Cryospace florida5/16/2023 ![]() ![]() (But more comes in regularly.) He has sold smaller pieces at Holt Renfrew for the past two years, but they may have slipped under most shoppers' radar. Priced from $45 for simple earrings and climbing into the several hundreds, Rehage's work sells fast. (The way that the stones are graduated in size in a necklace of blue Peruvian opal reveals that the clasp is meant to be worn, and show, at the side.) Clasps often have a wavelike form and are integral to the design. Sometimes Rehage's work has the black-and-white clarity of a winter landscape, as in a necklace of snowflake obsidian, onyx, and sterling beads, some faceted to catch the light. A necklace of big discs of blue-green chrysoprase, not solid colours but each in the melting hues of a watercolour painting: circles cut from Claude Monet water lilies. A five-strand necklace combines beads of chrysoprase, amazonite, and turquoise, all in the same colour family: sunlight on the Mediterranean. Rehage's signature four-strand bracelet may combine amethyst and fluorite, the latter being one of his favourite stones: "Its claim to fame is it comes in many colours," he says. As in nature, there are very few straight lines in his work, and, as in his upbringing, marine and beach influences come to the fore.īeads of icy-blue chalcedony are strung into a three-strand bracelet, of which two strands are translucent and the third is a different tone it's like the nuances in the early-morning sea. ![]() Rehage uses 950 silver (which is 25 parts per thousand more pure than standard sterling silver) from Mexico, in conjunction with a broad colour palette of semiprecious stones. Realizing he wanted to make a career of it, he began designing more sellable pieces. "My first pieces were very over-the-top, difficult to wear," he acknowledges. With a job at Gucci and several years of consulting on his résumé, he started his own company two-and-a-half years ago. Also traceable in his designs are a timelessness that likely stems from his year of art-history studies in Florence, and a modern urban awareness that comes from a stint in New York. He collected driftwood and shells, and his work today, he says, has that found-art aspect. Interviewed at the store, Rehage recounts how he grew up in Fort Lauderdale surrounded by a family that was interested in nature. ![]() Although he'll be venturing into gold this fall, it's the combination of semiprecious stones and silver that Rehage is acquiring a name for, as well as a design aesthetic that makes reference to the natural world in a modern, elegant way. This and his other trunk-show pieces are no longer available, but there's still plenty to like. And man, these were showstoppers, including a necklace of natural coral beads the size of gumballs interspersed with even bigger sterling-silver beads. His designs embrace both your inner boho (okay, a trust-fund boho) and your inner lady who wouldn't say no if someone offered her opera tickets.Ī resident of Florida, the peripatetic Rehage (pronounced "raj") was in Vancouver some weeks back to introduce his line and present one-of-a-kind pieces he had created for the Holt Renfrew opening in early June. This is indeed possible, as designer Steven Anton Rehage proves. But while they don't cost gazillions, turquoise and the like can still get into real money, so the next challenge is to source pieces that work their behinds off, that aren't so corporately uptight that their usefulness ends at 5 p.m., nor so ethnic that you couldn't wear them to work. There is a middle ground, and it's the semiprecious stone. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the faux stuff–that little $9.95 fix you get from Le Chí¢teau–is fun but its charm quickly disappears. Unless you're a hotel heiress or a bride-of-Brad, diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, and all those other glittery objects aren't within reach of your paycheque. ![]()
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