Three trays of tiny gems are scattered atop Suzy Landa’s desk as she prepares to head from New York City’s jewelry district to Nashville, Tenn., for a trunk show. The array of rubellite and amethysts provides a perfect introduction to this designer’s one-of-a-kind, rainbow-bright fine jewelry. For Landa, everything starts with the stones: perfectly matched green tourmaline on her best-selling knife-edge hoop earrings; a boulder opal pendant surrounded by tiny bezel-set diamonds; a trio of flawless chartreuse peridot on a show-stopping ring. This is seriously beautiful jewelry, but the woman who makes it insists that her statement pieces are meant to be worn every day.
“I love the gem hunt, I love putting color combinations together, and I love the look on someone’s face when she puts on one of my rings and says, ‘There’s no way I can go home without this,’” Landa says. Now entering her 20th year in the business, she’s built a loyal clientele by remaining true to her colorful vision, even though her jewelry is available at fewer than 30 stores nationwide and is not for sale on her website.
Instead, she hits the road to sell her work at trunk shows hosted by her retail store partners, makes pieces for private clients, and responds to queries from her 34,000+ Instagram followers. It’s an unusual business model that works for Landa, who employs two bench jewelers. Asked how someone living in Manhattan might access a few stackable pink sapphire rings, she laughingly responds, “Come hang out with me.”
She’s kidding, but not really. Landa exudes warmth and an utter lack of pretension, chatting about her work while clad in jeans and a T-shirt, her salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a ponytail. The only “tell” that she’s a jewelry designer is her perfectly manicured pale pink nails, which appear in social media posts photographed by her husband. Landa’s easygoing attitude stems in part from the fact that she had a successful career as a movie producer and talent scout for Paramount Pictures before a friend gifted her with a metalsmith class. Her first small collection of “pretty things” won a 2004 Rising Star award from the jewelry trade organization JCK, and by the end of that year, she was ready to turn her hobby into a business.
A native of Los Angeles, Landa credits her mother, now 86, for passing along a love of color. “Every door in our house was painted a different jewel tone,” she recalls. “The four of us kids teased our mom, saying ‘Why do we have to live in a nursery school?’ Everything was bright, bright, bright.” Landa’s mother favored sculptural, unusual jewelry. “She was not fussy or fancy at all, and I’m not either. I sometimes get in the way of a sale if I feel like someone is thinking of a piece as something to be worn at their son’s wedding and then put in a safe. I want you to dress it down and wear it with a leather jacket.”
Despite her casual demeanor, Landa decided from the get-go that her jewelry would be crafted from the most perfect gems available, set in 18k gold with a warm satin finish. “I aimed for the stars,” she says of her initial pieces, “because I thought my audience would be more consistent that way. My goal has always been to appeal to a woman who is buying for herself.” She enjoys crisscrossing the country, meeting customers who sometimes travel great distances to see her work in person. “If a store has 20 pieces of mine in a showcase, they can say, ‘You like these? She’s coming next month, and she’s going to bring 400 pieces.’ It’s the greatest focus group ever.” One client in Iowa regularly buys Landa jewelry from Benold’s in Austin, Texas, a store she’s never set foot in. Others find themselves willing to spend an average of $8,000 on a ring or earrings when Landa is on hand to talk about the “clean, pristine” stones she sources from just a handful of dealers.
The uniqueness of her jewelry helps her label hold its own in a crowded field of designer fine jewelry as well as heritage brands such as Van Cleef & Arpels and Tiffany. “I’ll never be able to compete with those names, and I don’t need to,” Landa says. “I always say there are two kinds of jewelry shoppers: There’s the person who buys a bracelet because 12 of her friends have it, and there’s the person who would never buy a bracelet that 12 of her friends have.… I never wanted to follow the herd. I appeal to someone with her own sense of style.”
Stylish, yes, but never trendy: “When a magazine editor tells me that something I made is ‘right on point,’ my first reaction is, ‘Oh no!’” Landa says with a laugh. “I want you to love that earring as much in 10 years as you love it today.”
In an industry filled with copycats, Landa continues to follow her instincts in a quest to make collectible fine jewelry. “It’s always something I love,” she says of her flower motifs and pear-shape pendants. “I understand that these are special purchases, and I’m grateful every single time someone responds to my pieces.”
All jewelry by Suzy Landa
