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ViaLuxe Interview with Jewelry Artisan Scott Kay
Apr 1, 2009
ABOUT SCOTT KAY:
As recognized leader of the modern platinum renaissance in the United States, Scott Kay is an inspirational force of dynamic energy and boundless creativity. Compelled to pursue jewelry design after studying at Manhattan's Fashion Institute of Technology, Scott Kay founded his company in 1984 and began creating gold jewelry. However, it was platinum that bewitched the young designer and it soon became his goal to restore the lustrous white metal's popularity with the American public to the level it had enjoyed prior to the second World War. Kay's entrepreneurial spirit, abetted by his knowledge of the bridal industry, fashion and marketing enabled him to attain this ambitious goal to the extent that the Scott Kay brand has become a virtual synonym for platinum jewelry in the eyes of sophisticated luxury buyers. Profound testaments to this accomplishment include both the sheer number of national U.S. retailers which represent Scott Kay jewelry, and the range of acclaimed celebrities who proudly wear it. For two years in a row, Scott Kay received the highest accolade of the prestigious Platinum Guild International.
Despite his undisputed mastery of the bridal genre, Scott Kay has never stopped to rest on his laurels. Instead, he continually directs his passion for jewelry design into new categories, materials, and price points--intent on capturing an even broader group of delighted customers. 2003 marked the debut of Scott Kay Sterling, a new collection in silver offering stylish elegance and versatility for both sexes. In 2008, a broadly expanded Scott Kay jewelry collection for men made its appearance, capturing industry plaudits for its originality, provocative spirit, and potent masculinity.
Scott Kay is well known to audiences for his many appearances on television, including both the "Today Show" and "Good Morning America" His considerable acumen and infectious positive attitude is also distributed through the "Ask Scott Kay" advice column, a fixture of the most popular U.S. bridal publications and other well-read luxury periodicals.
INTERVIEW
VIALUXE:
Hi Scott, thanks for sitting down with us. I wanted to start by understanding a little bit about your background. Can you tell me a little bit about how you got involved in the jewelry industry.
SCOTT KAY:
I always found that art was my gift and my calling and getting involved in the jewelry industry was something quite honestly that was natural. I found a lug nut on the street - I turned it into a ring. I applied to the finest college, the Fashion Institute of Technology. I got accepted there. I got top honors at FIT - and the rest was history.
VIALUXE:
I have heard some people describe you as a "Platinumsmith". Is this similar to a "Goldsmith"?
SCOTT KAY:
What a platinum-smith is - is somebody who masters in working in platinum material. It’s also used to describe the essence of the discipline that I work with. Being a platinum-smith is something I am very proud of because - regardless of what we work in - any material - we have these old world hands that we use to do engraving with - to express different forms of language and it means that you do things the old fashion way in different interpretations whether I want to express - from an engraving standpoint something of a Gothic 16th century feel or that’s something that’s more of 19th century feel - but "Platinumsmith" overall means the ultimate essence of discipline when it comes to creating art.
VIALUXE:
Can you give me Scott Kay's definition of Luxury?
SCOTT KAY:
Luxury is about quality of art form. Luxury could be something that could be created through heritage and the one thing that I really want to make reference of this in the jewelry industry. The evil of the jewelry industry really is precious commodities because people would think luxury - or something was precious in the jewelry industry based on how much the material cost is - the intrinsic value of the metal. Luxury to me is an art form whether it’s a beautiful carving out of a piece of wood and you could just really have a real straight appreciation for that. I don’t care whether it’s a silver bracelet that I am making or if if it’s something that is made of platinum or palladium. Luxury is what you do to it. The luxury is not the intrinsic value of the metal that came out of the ground or a piece of material or something of that nature. Cashmere is only cashmere until you do something to it and jewelry is only a commodity that comes out of the ground - an ore - and the only thing that makes it fine is what you do to it. And that is why art is fine - art is luxury. The purest expression of luxury in jewelry is the art form and the discipline for the real appreciation for the finest of what you are doing. That’s what I want people to understand about the Scott Kay brand. You can feel as good in a piece of silver as well as you can platinum because I don’t ever want the intrinsic value of the metal to yield luxury to what I do because it dismisses all my love and my time that I put into a piece of jewelry. So it’s all about what you do to it and what it’s made out of that has to do with luxury. That’s real luxury.
