Having spent the past 20 years selling exquisite “jewels for the home” in some of the world’s most prestigious stores, including Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue in New York and Harrods in London, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Jay Strongwater has garnered a strong celebrity following that includes the likes of Elton John, Oprah Winfrey, Cate Blanchett and Halle Berry. But even he was amazed to discover that the late Elizabeth Taylor was a fan.
In the now-famous Christie’s auction, The Collection of Elizabeth Taylor, held in New York in 2011, 18 of the pieces put up for sale were created by Strongwater. “She had so many pieces,” says the dapper designer, when we meet in Abu Dhabi. “I had no idea. When we went to Christie’s and we saw all our pieces behind the glass, it was so exciting. I was able to buy back four picture frames. They cost me a lot of money.”
Strongwater is in the capital to launch his latest collection at the newly renovated Tanagra store in Marina Mall. Meticulously dressed, endlessly enthusiastic and every inch the American gentleman, he talks me through his latest inventions. There’s Safari, with its bold black, brown and white palette emblazoned across frames, minuscule boxes and stocky vases; and Bloomsbury, which celebrates the beauty of orchids with intricate floral motifs drifting across trays, perfume bottles, figurines and objets d’art. Then there are old favourites: oversized peacocks in a shimmering rainbow of jewel tones and tigers crafted from solid brass and finished in 18-carat gold, enamel and glittering crystals.
Lavish, intricate, colourful and richly embellished, these pieces could have been designed specifically for this market, I observe. “It’s wonderful to come to the Middle East, because the customer here has a real appreciation for the decorative arts – you don’t always find that,” Strongwater responds. “They also love the depth and the blend of colours. Tanagra really feels that our collection resonates with the Middle Eastern customer, who loves intricate decoration and larger pieces.”
Strongwater’s creations clearly reference the designer’s own somewhat unusual career trajectory. The New York-born designer was an artistically inclined child, and studied at the Rhode Island School of Design with the intention of going into fashion design. “And then one summer, I made a few simple necklaces for my mother, and a buyer saw them and liked them, and it led me to try to learn more about making jewellery.”
Strongwater spent the next 12 years designing jewellery that was stocked in stores such as Bloomingdale’s, Neiman Marcus and Saks. He describes those creations as “of the moment” – big, bold, fashionable costume jewellery “that you put on and you loved and you wore and maybe a few months later, you put it down for a while and you moved on”.
One year, Saks paired Strongwater’s jewellery with clothing by Oscar de la Renta in the windows of its Fifth Avenue store. Strongwater took pictures of the mannequins and sent them to the famed designer. “I was young and didn’t know any better,” he laughs. “But I was very fortunate and they invited me to come and meet them. So after that, I used to do a lot of work with Oscar de la Renta, creating jewellery for his runway collections. He was very inspiring to my career. Again, I loved the types of clothes he designed and the colours and the embroidery and the embellishment.”
Then, exactly 20 years ago, almost entirely by chance, Strongwater embarked on a whole new chapter in his design career. Using two pairs of earrings to create the corners of a rectangle, and then filling the space with a range of intricate, jewellery-inspired settings, Strongwater made his first picture frame. “It wasn’t planned; it was just a way to explore another creative process. And when it got to the time when I had to put a back onto the frame, I didn’t know how to do a back, so I just made it out of metal, which everybody loved because no matter which way you display it, it looks great.”
By applying his eye for jewellery design to larger home accessories, Strongwater carved a niche for himself – there was nothing else like it on the market at the time. “I always wanted to keep those jewellery techniques, because what we called the collection back in that first year, in 1995, was Jewels for the Home, so we carved our own little niche. When I meet our collectors, they often say that when they see a piece, they can feel that someone has painted it; they can feel the hand of the artisan behind it.”
Strongwater refers to his customers as collectors, and there is indeed a tendency for clients to keep coming back for more, graduating from tiny boxes to frames and then larger decorative items. With prices starting at about US$100 (Dh367), but averaging between $2,000 and $4,000, these pieces are something of an investment. Only 40 or 50 of each design is released each season, with some items produced in even smaller limited-edition quantities. To mark the brand’s 20th anniversary this year, Strongwater is creating five limited-edition pieces, with only 20 versions of each design.
Frames are still a stalwart of the Strongwater repertoire, but the collection has since expanded to include the figurines, boxes, charms, pins and a vanity collection of compacts, trays and mirrors. More recently, the brand has been experimenting with larger items, such as cushions, tables and lamps.
“We started to work on some pillows, taking drawings of our jungle animals and working with an embroidery house to include beautiful threads and crystals. I’d like to do more furniture if possible. We have a beautiful table in the collection, and I’d like to do more of that. We’ve also been wanting to do a fireplace screen, and one of the newest things we are working on is lamps. Again, we know how to do the metal now, but how do you wire it? You need to make sure that you aren’t going to burn down somebody’s home. We would also love to do some chandeliers; that would be exciting.”
All Strongwater pieces are made in the United States, in workshops in Rhode Island and New York, and he remains heavily involved in the design of each item. He finds inspiration everywhere, he says, from the beaded edge of a couture scarf to the textural treatment on an antique doorknob or a specific shade of vermilion in New York’s evening sky. “I work on 39th Street in New York. On 25th Street is the flower market, so there are about 10 or 15 shops that get these beautiful shipments of flowers every day. In particular, there are a couple of places that just sell orchids, and that is what inspired the new Bloomsbury collection. We try – we never succeed, but we try – to capture the beauty of nature.
“There are about seven of us in the New York studio, and you know, we dream a little bit. We try to think of new ways to enchant our collectors each season.”
sdenman@thenational.ae
Follow us @LifeNationalUAE
Follow us on Facebook for discussions, entertainment, reviews, wellness and news.
