One-of-a-Kind Jewels Will Move the Needle This Season

By Victoria Gomelsky | August 07, 2024

In 2017, designers Lauren Wolf and Rebecca Overmann surveyed the fine jewelry landscape and came to the conclusion that the trade shows they’d participated in, such as NY Now, weren’t cutting it for them.

“We realized we couldn’t be next to sock vendors,” Wolf tells JCK. “We knew that we needed a tighter edit. So we said, ‘Let’s do our own show.’

“It wasn’t this ambitious idea like, ‘Let’s grow to be this big trade show,’” Wolf adds. “It was just like, ‘Let’s offer a different platform for designers’ needs.’”

This week, the accidental trade show organizers are presiding over the latest edition of the event they cofounded, Melee the Show, taking place Aug. 7-9 at the Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan. The biannual show, which has spawned sister events in Tucson and Paris, welcomes some 80 designers, not including Wolf and Overmann.

“August is a really popular show for us, so there’s not room for Rebecca and I both to have our designs,” Wolf says.

What buyers will find is an abundance of one-of-a-kind designer jewels, primed for holiday shoppers.

From pieces featuring unusual gems (check out Erika Winters’ aqua-colored Montana sapphire pendant, or the signet ring with green diamond by British jeweler Ellis Mhairi Cameron) to statement styles such as the two-tone Emanuela Duca necklace or citrine-studded Vines earrings by Laurie Kaiser, the selection at Melee is geared to retailers seeking the kind of jewels that can’t be found anywhere else.

But don’t forget: You snooze, you lose.