About a decade ago, George Khalife, aka George the Jeweler, posted his first jewelry image to Instagram.
A custom jeweler in Detroit, he learned the business from his father, a Lebanese immigrant who built a jewelry empire, GoldCorp Inc., from his base in Oak Park, Mich. But unlike his father and most retail jewelers at the time, the younger Khalife recognized the power of celebrities long before the term influencer permeated social media.
“I started reaching out to celebrities early on,” Khalife tells JCK.
His first big get was the singer-songwriter and actress Christina Milian. “I had a friend of a friend that helped me get a piece of jewelry to her,” he says. “She then reached out to me: ‘Hey, I have your card here, I want to get something made.’”
In 2017, Khalife made Milian a custom gold nameplate and the two hit it off. “She started texting me, I started calling her,” he says. “We decided to collaborate and put together a jewelry line, House of Fine Gold, that she was the face of.”
Manufactured in Detroit, the pieces were shipped to Milian’s fans around the world. “She has 7.3 million followers on Instagram,” Khalife says. “That was a great eye-opening, door-opening experience. After that, I was able to reach out to different celebrities.”
Now, after seven years of serving celebrity clients, Khalife continues to create custom jewels for the rich and famous (not long ago, he made a custom paw-print pendant for Khloe Kardashian to memorialize her dog and “the most surreal moment was seeing her give Kendall the pendant on Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” he says. “It was kind of a ‘Look, mom, I made it’ moment”).
But he’s also growing his “regular client” business by reading the trend tea leaves.
“When we get to colder seasons, you really start to see a shift in jewelry,” Khalife says. “More diamonds start coming out. I also feel like all these layered necklaces are being put away for bigger statement pieces. I’m seeing tennis necklaces going shorter up to 14 to 15 inches, lots of tennis bracelets, and thicker hoops for sure.”
The aesthetic this fall is “bigger, bolder gold pieces,” he says. “There’s a time and place for layers. In summer, you’re on the beach and you want to layer your necklaces—that’s fine. But in wintertime, that look is harder to maintain because we’re wearing sweaters.”
Khalife is also seeing a strong push for custom nameplates or initial pieces. “People like to have things that are individual, that nobody else has,” he says. “And I’m seeing a lot of green. I had somebody ask me for a tsavorite ring recently. Yellow gold and green gems—oooh, it’s such a beautiful combination.”
Top: Custom diamond name necklace in 14k gold with diamonds, $1,699; George the Jeweler
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