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Fifteen years after launching his namesake jewellery business, Eddie Borgo is starting over, in a sense. The designer picked the whirlwind of Paris Fashion Week to unveil a first fine jewellery collection called The Palms — 10 limited-edition jewels made of recycled gold, some with GIA-certified vintage diamonds. And, the brand name is Edward — not Eddie — Borgo.
The timing couldn’t be better. Global sales of fine jewellery are on a roll, predicted to rise by 6.5 per cent a year to top $85.8 billion by 2032, according to research firm Future Market Insights. The category is showing no signs of slowing down despite broader concerns that the luxury market’s post-lockdown surge is over.
Borgo was happy with the initial reaction. “It was so gratifying, and I haven’t had a feeling like that for a very long time,” the designer says during a Zoom interview from his studio in LA. “I was nervous. I was [also proud] because I created it on my own, financed it on my own, and on my own terms.”
The Palms is targeted at a new category of clientele happy to spend, whether longtime followers who now have deeper pockets or “collectors in places we never thought about before” in fashion-adjacent destinations such as art fairs or exclusive tropical resorts. While palm trees are the salient feature in LA, Borgo notes that he chose the motif for its symbolic resonance across history and cultures and because it lends itself well to studies of movement.
To replicate that feeling in jewellery, Borgo has spent five years — and an estimated $250,000 — collaborating with his longtime right hand, Brooklyn-based industrial designer Nathaniel Deverich, and local ateliers in LA to develop a new process. As a result, The Palms shapes are produced flat, “like a pressed flower in a book”, and then hand-sculpted into one-of-a-kind pieces whose curled fronds appear windblown or are coaxed into prongs for gemstones.
To source them, a contact at the Natural Diamond Council connected Borgo with a respected dealer of vintage and antique stones, who supplied him with pear, marquise, and tapered cuts dating from the 1920s to 1940s.
“I knew from a responsibility perspective I didn’t want to use new mined diamonds,” the designer explains. A consultancy with a lab-grown diamond brand led him to eliminate that water and energy greedy option. “We have enough in the world: why are we mining new diamonds, and why are we creating new things? I find diamonds that have been cherished by someone else in another lifetime really beautiful,” he says.
Early success — but at a price
It’s a long way from where he started, and where he left off. Following the launch of Borgo’s namesake geometric and punk-inflected line in 2008, life happened at warp speed: in 2010, he received the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Award and $100,000; 2011 brought the CFDA Swarovski Award for innovation in accessory design and the $100,000 Vogue Tiffany Grant.
However, although the early years were flush, behind the scenes Borgo was battling to maintain cash flow. He took on an angel investor, expanding from 10 employees to nearly 30 and trading up from a small studio to a larger space on Elizabeth Street in New York’s Nolita. Soon, the company was churning out four fashion jewellery collections per year, and as many for handbags.
“There had been a question at one point of doing fine jewellery or handbags, and the handbags won out,” the designer says. “In retrospect, I realise that was probably a mistake.”
High-profile collaborations followed. Borgo went low (with Target, in 2015), high (with a Legacy collection for Tiffany & Co in 2016, during Francesca Amfitheatrof’s tenure) and wide (in one of Victoria's Secret’s last blowout runway extravaganzas, staged at the Grand Palais in Paris in 2016, model Jasmine Tookes appeared wearing the $3 million Bright Night Fantasy Bra, a piece made of Borgo’s signature cones and pyramid studs, set with 450 carats of pavé diamonds and emeralds and crafted by fine jewellery brand A&W Mouzannar).
In between, he moonlighted for fashion brands including Burberry, Max Mara, Proenza Schouler, Marchesa and Altuzarra, as well as beauty and accessories companies. He knew that something had to give.
“I felt like the more I did, the more was required of me,” he recalls. “I remember being on a six-month travel schedule. It was not a sustainable way of life. I started thinking a lot about the amount of product we were producing seasonally and how fast things were moving,” he adds, noting that the department store system of markdowns, discounts and RTVs (returns to vendor) was something he no longer wished to engage with.
“I really wanted to get back to why we started in the first place, which was about my love for the history of adornment, a love of the history of jewellery,” he says. In 2017, Borgo quietly shuttered his business in New York, took a break and redesigned his life, switching coasts for LA and swapping out his trademark fedora for a beard.
“I realised there was another way I could live, and it didn’t have to be so focused on growth and commerce and satisfying an investor,” he says. “It didn’t have to be pushing a boulder up a hill and hoping for miraculous results.”
The LA story: Steady rebuild
Today, Borgo owns his fashion jewellery business outright and is rebuilding slowly via personal relationships with specialty stores and direct-to-consumer sales through his website, where he says bestsellers include a crystal pavé safety chain choker ($750), chain link bracelet ($475) and vermeil cabochon teardrop hoop earrings ($395). Though the designer declines to provide specifics, he describes his jewellery business as “growing”, thanks to a new generation of consumers.
To maintain exclusivity, each Palm jewel will be reproduced no more than 10 times, with every piece and its packaging bearing a unique number, the designer says. Retail prices for the fine jewellery range are “intentionally high”, ranging from $15,750 for frond hoop earrings in yellow gold to $115,310 for a full frond ring clutching a 2.35-carat marquise-cut diamond. Mid-range jewels include frond earrings dripping with tiny dewdrop diamonds ($20,636) and a frond collar choker set with a half-carat teardrop diamond ($31,475).
After its debut in the jewellery salon at Bergdorf Goodman this week, The Palms will be available through just a handful of retailers, including A’maree’s in Newport Beach, Moda Operandi and The Webster’s South Beach store in Miami, where the designer will make a personal appearance during Art Basel Miami Beach (8-10 December). Building on the bespoke experience, Borgo will present retailers and customers with a menu of gemstones that can be used to customise the pieces.
The Palms collection has opened a new chapter for Borgo and paved the way for another, more accessible fine jewellery project that’s now in the works, with prices in the $10,000-30,000 range.
However, the designer hasn’t forgotten the lessons of his previous life. “Always wanting more is an American way of working, but I don’t agree with it. There’s a way you can survive without needing that,” he says. “I feel so much more confident now, and so much more secure. I know how cash flows look and why we’re spending the way we do. There are more responsible ways of moving forward, and I feel like I’m exactly where I need to be.”
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