Web page Sargisson Brings Her One-of-a-Form Jewellery to Madison Avenue

“I don’t make jewellery for the lots,” mentioned designer Web page Sargisson.

“My jewellery could be very particular,” she mentioned. “It’s my perspective. It has loads of texture, brush strokes, a tactile feeling and plenty of coloration. Individuals who observe me love they will see the hand of the artist on it, particularly in immediately’s world the place a lot is made by pc. My items are all executed by hand, virtually all are one-of-a-kind and that makes a distinction to individuals.”

Sargisson introduced that sensibility to her second retailer, which opened Tuesday at 1250 Madison Avenue, on the southwest nook of ninetieth Avenue in Manhattan’s Carnegie Hill neighborhood. Her first retailer opened in November 2020 at 347 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, which can also be the location of her studio the place she creates the wax carvings that develop into molds for her jewellery designs. She additionally sells by way of her web site.

Sargisson designs pendants, chains, rings, bracelets, earrings, wedding ceremony bands and engagement rings, virtually all are one-of-a-kind, with costs beginning at $600 for an 18-karat gold gemstone necklace and peaking at $23,500 for 4.2-carat diamond necklace. Amongst her bestsellers: sapphire signet rings, priced at $2,200, and “mosaic” pill pendants in diamonds, rubies and sapphires, starting from $3,600 to $10,000.

“I’ve at all times made issues,” Sargisson mentioned, noting that knitting and creating beaded necklaces have been hobbies since childhood. Her grandfather carved antique-style wooden furnishings in his basement studio in Groton, Mass. “That was an inspiration to me,” she mentioned. “I realized methods to carve.”

Earlier than changing into a full-time designer, Sargisson designed on the aspect when she labored as a communications supervisor at Genentech, a San Francisco biotech firm. Colleagues observed her jewellery and at one level, she mentioned: “I began promoting it as a result of individuals simply requested for it. I bear in mind going to advertising conferences pondering, my goodness, each single girl right here is carrying one in all my items.”

She relocated to New York in 2003 after her first marriage ended and she or he took one other communications job on the Corkery Group. Her father died the identical yr, which triggered one thing inside her. “I’ve to say, there’s a time when somebody near you dies that sort of frees you up in some methods” to strive one thing new. So she took courses in wax carving and steel smithing on the Craft College students League, getting ready for her new profession. “After I took the wax carving class, I lastly was capable of make what I had in my head.” Referencing her grandfather’s woodworking, Sargisson mentioned, “Working with wax could be very comparable besides it doesn’t have the great scent of wooden, however you possibly can carve, sand and file it. It’s very comparable.”

Earlier than working shops, her enterprise centered on wholesale, with a small quantity of on-line gross sales. “I offered in Japan for the primary 10 years of my profession. I had a robust following in Japan and an amazing distributor there.”

However the distributor went bankrupt after life in Japan was disrupted by a tsunami in 2011 and Sargisson shifted her design path. “I acquired to be extra artistic in my very own method and concentrate on the 18-karat line, which has been nice.…I really like that I can sit on the bench for hours creating increasingly more items and that I’m supported by a workforce of principally artist graduates. I’m doing the sculptural, design half after which I’ve a workforce that helps me do the remaining. We are able to all reside in New York Metropolis making one thing inventive,” mentioned Sargisson, who lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, is married once more and has two youngsters. Her workforce at work consists of two full-time and one part-time bench jewelers who polish, solder and set the stones, in addition to a manufacturing supervisor and some retail employees.

Reflecting the character of the jewellery itself, the inside of the brand new, 1,000-square-foot Madison Avenue store options textured, painted partitions with ceramic tiled sections. There’s a colourful, summary mural by artist Caty Wooley, and the jewellery sits on industrial felt pads. There’s additionally a banquette Sargisson calls “the bored husband’s seat.” She mentioned the intent was to create a retail house that’s enjoyable and colourful.

“One of many causes for opening my second retailer is I’ve had individuals coming from New Jersey and Manhattan for wedding ceremony bands and engagement rings,” Sargisson mentioned. It’s a aspect of the enterprise that’s “actually exploded. I solely did it a number of occasions for personal shoppers after I was principally wholesaling. And as soon as I opened a retailer, individuals noticed my jewellery, after which we made increasingly more….Proper now you will have Tiffany’s, or the Jewellery District, which is absolutely laborious to navigate and discover precisely what you need. However I fill a distinct segment as a designer working with you, to create what you need.”

Sargisson mentioned she spent some huge cash a yr or so in the past on internet marketing. “I spotted it made no distinction to my on-line gross sales. However on the similar time, gross sales at my Brooklyn retailer have been rising exponentially. My prospects have been telling me that jewellery is private. They wish to contact it. They wish to strive it on. And so fairly than spend cash on internet marketing, why not go to a different neighborhood and discover prospects in the identical method as Brooklyn? Carnegie Hill is fabulous as a result of it’s a neighborhood, and they’re all these shops round which are additionally independently owned, just like my block in Brooklyn,” Sargisson mentioned, citing Le Lion for luxurious Italian knits, the Blue Tree store for high-end girls’s clothes, jewellery and residential items owned by actress Phoebe Cates, and Clic for up to date pictures, artwork, style, books and residential items, all close to her Madison Avenue store.

Requested how her enterprise — which she wholly owns — is performing, Sargisson replied: “I can let you know that our gross sales in Brooklyn are 40 % over the place we have been final yr. The engagement rings are driving that. I don’t must be an enormous model, however typically, we’re simply rising, which is absolutely thrilling.”