone is a field of diamonds set into black metal. We also do it with a ruby centre - bracelets, necklaces, rings - the works.

What else is new?

Big, bold bracelets, almost like Super Woman cuffs, in silver-gold mixes, some hinged, some not hinged. And then we did a whole group of very classic cable bracelets, but we did them without gold which took the price down 30%-almost 40%.

You sound very much like a businessman, but I know you're an artist.

I'm both. I'm really both. It's rare.