Transcript
Speaker: Hi everyone.
Speaker: Just a quick note before we get started, and I'm sorry for the audio quality, I'm on the road and literally talking in my cell phone right now.
Speaker: But if you use Instagram, there's a fun opportunity to get involved in the podcast right now.
Speaker: The magazine Antiques is starting up a hashtag called My Curious Object.
Speaker: And if you have an object in your life that's interesting, or that has a fascinating story behind it, or that's just plain wacky and weird, or fabulous and beautiful, you
Speaker: post it to Instagram with the hashtag mycuriousobject and tag at antiquesmag, and we're going to choose one of the most curious objects we see there and feature it on the podcast.
Speaker: I can't wait to see your posts.
Speaker: With that said, let's get started.
Speaker: I guess I think a lot about authenticity, and I know that that's sort of a social media buzzword, but I think it couldn't be more true when you think about, you know, the objects that we're surrounding ourselves with, to think about the craftsmanship and the history and the story and, you know, why it's important, why it should be important.
Speaker: Hello, welcome back to Curious Objects and the Stories Behind Them, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
Speaker: I'm Ben Miller, and today we're going to have a little talk about animals, specifically a zebra.
Speaker: Now, if you're wondering what a zebra could possibly have to do with this podcast, stay with me, because that is just one of the firsts in today's episode.
Speaker: Another first is that my guest today is younger than I am.
Speaker: And if you ever thought that millennials don't appreciate antiques in the arts, get ready to change your mind.
Speaker: Levi Higgs is the archivist and social media manager for the jewelry firm David Webb.
Speaker: Now, David Webb originated in 1948, so we're not talking about antiques, strictly speaking.
Speaker: But don't let that scare you off, because the values of awareness of the past alongside craftsmanship and artistry are very much alive in this 70-year-old firm.
Speaker: And they're also very much alive in Levi.
Speaker: I'm also going to take you on a little field trip to the David Webb workshop to hear about the process behind the jewelry,
Speaker: This episode was a lot of fun to put together and not just because we got to play with some very pretty objects, but also because Levi is a lot of fun to talk to and wears his enthusiasm on his sleeve.
Speaker: As always, if you're curious to see pictures of the objects that we're talking about, head over to themagazineantiques.com slash podcast.
Speaker: I definitely recommend checking that out.
Speaker: Also, don't forget to send me your feedback.
Speaker: I really enjoy hearing your thoughts about the podcast and your suggestions for future guests.
Speaker: So send those over to podcast at themagazineantiques.com.
Speaker: Our sponsor for today's episode is America's oldest auction house, Freeman's.
Speaker: Located in Center City, Philadelphia, Freemans has been telling the story of curious objects and collections since 1805.
Speaker: Today, Freemans believes in a unique standard of one-on-one service, and their tradition of excellence has benefited generations of private collectors, institutions, advisors, estates, and museums.
Speaker: Their spring sale season offered 14 successful auctions, 8 significant private collections, and 4 world auction records.
Speaker: freemans is currently inviting consignments of curious objects for their fall and winter auctions so head to freemansauction.com to find out more that's freemansauction.com let's do it um levi higgs thank you so much for being here i'm excited to talk with you about david webb thank you so much for having me i am hoping that you can give me a brief overview of the history of david webb um both the the man and the company
Speaker: So yeah, he was born in 1925.
Speaker: He was from Asheville, North Carolina in the south.
Speaker: He was a charming southern gentleman.
Speaker: And pretty early on, maybe 16 or 17 years old, he moved to New York City.
Speaker: And at that time, I think he knew that he wanted to work
Speaker: in jewelry he had an uncle back in the south that had done work with like souvenir ashtrays and he was a jeweler of some sort but it was more a little lower.
Speaker: Collectibles and something.
Speaker: Sure, yeah.
