I came from the luxury goods industry and I have been in the environment of conspicuous consumption many times. To be more easily accepted in some circles it is necessary to signal to others that you have wealth by adorning the status symbols and icons of luxury fashion. It gets to the point that it is less about the beauty of the artifact and more about the cost. There is a particular bracelet that I kept seeing. I was sure it was a piece from one of a small cohort of luxury goods producers. I did not look for long to find the piece. It is pretty, it is well made and it is of high quality. It is 18K gold – the highest quality for gold jewelry, made in one of 3 factories in Europe, and comes in beautiful packaging and I’m sure backed by high-touch customer service. It will also set you back about $7-8K. If you wear one and are in-the-know, you know how much it costs and that seems to be the main point. It’s part of the uniform of the well-heeled. No shame in that, just calling it like I see it. It’s probably an emotional purchase. One that says, I earned this, I have arrived or I now belong in a different room.
I did some research on its potential production being that in the right room of say 40 people, I will see around 3-5 people wearing one. It must be in high production. Unofficially this piece represents about 18% of the company’s roughly $15B annual jewelry revenue. Working backwards that is around 70K sold per year. Well done. That is incredible business and amazing marketing from a company with heritage and prestige. We call this masstige, though at almost $8K this is hardly accessible to many.
Hotel Ugly Metal stands on another spectrum of jewelry making and reason for being. We are small, and we will very likely stay small. Everything is handmade and one-of-a-kind. We use sterling silver, not just because we prefer the metal, but it also has an air of being less precious. The second city of metals if you will. We are not striving for perfection or precision. We don’t want to make more than one of a piece, we can’t. We enjoy the craft and the journey of creating and making. We start with an idea and sometimes, most times, through the process something very cool is revealed. Maybe it’s a scare from the cast or a dent in the metal, an uneven curve. We try not to go against this and would rather accentuate the organic nature of the materials we use and the hand-crafted process of making it. Most of the time we do it on purpose. What impression does a strike of a hammer make? What happens when I cook this metal? We are not machines and this is not gold.
I was at a gallery showing and talk by Wosene Worke Kosrof and he was asked about the process of creating his art. He essentially said the art revealed itself while he was creating it. Almost like happy accidents or the muse simply working through him. Was this a letdown? Did I not get the secret to beautiful art? No, this was a relief to hear from such a prestigious artist. I felt like we now had license to loosen the reins we have on life and just let it happen and see the beauty that can come from less control and no push for perfection.
This is life. The more we try and control it and strive for more, the more disappointed we will be. The more perfect we try and make it, the less emotional it is. It is flawed and imperfect. No two days are exactly the same. That is what we want to bring out and embrace in what we make and how we live.
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