By ROBERT JANJIGIAN
Palm Beach Daily News Fashion Editor
Jane A. Gordon, who began making her own pieces on a whim, to make her debut on island today at Saks Fifth Avenue.
 |
A butterfly made of 14-karat-gold-backed gray and silver agate with white sapphires is the central feature of a freshwater pearl bracelet, $2,275, from Gordon's collection, which is on display today at Saks Fifth Avenue, Palm Beach.
|
Shortly after the dot-com boom went bust, Jane A. Gordon found her calling as a jewelry designer.
Just over two years ago, Gordon, 45, who worked for 15 years as a commercial real-estate broker in New York City, was employed as a sales manager and corporate gifts coordinator for an Internet-based luxury-goods purveyor. When the site shut down and she was laid off, she decided to go into the corporate gifts business on her own, setting up a company called WishBrokers.com. "One thing I learned from my brief experience at a dot-com was that you don't really make money on Web sites, unless you're in the porn business," Gordon said.
With her corporate gift business up and running, Gordon stumbled on her newfound career as a jewelry maker when she was stymied by the effort to provide a range of jewelry to her clients in time for Valentine's Day.
"I didn't know anybody in the jewelry business. I couldn't find a jeweler to collaborate with. I had no experience with jewelry. I'd never even really thought about designing anything," said Gordon, who only owned two necklaces and a ring herself.
On a whim, Gordon decided to make some pieces. "I just fell in love with the stones," Gordon said. "I don't really know where this comes from. I did take a course at the gemological. institute in New York in order to learn how to string pearls and beads. I just know now that it's hard to find an ugly pearl."
A few months later, Gordon was spotted strolling through Saks Fifth Avenue's flagship -store in -Manhattan. "The buyer for designer jewelry saw the jewelry I was wearing" - her own designs - "and said she could sell it," Gordon said.
Last fall, Gordon had her first trunk show at the New York flagship store, the success of which led Saks to book her on a trunk show tour at the retailer's Florida branches this winter.
|
 |
Jewelry designer Jane A. Gordon wears an 18-karat gold and carnelian beaded necklace, $2,175, from her Sun-Moon Collection and a pair of Daisy Collection citrine and peridot earrings, $1,750.
|
Today, Gordon and her jewelry collection are making their debut at the Palm Beach branch, 172 Worth Ave. She estimates that since showing at Saks last October, about 80 percent of her business, now primarily focused on sales of her jewelry, is via trunk shows.
The 225 pieces Gordon has on display are from several collections she's developed in the past few months. These include the Daisy, Sun-Moon, Cut Flower, Stem Flower and Butterfly collections. She offers necklaces, bracelets, rings and earrings, but not any pins or brooches. "I think I'll eventually get to brooches," the novice designer said.
"The look is feminine and wearable," Gordon said. "I don't want a woman to look like a neck form for my jewelry. It's meant to enhance the wearer, not the other way around."
Gordon avoids making anything too heavy. "There's a lightness to the pieces, even the larger-scale necklaces," she said.
Jewelry by Gordon ranges in price from $250 for a singlestrand pearl necklace to $4,000 for a multi-strand sapphire bead necklace with an 18-karat gold moon face pendant. - rjanjigian@pbdailynews.com
Daily News Photos by Jacek Gancarz
|
