LINKS TO THE PAST
IMAGINE the contents of your grandmother’s jewelry box spilled out, restrung in playful combinations -- and resurfacing in runway shows and exclusive boutiques, and on the necks and arms of Cate Blanchett and Ashley Judd, environmentalist Majora Carter, even the Seattle punk band Blood Brothers.
That pretty much traces the career of Lisa Salzer, the New York designer who founded the Lulu Frost jewelry line after graduating from Dartmouth just three years ago. Salzer, who studied art history and studio art, takes vintage pieces and resurrects them, using charms, stones and pieces of chain from older jewelry, and sometimes combining them with more unusual objects. Her pieces can include watches without hands, the metal tags from crystal bar sets, hinges from old doors, vintage keys and -- most famously -- the room numbers from old hotels.
“I bought all the room numbers,” says Salzer of the Plaza Hotel’s 1907 bronze fixtures. She used them as pendants, hanging from whimsical vintage chains, in her Spring 2006 collection. They caused a sensation, and sold out quickly. (Salzer makes replicas, available for $300, at www.lulufrost.com.)
She went on to collaborate with designers, such as Alexander Wang, creating earrings made of fluorescent plastic disks and vintage brass chains for his fall ’07 collection, and Chris Benz, collaborating on his spring ’08 show with necklaces made of Rwandan beads and vintage bits.
Among her inspirations are Alber Elbaz of Lanvin and Consuelo Castiglione of Marni -- but no one more than her own grandmother, Elizabeth Frost.
“I like to combine decades,” says Salzer, 24, of her vision for her designs, as well as the company she named for her grandmother, who was an estate jewelry buyer. “It’s like collage.”
No surprise then that Salzer says some of her most satisfying work is when she is commissioned to create custom pieces out of family heirlooms.
“People will go through their drawers and bring me things, from their heirlooms to a lost earring,” she says. “I get an insight into someone’s family history.”
On a recent trip west, Salzer demonstrated her technique in a West Hollywood studio, showing how she turned a slightly gaudy daisy brooch into an unusual and utterly compelling bracelet. It was disarmingly simple. But behind the basic mechanics is a refined aesthetic: Salzer has a terrific eye, combining different kinds of chain in the same piece to vary the textures of the jewelry, intertwining ribbon, juxtaposing periods and contexts of the baubles that she strings together.
“Before I started making jewelry, I didn’t think I could take things apart,” Salzer says. Deftly working with a pair of jeweler’s pliers, she took lengths of chain and attached them to the brooch, using circular jump rings to connect the pieces and a lobster clasp to hook the piece together. In just a few minutes, she was finished.
“It’s recycling,” says Salzer, fingering a gorgeous necklace she’d fashioned from an antique compass and a few keys. Another necklace held a delicate but long-defunct watch, its hands and crystal missing and as timeless as Quentin Compson’s.
Salzer now mostly sources her pieces from dealers and estate sales, but she started in flea markets and still routinely canvasses them for treasures. She’s quick to point out that if you don’t have an old box of heirlooms, you can use costume jewelry, metal chains, trinkets found in yard sales, even hardware stores.
“And they make the greatest gifts,” Salzer points out.
A few lengths of vintage chain, a solitary earring, a brooch from a different era, a mysterious brass key: You have everything you need to reinvent an heirloom from a past generation.
Or create one for the next.
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HOW TO MAKE A BRACELET FROM AN OLD BROOCH
Adapted from Lisa Salzer of Lulu Frost
Time: About 30 minutes
Materials: A brooch or pin, about 9 inches of vintage chain (depending on the size of the brooch and the wrist), one lobster clasp, four large and one small jump ring (use brass or sturdy metal jump rings, not the softer silver or gold), jewelry wire cutters, jewelry file, jewelry flat-nosed pliers.
Note: Clasps, jump rings and tools can be found at jewelry supply or arts and crafts stores, such as Michael Levine, Michaels and Bella Findings House.
1. Find a brooch with a hole or opening on each side. Cut the pin off the back using wire cutters. File the rough spots with a jeweler’s file until smooth.
2. Cut the chain into four pieces, each about 2 inches long. If desired, reserve a 1-inch piece for the clasp.
3. Using the pliers, open the four large jump rings and thread them through the holes in the brooch, two on each side. Add the chain sections onto the rings. Using the pliers, bend the rings back into place to secure the chain sections.
4. Connect the loose ends of the two chains on the right side of the bracelet with the lobster clasp’s ring. Bend the ring into place to secure.
5. Connect the ends of the two chains on the left side with the small jump ring and, if desired, add another inch of chain to use with the clasp. To wear, hook the lobster clasp through the jump ring or the chain.
