We had the pleasure of having one of our newest designers, Ray Griffiths, in the store for a trunk show last week. Ray is charming, talented, and has an Australian accent, which makes him pretty irresistible!

He also has a very interesting backstory. Ray is the son of a shoemaker and grew up making shoes. As a teenager he grew interested in making jewelry and became an apprentice at an old jewelry restoration house in Melbourne. As Ray puts it, "I started filing and hammering and turned out to be good at it!"

After that he ran away from Australia and saw the world for 4 years, seeing many of the places and buildings that would later become inspirations for his jewelry - Greco-Roman ruins, Gaudi cathedrals in Barcelona, and Moorish architecture in Spain - before returning to Sydney and becoming a partner at a jewelry business for 18 years. He then packed his entire life - including all of his gold, gemstones, and jewelry making equipment - into a shipping container and moved to New York to seek his fortune, only to arrive to find that the shipping container had been stolen. He had nothing but the 2 suitcases of clothing he carried onto the plane. He worked at a clothing store until a generous friend gifted him her jewelry making equipment and he was back in business!

He spent the next 10 years making and selling jewelry at the late, great Fragments in NYC before launching his own label, which is when we found him. If you love architecture, antiques, gorgeous gemstones, and 1920's flapper necklaces, you will love Ray's jewelry. We hope you will stop by and take a look!