Speaker: And once David Webb got to the city he did work on 47th street a bit and there's a few years there where he's really sort of figuring things out but
Speaker: He founded his business in 1948 with the help of a backer named Antoinette Quilleray.
Speaker: She was a gregarious French woman who really helped him meet society women and get his foot in the door with the clients of New York City.
Speaker: So from there, it just really took off really fast.
Speaker: Yeah, really fast, right?
Speaker: Because pretty soon his jewelry was all over the covers of magazines.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Well said, because in 1950, two years after he founded the company, he had a cover of Vogue.
Speaker: I mean, he was 25 years old.
Speaker: So that's pretty meteoric, as we say.
Speaker: It took me a lot longer than 25 years to get my first Vogue cover.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: It's a tough gig these days.
Speaker: Now he was working at a time when some of us I think would think of the great jewelers of that period as mostly being European.
Speaker: Cartier had a shop in New York but a lot of their great jewels were produced in Paris.
Speaker: Same for Van Cleef and Arpel.
Speaker: We could go down the list.
Speaker: What was it like for an American jeweler working at that time to be in competition with these monster European houses?
Speaker: That's a good question.
Speaker: I feel like the sort of the antithesis to those huge companies was what he was doing.
Speaker: He was having this one-on-one conversation with clients.
Speaker: He was really listening to what women wanted and responding to that.
Speaker: And, you know, maybe that was a little more high touch than what other companies were able to provide.
Speaker: He was truly giving people what they wanted.
Speaker: So Webb himself was active as a designer for a couple of decades.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And then when did he pass away?
Speaker: So he passed away in 1975.
Speaker: But he had pancreatic cancer.
Speaker: It was very sudden.
Speaker: He passed away in December of 1975.
Speaker: We have photos of him in 1975 looking great and happy and in the workshop.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it really took New York City by surprise and his clients and his workshop, his business, everything.
Speaker: But he left so much behind and he had so much work done between 48 and 75.
Speaker: And that's what fills our archive.
Speaker: We have 40 to 50,000 original renderings and drawings and sketches that he left.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And after his death, what happened with the firm?
Speaker: After he passed away, his accountant and business partner, Nina Silberstein, she took over with her family and they ran it for the next 30-some years.
Speaker: And then in 2010, Mark Emanuel and Robert Sadie and our business partners, they took over the company.
Speaker: The current owners are really interested in going back to the original aesthetic, David Webb's sort of what he had when he was... The iconic styles.
Speaker: Exactly, the iconic styles, yeah.
Speaker: And that brings us to your two very important roles at the company, which are you're the archivist and also the social media manager.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: I'm, you know, my title at my own firm is director of research.
Speaker: So I feel something of a kinship with you over that.
Speaker: And I find nothing more exciting than digging through the history of old companies and seeing what they used to be up to.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: Describe to me what the David Webb archives are like.
Speaker: What do you have?
Speaker: We have a tremendous amount, and we're really lucky to have what we have because the company's only been through a few amount of iterations from his original ownership as he was alive that we didn't lose a lot.
Speaker: A lot of companies do lose the paper materials, the invoices, all that, but we have it all pretty much.
Speaker: So yeah, we have invoices, we have drawings, rendering, sketches, casting, moldings, everything.
Speaker: At least we think we have everything.
Speaker: And we have a magazine editorial that goes back to 1948.
Speaker: And I get to dig through it all and with the help of a colleague we digitize it and manage it and help the company sift through it.
Speaker: We're lucky that we have so much material that can inform how we move forward and we have style cards that are basically recipe cards for how to make every single piece that's ever been made.
Speaker: drawings that have never seen the light of day, that have never turned into jewelry pieces.
Speaker: They're just ideas still that came from David Webb's mind.
Speaker: So that's exciting to be able to think about how we can flesh those out or move them around and make them interesting.
Speaker: So I want to come back to some of the contents of the archive a little bit later.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But let's dive in right now into the curious object.