VIALUXE:
You have also been doing some weaving in some of your jewelry. Can you talk about that a little?
SCOTT KAY:
Weaving was something that I started years ago when I was bending wire and I just started seeing the different forms and shapes and heights and things of that nature. Textiles are all weaved and are forms of weaving and I thought that there was so much organic character in the different forms of weaving and it was very natural.
Even though I intertwine links – it’s still a form of weaving links to one another and it gives me different expressions of height and visibility in a piece of jewelry. There was a natural desire for it. I have been able to make things very masculine and doing things asymmetrical - coming up with my own different forms of weaving and it’s something that is an international bond between all forms of cultures - because everyone - it doesn’t matter if you’re from Europe or Asia or from North America - we all do forms of weaving in many ways, shapes and forms. Weaving goes right down to the essence of how man started because we would weave things to protect us from the sun. We would weave things to carry food or water and it really gets down to very spiritual ways as well as we weave textiles to cloth us and express ourselves. So jewelry was a natural way for me to work and I really enjoy that.
VIALUXE:
Can you describe a day in the life of Scott Kay? Tell me about your average day.
SCOTT KAY:
I'm somebody that my average day is about searching. I'm not somebody that is driven by business. Thank god I have other people that take care of the business end. My average day is in search of things that are unique and inspirational that have a point of differentiation. The world has always been overwhelmed by the mass and to me - I want to search for the things that are unique things - the point of differentiation. I don’t want to see the world stop evolving and my day is about the search. It’s a passion. I just love to see things and find things that I think are opportunities to help other people as well as myself express themselves.
One of the things that I think gravitate toward has been - you know when we talk about "Gothic" things - when I started playing in the Gothic world I started really diving myself into the 16th century and then all of a sudden - I started to love the 16th century and how things were done in a forged way. It was more about the silversmithing and the pounding of the metal and the forming of it. And then all of a sudden when you are working on that - the character came out in the little dents and the patinas that came out into it - and the mass and things of that nature. So it gave such a spiritual characterization to the things that I was doing at the time - I just enveloped myself into other things like that - I don’t care whether its materials, its books or any types of objects - I just started getting myself entrenched into that. A lot of it - you know is if you say - where does the inspiration come from. It was the past because those were craftsmen. Those were people that looked to express themselves in different cultural atmospheres and things of that nature or different parts of the world and all the different cultures have different forms of how they do things. When you dive into that - you really then start to associate yourself with it. It’s just quite rewarding - So a day is about - I don’t use an alarm clock. I never wake up to an alarm clock. I wake up and I get up and I am ready. My whole body just tells me "wake up – let’s go after the world". I never find myself just laying in bed so I don't know if there is an average day. I'm sorry if I couldn't answer your questions - but I don't have an average day – that’s the best way to answer the question - is that there is no average day. It's whatever the climate and the day brings me is what I wind up doing.
VIALUXE:
You started a men's jewelry line and a significant part of that line is bracelets. Can you show me a few and talk about the inspiration behind them?
SCOTT KAY:
What I am showing you here is Form. There are two things - there is Form and then there is Language. A Form is about a style - about how you make a bracelet. This actually is a guardian bracelet and this is the Form. This is what we call a contemporary piece because it’s bright and it’s shiny. This is the form about it. Actually the link on my wrist is a different form. Form is shape - then the link that is on this guardian bracelet. What we have here is Language. This is Sparta. Sparta is the language that was inspired through the ancient Greek times in design. This is all hand engraving. That’s what is done in this piece here. So this is the Guardian bracelet with the Sparta engraving and language into it in this form.
