selecting designers for Alara

As the owner of a design-focused gallery, design is a topic near and dear to myself and my entire staff.

Our collective sense of design and aesthetic encompasses a number of very different jewelry styles: neo-classical, organic, curvilinear, geometric, industrial, kinetic, romantic, period (Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Edwardian). But there are certain qualities that must be embodied in a designer line before we will present it with pride in our gallery, regardless of its generalized style.

adherence to classical aesthetics

Aesthetics, simply put, is the “science and math” of beauty. There are certain inarguable rules of proportion, which if stretched or compressed too far, will produce objects that few people will appreciate on a gut level. And the gut is exactly where one responds to art.

It’s very easy to design a piece of jewelry that is odd—just completely ignore every aesthetic rule. Unfortunately, “odd” might be all that would be said about such a piece by most people. It takes far more thought and effort to design jewelry that is mindful of the thousands of years of design that came before, without plagiarizing those previous efforts.

There is a reason why people with no artistic experience or training whatsoever respond as strongly to the designs found in our gallery as do our artist and architect customers. They are looking at pieces that are a refreshing take on classic aesthetics. Not downright weird, not predictably boring, not a regurgitation of something that was interesting in the 80s, and worse than anything, not a new trend that will only become passé and dated-looking later.

function

Of all the arts, jewelry is more similar to architecture than any other. Why? Because like a building, a piece of jewelry does not have meaning without the human body interacting with it. Just as a building with no means to enter it is a failed architecture project, a piece of jewelry that does not function as it should on the human body is likewise without value.

Unlike a painting, jewelry’s beauty is not fully revealed when sitting in a showcase or on an inanimate from.

It follows that a ring that is so thick it cannot be worn comfortably, no matter how compelling-looking on a pedestal, is not really a ring.

The designer jewelry lines we carry must have pieces designed to fulfill their function. Without function, one cannot appreciate their form.

quality

Aesthetics and function cannot endure unless quality materials and craftsmanship are employed to embody them.

The designers whose work we feature have exemplary skill in the jewelry arts, and take tremendous care choosing the materials in which they choose to execute their creations.