Designer-retailers in Manhattan know how to make it here: with distinctive style, tireless reinvention, and a healthy dose of self-promotion.
By Cathleen McCarthy

Articulated pine cone earrings in niobium and 14K gold by Ted Muehling. Photo: Dan Howell. Right: The Fred Leighton Gallery specializes in high-end estate jewelry, such as this diamond leaf brooch. Photo courtesy Fred Leighton.

There's something appealing about the European-style jeweler's shop, for collector and craftsman alike. It's the idea of the village goldsmith. There in the window, the jewelry. Inside, the jeweler who made it, making more, ready to customize a piece to your taste. For the collector, it's a chance to personalize a personal thing and to find the entire gamut of the artist's work in one place. For the designer who makes a wearable art form, it's the opportunity to deal directly with the person who will be wearing it.

Nowhere can you find more potential wearers — and buyers — than in Manhattan, shopping heart of the Western world. Many urban designers have imagined a shop in Manhattan; few have pulled it off. Those who have often sacrifice the intimacy and interaction of the village goldsmith in order to get some work done — and stay afloat in a city where rents can run well over $100 per square foot. A “vendor shop” can become a sort of advertisement, not much different in theory from the Calvin Klein store on Fifth Avenue. You don't expect to find Calvin inside, pinning fabric to a tailor's dummy, ready for a chat.

in order to get some work done — and stay afloat in a city where rents can run well over $100 per square foot. A “vendor shop” can become a sort of advertisement, not much different in theory from the Calvin Klein store on Fifth Avenue. You don't expect to find Calvin inside, pinning fabric to a tailor's dummy, ready for a chat.

Downtown SoHo. Photo: Cathleen McCarthy.

Manhattan jewelry designers have shops at both ends of that spectrum, but the designers themselves are all New Yorkers. They may have come from elsewhere but they're here to stay. A look inside their shops tells the story not just of the designers but of the diversity of New York itself, a city of individual, distinct neighborhoods. Jewelrywise, as in everything else, these break down into uptown and downtown.

A sampler tour of New York's designer shops — from the bottom of SoHo to the Upper East Side — can be accomplished in an afternoon, if you do it the New York way: on foot and subway.

From Penn Station, the blue line takes you to Canal Street, heart of the Village. A few blocks away, on a tiny street off Broadway, you'll find Ted Muehling's shop (27 Howard St.). Technically, this shop is in Little Italy, at the southeast corner of SoHo, and it's an insider's secret. Nothing on the minimalist storefront gives away what's inside. The glass is covered to eye level, obscuring the view inside from the street, with only “Ted Muehling” printed on top. At first glance, you might think it's one of the many art galleries in this area — and in a way, it is. Come to think of it, the illusion was probably intentional. Muehling's background is in art; he took only one jewelry class at Pratt Institute in the 1950s — and dropped out of it.

Pussy willow earrings in brown and green tourmaline, by Ted Mueling. Photo: Dan Howell.

Early in his career, he sold his work through Henri Bendel and Bergdorf Goodman, designed fashion accessories for designers like Vivienne Westwood, then opened his first shoebox-sized shop on Greene, a few blocks away. Meuhling's present space is the closest thing you'll find in Manhattan to the true village goldsmith, not least because he is usually present and craft is made on the premises. Freestanding cases on raw sanded floors hold his silver-plated bronze candlesticks and shell-shaped porcelain — his latest venture. Front cases hold the jewelry of other designers, such as Gabriella Kiss and Stephen Allendorf. You don't find Muehling's jewelry until you're all the way back.

The shop itself is simple, elegant but earthy, quiet, and dimly lit. Two young women sit out front bent over their work. They look like art students. In the gallery you can hear the drills and hammers of the studio beyond. I ask if I can see it. “As long as your feet don't cross the line,” says the saleswoman, smiling to show she's joking — there is no line — then explaining politely that she isn't. “You can look but no one is allowed back there.”

Another piece by Ted Muehling, showing the designer's style — elegant, delicate, but not fussy. A pair of Queen Anne's lace earrings in 14K oxidized gold, diamonds, and keshi pearls. Photo: Dan Howell.

I peer around the corner and find myself locking eyes with Muehling himself, a middle-aged, ponytailed man wearing spectacles and sitting at his desk, phone to his ear. I feel like I've been caught peeping through someone's living room window. The studio is deeper than the gallery itself. Misty light filters in from large transom windows like those of a Parisian garret. Unlike the gallery, it's cluttered and funky back here. A large birch-bark canoe hangs from the ceiling over the designer's head and a fiberglass deer's head peers from the wall. Is this the “real” Ted Muehling?