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: For this episode.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: So tell me about this piece and describe it for our listeners.
Speaker: Yeah, it's the David Webb Zebra bracelet.
Speaker: It's our most iconic animal bracelet.
Speaker: So it came out of the workshop in 1963.
Speaker: That's when it was originally designed, and that's when it came to fruition as well.
Speaker: So he had been working for 15 years or so at that point?
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: And, you know, through the 50s, we see a lot of really sort of...
Speaker: Not surprising jewelry, jewelry that fits in with a lot of other jewelry at that time, the sort of gold and diamond ladies who lunch jewelry.
Speaker: That's what I always call it.
Speaker: Maybe that's not the best way to call it, but that's what I call it.
Speaker: I mean, I'm thinking Mad Men, right?
Speaker: I mean, this is what Don Draper's wife would wear or would dream of wearing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So this, in fact, has been worn by, or I should say, zebra bracelets by David Webb have been worn by some pretty exciting people.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: It's probably our most popular animal design that we've produced over the years.
Speaker: So who is the most famous person?
Speaker: Well, my favorite one that I always like to talk about and share is Diana Vreeland.
Speaker: She was gifted one in the 60s right when she went to Vogue in 1963.
Speaker: And we have this amazing cover of Vogue that came out in 1964 that has an Irving Penn photograph as the cover.
Speaker: And there's a woman holding her hand sort of to her face.
Speaker: She's got a zebra ring on her.
Speaker: that goes perfectly in line with this bracelet.
Speaker: She's got black and white eyeshadow on and the typography on the word Vogue is black and white.
Speaker: So it's just Zoom, this moment of everything coming together, the typography and this cultural moment of the black and white graphic pattern, everything.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So an extremely compelling and cool color scheme, dynamic, high contrast.
Speaker: And Vreeland, well, I should say that it was in fact, it became such an iconic image that the David Webb logo is even a rendition of the zebra bracelet, right?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So zebra bracelet aside, celebrities have played a pretty prominent role in getting David Webb jewelry out into the world and in front of people's eyes.
Speaker: Who are some other luminaries who have been spotted wearing these pieces or buying and owning these pieces?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So some of our favorites to talk about, of course, Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie Kennedy, Doris Duke.
Speaker: I mean,
Speaker: pretty much any prominent name in the 20th century we can dig through our archives and find a great record you've just done a show with Doris Duke yes exactly related to it it's called designing for Doris it's up in Newport through November at the Rough Point mansion and it's it's a look at pieces that she had designed as well as juxtaposing architecture
Speaker: renderings that she sort of advised on to restore houses in Newport.
Speaker: So that was a great sort of venture for the archive to pair with the museum and do some work that way curatorially.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's a fun synthesis of the sort of what we might think of as the dry, you know, dusty old archival work alongside the sort of dynamic and sexy celebrity representation.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: And even today we have, you know, amazing celebrities who wear us on the red carpet.
Speaker: We have...
Speaker: Amy Adams and Emma Stone and Sofia Vergara.
Speaker: You know, great ones like Reese Witherspoon and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Speaker: We catalog these as well in the archives so that, you know, even our current red carpet material is for the ages.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: It's interesting to me.
Speaker: You know, my day job is in a business where celebrities no longer play a role in the way that perhaps they might once have.
Speaker: And so, you know, for me, this idea of celebrity as a sort of being on the cutting edge of
Speaker: fashion and style is rather unfamiliar.
Speaker: So I'm interested, I mean, how does David Webb as a firm see its relationship with its celebrity proponents?
Speaker: I think, you know, even from the founding of the company in 1948, it's always been, um, a piece of how he's operated and how he's been connected to society.
Speaker: They've been women that are captivating and powerful and they really have projected him forward to get more clients, get more notoriety to have his bold designs paired with these powerful women that, you know, it just, it's the perfect synthesis of bringing those two things together.
Speaker: So I'm interested in the role and the importance of animals in David Webb jewelry design.
