A brand new direct-to-consumer high quality jewellery model has entered the e-comm sector of our trade, and earlier than you go to sleep wherever you’re studying this, simply maintain on: Some crucial jewellery designers are concerned!
Solid, which launched earlier within the month, calls itself a female-focused “jewellery collective” centered on a steady of worldwide designers together with Alice Cicolini, Francesca Villa, and Kristy Ford, with others on the horizon.
Based by serial entrepreneur Rachel Skelly (previously VP of artistic for each Olly nutritional vitamins and Plum Organics child meals), with Eric Ryan (founding father of Olly, Methodology, and Unilever-owned Welly bandages) as investor, the model seeks to change into the go-to jeweler for a brand new technology of bijou collectors by way of the facility of storytelling and a contemporary provide of creations from the trade’s most provocative and covetable high quality jewellery artists.
For Skelly, the “wonderment” issue is lacking from the present high quality jewellery panorama, and with Solid she hopes to carry clients “that magical feeling of discovering the right piece and understanding it was at all times meant to be yours,” based on a press launch.
All of the collections are unique to the platform and developed in collaboration with Skelly, who has a lifelong love of storytelling, design, and artwork (and a gemologist grandfather). Her profession has been constructed on shaping manufacturers’ identities, from product growth to packaging design. Now she’ll be making use of these abilities in collaboration with creators who make wildly interesting, terribly stylish, and clever jewellery designed to inform a narrative.
“To be a part of the start of any person’s story is a very particular invitation,” Alice Cicolini, who joins the launch of Solid with two collections, tells JCK. “It was the primary time I used to be requested to create a tone of voice for one thing that isn’t my very own…to get into any person else’s head, however do it in a approach that also felt true to who I’m as a designer. It was a rare expertise.”
Actually the phrase forged is acquainted to JCK’s viewers of bijou professionals, however Skelly landed on it as a result of it speaks not solely to the craft of jewelry-making but additionally to the “forged of characters in our lives—those who we make so many fantastic recollections with” in addition to “the forged of sunshine that comes off lovely gems and jewels” and “the forged of vibrant power radiating off a person when they’re adorned in attractive jewellery.”
The aesthetics of the location, from brand to visuals, are lush and alluring and positively immerse you in an environment of heat and approachability.
And the launch collections have meaty, evocative themes that make you need to know extra.
Cicolini’s Mad Mod (pictured at prime) attracts on the designer’s trademark graphic patterns and vibrant colours. Insurgent Icon, with its tough-luxe, knife-edged chain hyperlinks, steers Cicolini in a metal-forward path—positively a contemporary take for her.
Insurgent Icon Standout Icon chain necklace in sterling silver and 14k gold, $2,250; Alice Cicolini for Solid
The centerpiece of Francesca Villa’s Italian Heist Getaway ring flips over to supply 4 completely different appears to be like in a single design.
Italian Heist Getaway four-way flip ring in sterling silver and 14k gold with malachite and 0.61 cts. t.w. diamonds (turquoise and lapis additionally included), $2,950; Francesca Villa for Solid
And Kristy Ford offers us quiet luxurious with Brazen Magnificence—easy interpretations of classics like huggies and curb hyperlink bracelets.
Brazen Magnificence Fluid mini hoop in 14k gold, $700; Kristy Ford for Solid
The aim proper now’s to introduce 4 to 6 new limited-edition collections to discover per yr; new assortment drops are deliberate for later this fall and for vacation purchasing.