The designer's own jewelry is displayed in the back of the gallery: grape-like bunches of garnet beads; opalescent drops; brushed gold leaves curving into pods. The look is elegant, delicate and feminine but not fussy. Displays of his work are differentiated from other artists' only in that they're not labeled. The ambience is spare, personal but modest, not ostentatious; the emphasis is on form and craftsmanship.

Robert Lee Morris' gallery store in SoHo effectively combines art and commerce. Photo: Cathleen McCarthy.

The lights are bright on Broadway — and so is the Robert Lee Morris store. Actually, it's a few blocks over from that major artery, at 400 West Broadway. In SoHo this block is shopping central and you can bet leasing a space here costs a pretty penny. In contrast to Muehling's artsy garret, Morris' space is an unabashedly commercial statement. Like Muehling, Morris went to art school and has been a retail presence in SoHo for decades, but their stores are night and day.

Robert Lee Morris landed on the New York scene in the early ‘70s as the golden boy of the now defunct Sculpture to Wear, the gallery that many credit with creating a market for artist-made jewelry. In the ‘80s, he found commercial success with large sculptural metal jewelry produced via lost wax casting, the perfect accessory to the power suit. Still visible in his shop are those sleek forms a European jeweler I know once compared to cows' tongues, but the modern incarnations are toned way down now, shrunk to charm size, brushed to remove the gleam, and dangling from bracelets, necklaces, and earrings.

Morris' Clusterneck necklace uses sterling silver to mimic fish scales.

Cases of Morris's jewelry line every wall. In the center of the green-carpeted gallery, a polished brass railing winds up a staircase that leads nowhere. Displays feature truncated nude female torsos, front and back views, draped in his latest Native American-inspired beaded necklaces of coral, turquoise, and silver. On the center wall are three enormous black-and-white photographs of Morris at the bench, hammering and carving with intense concentration: Morris the businessman selling Morris the craftsman.

“I'm a very hands-on designer,” Morris says. “I design literally every single day unless I'm at a trade show on the road. The collections never stop. You have two kinds of jewelers today: craftsmen/metalsmiths and sculptors. There are people trained to do serious benchwork, GIA-certified stuff. I'm the opposite. I was trained in welding, woodcarving, lost wax bronze casting, all of the graphic arts, filmmaking, painting, and drawing. I never took a single jewelry class. All my jewelry training is self-taught. That's why my jewelry looks the way it does.”

Two saleswomen step up to greet me in quick succession, both wearing the broad smiles of hostesses at a cocktail party. As I poke about, they lapse into gossip about a British band. It's loud and casual. Like Calvin Klein, another designer businessman, I suspect Morris stopped hanging out here long ago.

In the back cases, teepee-like branches, more coral and turquoise and more black-and-white shots of the designer — not making jewelry this time but squatting jean-clad before a vast Western landscape, his pleasant, boyish face smiling behind a rustic camp scene. Morris selling Morris the outdoorsman.

A decade from now, the photos will undoubtedly feature a different image, the cases another reinvention of his jewelry. But I'm betting that the shop will be here, business thriving. Several blocks east, in a neighborhood known locally as NoLita (northern Little Italy), Elizabeth Street holds a strip of tiny boutiques run by the young artsy set who hung out in SoHo 10 years ago but couldn't afford to open stores there. Nolita is the place to put together your neo-hippy look with vintage bell bottoms, slouchy felt hats, Pucci scarves, fringed handbags — and Me&Ro jewelry. Next door to Kelly Christy's hat shop, Me & Ro's original shop (239 Elizabeth Street) showcases the designs of the downtown duo Michelle Quan, a former model from Vancouver, and Robin Renzi, a dancer. They began designing jewelry together in Quan's SoHo apartment in 1991 and befriended celebrity customers like Julia Roberts and Gwyneth Paltrow, who wear their jewelry on film and at high-profile events.

Chances are those hoop earrings in the cases look familiar, with their row of tiny dangling gemstone beads. If you're under 35, perhaps you spotted them on Jennifer Lopez in her latest music video. If you're over 35, their familiarity may date back somewhat further. Where have we seen those antiqued-silver hoops, those coral and turquoise beads and dangling silver bits? It's the sort of thing that filled funky incense-clouded boutiques in the ‘70s from here to London, blending — among other things — aspects of Mexican, Native American, Asian, East Indian, and Ancient Egyptian styles.

Diamond necklace with South Sea pearl pendant from the Fred Leighton Gallery. Photo courtesy Fred Leighton.

Me&Ro have updated the look, presenting their jewelry in sleek glass cases against dramatic blood-red walls — minimalism in place of happy clutter. The jewelry itself, on second glance, is far less bulky and over the top. In fact, it's positively inhibited by comparison — more personal talisman than statement of subculture, and small enough at times that you have to bend close to examine it. Like Muehling, Quan and Renzi do stylized natural forms, grape bunches, dangling pods. But their specialty is miniature dog-tag pendants engraved with Sanskrit and Tibetan symbols that stand for things like “peace,” “tranquility,” “faith ties the heart,” and bits of poetry by Ravi Shankar.

