Look Book

22 www.thejewelrybook.com VA L E R I E N A I F E H D E S I G N E R P R O F I L E When she was 18, Valerie Naifeh—a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, owner of Naifeh Design and Naifeh Fine Jewelry, and avid outdoor, food and wine enthusiast— traveled to Cairo, where she viewed the King Tut exhibit. "Though jewelry was not yet on my radar," she says, "I was absolutely fascinated that jewelry of 3,500 years ago could be so fi nely detailed and highly sophisticated." Now widely known for her own polished designs—bold yet whimsical, exquisitely crafted and colorful—Valerie did not immediately embrace a jewelry career. Instead, through- out high school and college, she considered architecture and took courses in technical drawing and drafting, skills that eventually spilled over into her jewelry craft. "I am attracted to abstract forms both in the natural world and the world that we create around us," she says about her inspirations. "I strive to make sure that form and function are one in everything that I design, and that there is an aesthetic balance both in how a piece of jewelry is shaped and the colors of the gemstones that adorn it." Valerie, who still employs a drafting-style technique to hand render her design concepts, masterfully combines shapes, lines, curves and color, and builds the pieces' technical architecture, Valerie started her jewelry career part-time in college. When she graduated in 1986, at the recommendation of one of her former art professors, she started an apprenticeship with a local jewelry designer. There, she learned all facets of the industry, from working as a bench jeweler to making wax models. "My fi rst day on the job," Valerie reminisces, "I learned how to carve a basic man's band in wax, and that was it. I was hooked!" Over the dozen years that she worked for other designers, Valerie won the prestigious DeBeers Diamonds Today Award twice (in 1990 and 1994), placed in the Japanese International Pearl competition and founded Naifeh Design, a wholesale company featuring her original work. In 1998, Valerie started to showcase her own jewelry. She started small, with two jewelry cases in a 150 square-feet retail space in Balliets, an upscale women's department in Oklahoma City. Soon, she found that she couldn't keep up with demand. Four years later, Valerie opened Naifeh Fine Jewelry in a 4,000 square-foot show- room and manufacturing studio in the nearby Casady Square. The extensive space displays Valerie's own designs as well as other high-end designers and bridal wear. She still, of course, runs her wholesale company, where she designs and manufactures two primary collections for her own store and other fi ne retailers. The Emotions Collections evokes just what its name implies: jewelry that speaks to a woman's sense of who she is. All hand fabricated and one-of-a-kind, and crafted in lustrous 22- karat yellow gold, Emotions offers a modern take on ancient traditions that harken back to Middle East- ern and Etruscan metalsmithing. "This jewelry," Valerie explains, which boasts only vivid, top color gems with shimmering pearls and exquisite diamonds, "really comes alive and takes women's breath away." The Elements Collection, while similarly sculptural in design, draws more on the more recent European tradition of craftsmanship. Classic in proportions and style, Elements fuses 18-karat yellow gold and platinum with shimmering diamonds, luminous pearls and candy-colored gemstones to create timeless treasures. In both collections, beadwork involves high quality pearls and beads, and granulated beds are applied by hand to create intricate designs around the stones. "In the Emotions and Elements collections," says Valerie, "I love working with the color and sitting down and fi guring out new color combinations and putting patterns together. There's nothing better than getting lost in a model for making a new piece of jewelry." Valerie humbly admits that, "I love using the small bit of talent that I have to make people's lives richer and more enjoyable every day." Colored Stone Magazine's 2006 Reader's Choice Winner, she certainly does that. But she also looks beyond her own ventures, which together gross about $5 million, to give back to the larger community. Dedicated to children's and education causes, Valerie donates a percentage of her profi ts to Positive Tomorrows, Oklahoma's only elementary school specifi cally for home- less children, as well as other organizations. Dedicated not only to jewelry and jewelry design, Valerie is "also passion- ate about trying to designate what I can to programs that help people in our communities." www.naifehdesign.com Valerie Naifeh BY JESSICA TEISCH "I am attracted to abstract forms both in the natural world and the world that we create around us."

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