Charlotte Moss Raids P.E. Guerin's Vast Archive for a Jewelry Line

Behind an unassuming hardwood door on Jane Street in New York's West Village is an outfit whose presence is a rarity in Manhattan: a full, multi-floor metal foundry and finishing studio, the headquarters of P.E. Guerin. The building is also home to some 160 years of history, saved both in the company's time-tested technique and, more literally, in an archive room, where stacks of drawers and boxes hold thousands of vintage metal pieces.

"I just love being in that archive," gushes Charlotte Moss. "It's so rich. You could just close the door and leave me there!" Over the past few years, Moss has become deeply familiar with the archive, as she partnered with P.E. Guerin on a line of jewelry, a first for the company, which is a go-to source for fittings and fixtures among top designers.

The idea for a jewelry line was a long time coming, says vice president Martin Grubman. It all began when Grubman saw a series of key necklaces released by a certain jewelry company. I thought, ‘Those are awful!’ And we have great keys," recalls Grubman. To prove it, he and his team dug a few examples out of the archive, cast them in sterling silver, and presented them as gifts to top customers and female employees.

Fast-forward a few years and Moss—who had toyed with creating a jewelry line with Guerin years ago when she had a retail store, but the idea never came to fruition—ran into Grubman at a party. "We were talking and she noticed one of the employees with me was wearing her key, and she remembered we had sent her one. She said, 'I’d love to do a jewelry line.' I said, 'Well, I’m game!'"

And so, Moss again found herself elbow-deep in the treasure chest that is Guerin's archive, where she found plenty of inspiration. (When I tell Moss that, when I visited Guerin and saw the boxes full of metal pieces, I too thought that they’d make great jewelry, she replies, "Well of course, any girl with a soul would think the same!") The only problem: It was perhaps too much. "It was kind of going in all different directions," recalls Grubman. "We decided to narrow the focus to just the bracelets first."

"The cuffs are kind of a signature for me," explains Moss (who has taken to wearing on her own always-bedecked wrist two of the line's basket weave cuffs).

So, Moss settled on seven pieces, working with Guerin craftsman Jacqueline Edwards to determine which appliqués, ornaments, and galleries could actually be turned into bracelets of the correct size and shape (the aforementioned basket weave cuff, for example, is the result of doubling a gallery into one bracelet). The resulting debut line is an extraordinarily Moss-esque mix of classical reference and ornamental charm (and, according to both Moss and Grubman, there are likely to be more pieces rolled out down the line).

"I felt that the ones we have are a good mix," says Moss. "For instance, the double Lyre was historical and I love historical motifs, so that was a way of bringing history forward in a more modern and wearable way." Meanwhile, "I thought the Acanthus or the Sunflower, for some people who didn’t want something so historical, had wider appeal."

Though selecting the pieces was no chore for Moss, the creation process—all done in-house at Jane Street—was a learning process for the designer, and a fascinating one at that. "You really look to the craftsman to inform the piece," she says. "Because you could have these ideas, but they have to work. So the craftsmen really hold the reins."

Grubman agrees: "Having an ornament is one thing, but translating it into a cuff is another." Guerin's craftsmen expertly cast the shapes, filed them down, brazed them into bracelet form, chased them (the intricate process of fine-tuning cast forms with a minuscule hammer and chisel), and then polished and gold-plated them.

"It’s a real collaborative thing," Moss says of the creative process. "Because [the craftsmen] are constantly trying to figure out how to get the quality, how to make it work and bring it in at a price that makes sense. We’re all sort of in unison, and then we all come out of that process knowing so much more about what the other person does, which is really exciting."

"It's the same as when I go to North Carolina and I’m in a furniture factory listening to people there," she continues. "You learn to shut up and listen. You learn so much by listening to years of experience and expertise. I’m always saying to my staff, ‘Listening is a virtue.'"

For Moss, though, the design process isn't markedly different from her interiors work (when you have an eye for one thing, you have it for another). "I love it, I’m in the accessories business," she says. "But to me, it’s all the same—it’s an enhancement of one type or another. As far as design, I’ve done fabric, furniture, carpet, china, and I love it all. It all fits into the puzzle."

Cuffs retail for $2,400 and are available at charlottemoss.com

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