IN THINKING about how far we've come style-wise in the last decade, we couldn't help but look ahead to the next 10 years. What will we be wearing? Which trends will be gone for good, and which will remain timeless? We predict 23-year-old jewelry designer and artist Vincent Wil Hawley's work will be counted among the latter.
"I signed up for a ‘working with small metals' class my freshman year," Hawley recalls. "I had no idea it entailed jewelry designing, but my other class options didn't fit into my schedule. So I stuck it out and actually fell in love with making jewelry. I made and sold several pieces that very year."
And the Museum School grad has been designing and selling jewelry ever since. Most of his work is custom-made, hand-engraved fine jewelry with an antique Florentine feel; in fact, Hawley just spent a year in Florence, where he studied traditional gem-setting and engravery. His work is comparable to Buccellati, an Italian jewelry designer made famous in the 1940s for his engravery work. (It's also Hawley's favorite design house.)
"Buying my jewelry is like buying a piece of handmade art," Hawley says. "I'm trying to bring back an old-world idea of luxury, which consists of quality, uniqueness, and precision. That's something that is lost today. Owning a one-of-a-kind piece forever, that is luxury and timeless." @
[Photo by Jeff Smith]
