Alluring emerging jewelry brands you've never heard of

From MAD About Jewelry's 2025 exhibition.

Last week, along with the Met Gala exhibition preview, Frieze and every other spring event under the sun, I attended the 25th anniversary of the Museum of Arts and Design’s MAD About Jewelry. At a private lunch, the donors and museum team were completely decked out in wildly good art jewelry. Think: swanning floral printed gala gowns and little white shirt dresses with huge rainbow cubist necklaces, or rare sterling brooches from the midcentury modernist jeweler Art Smith.

The annual event selects 50 different emerging and acclaimed jewelry artists from around the world to present in their shoppable pop-up exhibition, showcasing everything from sculptural chunky sterling silver bracelets to massive necklaces made out of recycled bottles and hand-painted miniatures with a victorian gothic vibe. And trust me, as someone who collects jewelry, it’s good. As someone who shops (and writes about) a lot of emerging brands, the craftsmanship of the majority of the brands showcased was also exceptional.

If you like weird and unusual jewelry that is huge, takes up space and has presence—this is for you.

Having lived in New York for over a decade, I’ve never seen so much interesting and inspiring jewelry from brands I’ve never heard of in one room. And prices ranged from about $50 to upwards of $12,000. The work reminded me of the kinds of pieces collected by iconic costume jewelry style icons of the past, like Diana Vreeland or Iris Apfel. Each piece truly felt so special, unique and so personal.

I took home this incredible hand-blown chunky Murano glass bracelet from Studio Vero Vetro in Tuscany. I love how big it is, and it reminds me of Grapefruit Brûlée. I wore it styled with my Dollchunk rings.

Studio Vetro Vero bracelet, with rings from my brand Dollchunk

While this year’s MAD About Jewelry is over, here are just a few of my favorite new jewelry artists I discovered while there.