A ride up Lexington Avenue on the #6 takes you to the Upper East side, and drops you off near Fred Leighton's store on 773 Madison Ave., at the corner of 68th Street. A grim-faced old gentleman in full doorman's uniform unlocks the door, and a sophisticated silver-haired saleswoman materializes, offers assistance, then follows discreetly behind. Leighton designs his own jewelry but is more famous for offering rare and fabulous estate pieces.

At my request, the saleswoman unlocks a case to pull out two bulky carved rock crystal necklaces that turn out to be Chinese, circa Liao Dynasty (907-1125 AD). “These are male and female, designed to be worn together,” she explains. I examine the pendants, trying to identify gender. The smoky quartz carved into a shell shape could be either. Somehow, this woman's expression does not invite a discussion of phalluses, so I ask the price instead.

Bracelet of coral shells, starfish, and lobster claws by Mish, NY. Photo: Christopher Astley.

“The set is marked for $18,000, but I can give it to you for $15,000. Oh wait, that's $18,000 each.” A little digging later revealed that “male” and “female” did not describe the necklaces themselves, but their ownership. They belonged to a man and a woman, both apparently interred in the royal tomb where these necklaces were found. How such archaeological rarities ended up among Fred Leighton's glitzy estate pieces seems a mystery even to the people who work for him.

Moving right along, we come to a case devoted entirely to glittery link bracelets movie stars used to stack over evening gloves; their diamonds, rubies, and sapphires dazzle from 10' away I ask to see Leighton's own designs and it turns out they are sprinkled, unassumingly, throughout the original estate pieces. He works almost exclusively in diamonds, rose-cut mainly, and given their number and size, I don't even bother to ask prices. Some are done “in the style of” the jewelry they nestle among.

A multistrand necklace of blue chalcedony teardrop beads and (left to right) pavé set tanzanite dome earrings, Audrey earrings with gray pearls, and two sets of aquamarine star earrings, all by Mish, NY. Photo: Anita Calero.

A five-minute walk takes me to a quiet residential block just off Lexington Avenue (131 East 70th Street), where a small lavender sign emerges from the ivy of a courtyard beneath large bay windows, subtly announcing “Mish.” This is the newest of the designer-owned stores, which opened in 2001. Inside, two cozy rooms recall an old-European style salon, with antique-like cases, panels, and molding modernized by faux leather ottomans and leopard-spot carpeting. Classical white busts in the cases are draped with Mish Tworkowski's chunky necklaces of carved pale blue topaz and amethyst beads, cast gold starfish and shell shapes, and South Sea pearls. Many of the stones he uses are cut in Germany.

Mish himself emerges from his back office, clean-cut and dressed in a tweed blazer. Except for his signature red bow tie, he wears pastel greens and grays that match the room. Like the store — and to some degree the jewelry — Mish's look is classic with, as he calls it, “a little punch.” In his case, this means eyeglasses with pale grey rectangular frames. His other signature feature: a wide, ever-present smile. He is gracious and buoyantly enthusiastic, a true extrovert.

Jewelry designer Mish Tworkowski, and his cozy, salon-style gallery, top. Photo: Eric Ogden.

“To have a designer present in his own shop offering things not wholesaled to other places — that's fairly unusual, a little more European in approach,” he says. “I work like a couturier to a great extent. A petite woman can come in and say, ‘I wish that was only two strands,' or, ‘I wish the stones were smaller,' and we'll make a different version for her. There are a lot of beautiful jewelry stores up and down Madison Avenue, but they're not going to change anything for you. This is my kind of setup. Other designers I know dislike dealing directly with the public; they're more interested in volume. I much prefer dealing directly with customers and making them happy.”

Mish worked as a specialist for Sotheby's most of his adult life and began by selling his own designs from his desk there. He has always felt at home in the refined atmosphere of the Upper East Side and, in fact, lived in an apartment across the street after college and fantasized about living in this space someday.

A collection of Mish's 18K gold star and stone rings. Photo: Christopher Astley.

Mish has never seen Muehling's shop. “He's downtown,” he explains. “I'm not often down there so I don't know what the SoHo equivalent is.”

He listens with apparent interest as I describe stores a 10-minute subway ride away. I feel like I'm discussing a foreign country — and in a sense, I am.

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Cathleen McCarthy is a journalist based in Philadelphia who writes about jewelry, art, and travel for such publications as Art & Antiques, Elle Decor, and The Washington Post. She has been a regular contributor to Lapidary Journal since 1992.