I’ve known Eddie for a few loud dinners (with copious wine), a quick kiss and a catch up at a couple of over-populated events, a group lunch at Cipriani, some email exchanges, and a run-in at Ceci Cela. That all adds up to less than a year.
From the moment I met him, I wanted to write about him. I was taken by his thoughtfulness, his kind demeanor (he is nice and quiet and not vying for attention), his originality (he always sports a porkpie hat) and his talent – he makes edgy, yet elegant, affordable jewelry (it’s costume, but it looks real).
I was brainstorming about how I could make this article a little different from my other pieces and it hit me: have Giovanna interview him! She was the one who introduced us and she posed nearly naked for his add campaign… perfect!
On Thursday, Gio and I went up to Eddie’s whitewashed studio on Elizabeth Street. As soon as the two saw each other, hands were flying: open palms next to Gio’s ears indicated “massive, I mean really big” earrings, explosions off her wrist implied a crazy vintage bracelet Gio had seen in Paris, and self-strangulation denoted chokers – we love chokers!! I couldn’t help imagining if this scene had happened a hundred years ago, when Eddie’s chic space was a power plant filled with all kinds of menacing, mysterious machines. If someone was looking in the windows and saw the two of them, they would have run for their lives, assuming the plant was melting down…
When the initial excitement waned – I had to tell them we where there for business! Come on, guys! We sat down and I learned a few things I hadn’t known. In fact, I not only learned more about Eddie, but I ended up getting a valuable history lesson in costume jewelry… and Kanye West.
ME: So how did you guys meet?
EDDIE: At the Ritz, right? I was in Paris showing my jewelry and you came in for an appointment.
GIO: Yes! Exactly… like four years ago.
EB: And I remember you were wearing the most beautiful boots… They were brown, came up to your thigh and had buttons down the side??
GB: Maybe the Louboutins??
EB: You had just bought them and put them on in the car, or something.
GB: And then, not long after, I did your campaign. I arrived and Keegan [Singh – Eddie’s other half, who is a fierce fashion stylist] was dangling a piece of black elastic from his fingers and was like, “Here is your outfit…” I was like, “No!!!” and he seemed a bit surprised I was shocked, so I was like, okay, okay, “Can I please have a glass of wine?” It was ten in the morning!
EB: And we put her out on a balcony and it was freezing!
Gio wearing the elastic...
[We digress for a while, talking about the night before, at Chanel’s Tribeca Film Festival Artists Dinner, then: ]
GB: You know – Kanye knows who you are.
EB: Really?
GB: Yeah! When I was talking to him, there was a person between you, him and me, but suddenly he was like, “I know that guy. He designs cool jewelry, right?”
EB: Wow! Well, I was at Louis Boston [for a personal appearance] and suddenly the doors were all locked and in walks Kanye with all these cute boys, I guess they’re his dancers? I don’t know, anyway, they were shopping for like two hours and I wasn’t going to run up to him and be like, “What’s up, Kanye!” So, he comes up to me, told me he liked my jewelry and I was like, “I think we are friends with some of the same people… Giovanna… Vlad…” And he was liked, “I love those guys!!”
ME: Are you making men’s jewelry? He should wear your jewelry.
EB: Actually, I just launched a men’s collection. It’s simple… intimate. And it’s all in sterling, which is different from women’s. It’s really hard to make men’s jewelry, but people keep telling me I need to make really big men’s pieces, so we’re working on it…
ME: Wait, what is that book?!? [There is a large, silver-encased book with safe-like latch securing it.]
GB: It’s beautiful…
EB: I keep forgetting you guys have never been here before. This is the portfolio I submitted to the Vogue Fashion Fund.
GB & ME: [In unison] No way!!! [We grab for it… then let Eddie carefully open it for us.]
ME: How could you not win if this is what you hand in? [Eddie won, of course.]
How did you get started making jewelry, anyway?
EB: I came to New York, I was doing displays at Barneys and putting myself through school [Hunter College]. I made a collection of clothes – it was really, really bad – that was sold at Patricia Field and she and Rebecca Weinberg ended up putting some of it on the girls in Sex in the City.
I was doing displays [also for Donna Karen and Victoria’s Secret] and through Pat and Rebecca and being out in New York, met some other stylists [Patty Wilson, Karl Templer, Alex White, Camilla Nickerson] and, back then, everyone wanted unique pieces. It wasn’t commercial like now where you have a selection, they just needed the right piece for the shoot, so I started making jewelry for them. It was very “hand-made”: leather-based cuffs with studs, studded leather bib necklaces. It was all very rock n’ roll. Then magazines started looking for credits, and I was like, “I can do this!” and I went to Rhode Island and visited the jewelry factories and I started.
ME: Why Rhode Island?
EB: It’s one of the major jewelry manufacturing hubs. In the 1960s it was the capital of costume jewelry manufacturing… Dior, Cardin… all the big designers had their jewelry made there…
————
From here the conversation launched into a history of costume jewelry, how it is made: “Paste stones are made from the dust of the stone…” Eddie hypothesized that faux stones came about because the Great Depression preceded the silver screen (before that, they used the real thing), and because of the silver screen and its effect on the mainstream, costume jewelry became a commodity. Hollywood designers – like Joseph of Hollywood – would make copies of the real thing for the movies, “like Verdura, but even more amazing,” then real women wanted to wear the over-the-top pieces they saw in the movies. Eddie mentioned Diana Vreeland’s Hollywood Costume: Glamour, Glitter, Romance and Giovanna almost fainted. I guess it is an amazing book!
We talked about the other women who have done Eddie’s campaign – Kate Lanphear, Cecelia Dean… “We keep it really familial. They are friends, so it doesn’t really feel like a business thing…” Then Giovanna picked up a multi-studded pavé-encrusted cuff with a very large pyramid stud in the center, and said that she could wear it, but I couldn’t. “Because,” she said raising it up, “maybe you are going to kill with it!”
Eddie’s jewelry is definitely dangerous…
The Killer Cuff
A few more beautiful weapons...
