Greenwich Village, 1940's

As you are reading this, thousands of solitary silversmiths are plying their art at studio work benches everywhere, sculpting wearable art one soul-rending piece at a time.  It's always been that way and the machine age changed nothing for the hands that coax metal into exquisite compliance.

The '40's remain the most prolific years for designers and metal smiths producing modernist, counter culture jewelry, mostly silver.

It was in fact an international movement back then, from New York to Taxco to Copenhagen and beyond. After Japan was devastated by WWII, some of the first signs of new hope were Japanese designers who ventured out into modernist directions in jewelry making.

These photographs tell a little about the Greenwich Village studios, the men and the jewelry.  Sam Kramer and Art Smith.  I wish I'd been there 70 years ago, on Ginsberg's and Bob Dylan's turf, buying up jewelry I can only see in museums today.

Invitation to a Party

This reminder just in from Elle, "Clothes without accessories is like a party without cake.",  a little play on Julia Child's "A party without cake is just a meeting".....aaanyway, we get the point.  Accessorize, we must.

If we would rather be a party than a meeting, then we're gonna have to put on some jewelry.  Keep in mind, this metaphor, simile, whatever,  isn't about where you are, but about how you feel.  Outwardly,  jewelry gives you presence, substance.  But jewelry can make you feel beautiful and confidant inside.  That's a party.

Slip on a wisp of a chain with a pendant for the run to Whole Foods, the drive-through at the bank.  It's not just about the checker or the teller, it's about you, how it makes you feel.  Party on.  ~   Carolyn in Mexico

San Miguel, Little Hive of Industry

You might know San Miguel de Allende.  Conde Nast knows it.  Travel and Leisure Magazine knows it well.  It is a photo shoot mecca, the haunt of photographers, professionals who pay the rent through the lens of a camera.  Creative staff at Gentlemen's Quarterly, Elle and Vogue search it's streets for the perfect composition and then pray the light lasts.  What cool jobs they have.  They get paid for this?


(caption and Gentlemen's Quarterly photo)

(caption and Vogue photo)



She's on the clock.  Model waiting for camera set up.

                                                        Drop some pesos in the cup.

                                                         Jardin shoe shine.  Tips are good.

                                                                        Restoration

                             Basket vendor.  Buy more than one.  He's trying to make a living.

                                 

Wait staff doing double duty.

San Miguel works.  ~   Carolyn in Mexico

The A List and the Other A List

Leslie  knows her way around on-trend jewelry, all those box closures and parures, but she's not into heavy weight jewelry while I very much am, oh so much.

She's lighter and more restrained.....not sure I care for restraint.  Can I buy silver by the pound?  One of  the necklaces soon to be on the SilverNina website came from a silversmith Leslie likes.  I love the design but I begged her to send him back to his bench to double the size.  As diva as you can get. 

She sent in her orders for the Taxco trip....I'm so excited...we going to Taxco!!...  and her designs are deliciously sized for office, street, and little dinner parties.

Her designs flutter and soar, but the way this works is that I order my share of pieces and they are all a bit heavy on the heavy.  My list, silver drama.  Her list, everything else, but just stack her stuff.  Same thing.  ~  Carolyn in Mexico.

Taxco, We're Comin' for Ya

We are going to Taxco in two weeks.  They've got silver there and we're buying it. 

We're loading up on silver jewelry,  the most radiant stuff that ever wrapped itself around an arm or a neck and we won't stop buying till they cut up our credit cards.  We'll be sending it all to you, Texas, to be on the collections menu of  the website, Silver Nina.  Watch for it, coming soon to a computer near you.

We aren't just  launching a website, we're unleashing it.  It will be wildly successful and demand will run all over supply.  And we'll be off to buy more and more luscious bracelets, necklaces, rings and things.  Hope Taxco can keep up.

We know all this because that's what it says in our business plan, word for word.  ~  Carolyn in Mexico

The Maestros

A silversmith who works with us at Silver Nina will be fine tuning her  skills by going back to school next week.

This intimate school draws devotees from advanced level silver workers and starry eyed beginners. The instructor has roots in old Taxco's era of silver makers.  Those perfectionists.  Sublime creators.

Classes are held in Guanajuato in central Mexico and are kept to a six student minimum. Americans come to learn, Mexicans are there to teach them.

A few arroyos away in San Miguel de Allende, the instructors are mostly Americans and Canadians.  You go to San Miguel de Allende, you are going to learn something, not necessarily silver smithing alone.  Learn to paint, join a quilting group, take singing lessons, guitar lessons, sculpting, weaving, paper-making, Mexican cooking, French cooking, Italian cooking. Is there anyone in this town that isn't teaching?

San Miguel, knit a sweater, throw a pot.  Create.  ~  Carolyn in Mexico

Karl Lagerfeld Looking Texas Good

Karl Lagerfeld, the wildly off-beat, mildly likeable, endlessly stylish trustee of the Coco Chanel legacy, was in Texas recently wearing a Stetson cowboy hat and posing like a dude. Not the "hey dude, cool hat" kind of dude, but the "LA cowboy" kind of dude.   Still. he played along, smiled at the camera and was a good sport about it all.


The thing I like about Lagerfeld is his jewelry.  Everything he ever put on a catwalk is just fabulous and accessorized to perfection. I'm saying, his serious jewelry collections are sublime. Only Oscar de la Renta does it better.  Beyond Lagerfeld's designer pieces is the iconic jewelry he wears himself, his cuffs, rings, tie sticks, and chains.  Man in Black with jewelry.


He has a mouth and has set-off a lot of folks.  The whole House of Windsor was miffed when he said that Pippa would do the world a favor if it never had to look at her ugly face.  Yes he DID.  He said that. 

Short men don't much like Lagerfeld either.  Not since that day he revealed to an oblivious world that short men aren't only ugly; they're ugly AND angry.

And there was that pieing by PETA that missed Lagerfeld and hit Calvin Kline (in a tiff over fur issues).

He's careful not to make enemies in Texas though.  We sit the fence on PETA, but  insult our women and our short, ugly, angry men and we do more than throw pies.  Mister Lagerfeld behaves himself in Texas.