What goes Guardian mean? Guardian is where two men shake hands and when you put your hands together - you would grab the wrist - and the reason why it was so spiritual is because you could feel another man’s pulse beat - and that really gets deep when you grab on to somebody and there is a real deep spiritual meaning behind that whether it’s a spouse or a significant other who are giving it to each other and there is a lot of meaning - real meaning - not just to give something a name.
And also it’s the way the coast guard does when they have to hold on to somebody and not let go and I was inspired by that as well. I also studied all about angels and things of that nature to try to get myself enveloped into it. So the Guardian bracelet is something I am very proud of even in this contemporary form – it’s got this feel to it and it’s a beautiful bracelet. But the one thing that really speaks to me when you said to me "what is Scott Kay Luxury?" - when you turn this bracelet over - this bracelet is completely engraved and we put hours and hours into engraving the back. A man had once asked me "why would you do that?" and I said "because you should". It’s very simple - you do things because you should - and that’s the lining of the suit and things of that nature - cause you know it’s there. This really expresses the essence of what I do to my pieces and it’s really about having a love and appreciation for the art. So it’s as well as this Guardian bracelet here that has engraving on both sides and completely throughout it. That’s what the Guardian is.
VIALUXE:
You also have a bracelet you call "The Doberman" - Can you talk about that as well?
SCOTT KAY:
The Doberman, I called it that because, not because - not just because I have two Dobermans - but I love the animal because it’s black, it’s sleek, it’s dangerous, it’s seductive, it has this beautiful feeling about it. I also happen to love the discipline of the animal and how it performs. There are big Dobermans and there are small ones. I really fell in love with this particular species. The one thing that the Doberman does in this form of weaving – it’s very interesting because you might think the Doberman is like this super aggressive piece and things of that nature, but there is something to understand about size equals edge or dress. Here is a Doberman - it looks really nice and very dressy. It looks great with a suit and tie. Its good dress wear. When you wear a Doberman and you do it in this mass - this evokes edge. This is for a guy who is trying to say a bit more about what he is doing at night. If I am wearing a suit and tie - I want you to see how nice and sophisticated this looks versus taking the same type of design, putting it on and all of a sudden its whole different bracelet. So the bigger you do a sophisticated design - the more edge it will create and the smaller you do - the more refined it will come out. So that’s one thing cool.
VIALUXE:
I noticed some of your bracelets taper down. Why is that?
SCOTT KAY:
When you want to wear a wide bracelet on top it could be very uncomfortable on top - like I am wearing a 35mm ring right now but it’s very comfortable on my hand because its only 8 or 10mm underneath. When you wear a tapered bracelet like this - it is very hard to make - you can only make it by hand. It’s wide on the top and its narrow underneath so it’s very comfortable for me to wear and its actually lower as well – it’s not quite as high. So just as an FYI for everyone outside – that’s why I make things in a certain manner – it’s because of these reasons. You can go as wide as you want.
VIALUXE:
You have a bit of a celebrity following. Why do you think these folks gravitate toward the Scott Kay brand?
SCOTT KAY:
I think a lot of people come to me because they don't like to wear mass. I think they are artists in their own right depending on what they do. So they look for things that are unique - that have a point of differentiation for somebody that has more of an artistic appreciation and I think that’s where their connection has always been an artist to an artist for the most part and there are different types of celebrities. There is the theater, there is music, and then you can have basically sports people that are very well known. I tend to really connect with the people in the theatrical world and then some in the music world and lastly the sports arena.
I really do have an appreciation for the people in the theatrical world because I really admire the different characters and things that they find themselves getting into - the same way a designer - I put myself into different periods of time - and then adapt myself around that.
More about Scott Kay:
Scott Kay Jewelry
Scott Kay News
READER’S COMMENTS
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