Speaker: you know, as far as David Webb jewelry is, you know, to the extent that it's recognized in the world, I think animals are really the iconic form.
Speaker: And this also, in my mind, this comes back to this idea of what distinguished David Webb as a designer from a lot of his contemporaries.
Speaker: So we're talking about this zebra bracelet, but there are a lot of other animals that he used as inspiration too.
Speaker: Certainly.
Speaker: So why animals?
Speaker: What drew David Webb to animals?
Speaker: It's a good question.
Speaker: In our archive, we have a whole shelf of reference books and sort of inspirational material that David Webb had.
Speaker: when he passed away it was part of the company's, you know, records.
Speaker: So, so we, whenever we're giving tours, we always talk about this is David Webb's reference library.
Speaker: And in the reference library is this great book called the big book of wild animals.
Speaker: And it was published in 1954.
Speaker: Um, and it has these amazing illustrations.
Speaker: It's a super iconic book from the fifties.
Speaker: Obviously it wasn't a children's book that David Webb had when he was a child.
Speaker: It was an adult man when he had this book, but he's,
Speaker: Looking at it, there's a tremendously great page of zebras and giraffes running together in the savanna.
Speaker: A lot of his animals are African mammals, like big jungle cats and the giraffes and the zebras and elephants.
Speaker: So, you know, maybe he was inspired.
Speaker: Did he ever travel to Africa?
Speaker: That's a good question.
Speaker: I'm not sure because we don't have so much of the personal information about him.
Speaker: We don't really know that for sure.
Speaker: But he did spend his fair share of time at museums.
Speaker: Absolutely, yes.
Speaker: And so part of the reference materials are, you know, books on jade and books on...
Speaker: ancient cultures and there's a big encyclopedia of fancy rope work and knots.
Speaker: So he's getting all these ideas from all these different places.
Speaker: Animals specifically feel really sort of fun and whimsical, but
Speaker: but his designs aren't super silly in the way that maybe some other jewelers in the 60s were doing a little more fairy tale or a little more just childlike, I suppose.
Speaker: But his animals have sort of a regality to them.
Speaker: But they're also friendly.
Speaker: I think that's always the distinction that we make.
Speaker: It's interesting.
Speaker: I mean, they're...
Speaker: Some of them seem quite realistic.
Speaker: Sure, yeah.
Speaker: And others, not so much.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I mean, you see giraffes with zebra stripes.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Or, well, fantasy animals.
Speaker: We have some unicorns.
Speaker: We have dragons.
Speaker: We have... The chimera.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Winged horses and hippocampus, you know, like seahorses.
Speaker: Right, straight out of mythology.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then when he's rendering those in the hammered gold repoussé cuffs that we also do,
Speaker: you're bringing a mythological creature to an Etruscan-style gold hammering technique.
Speaker: And it's interesting.
Speaker: He was living and working very close not just to the Natural History Museum in New York, but also to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: And we've heard it told that he went there once a week and was constantly looking at things and inspired.
Speaker: So the zebra brace that came out in 1963...
Speaker: And then in 1964, he wins the Cody Award, and he accepts that award at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Speaker: And it was given to him by Gloria Vanderbilt.
Speaker: She was a friend and a client, and she was presenting it to him.
Speaker: And he won pretty much specifically for his work on animals, like animal jewelry specifically.
Speaker: So the materials that you often see in web jewelry, of course you see the same stones and the same metals as you find in any other jeweler's work.
Speaker: But there are differences, I think, in where the emphasis lies in David Webb pieces.
Speaker: That is, you know, you expect to see a lot of coral.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And a lot of enamel, as on this zebra bracelet, which is covered head to tail, literally in enamel.
Speaker: It's 18 karat gold.
Speaker: We do a tremendous amount of work with enamel.
Speaker: He really revived that, I feel like, in the 60s, effectively.
Speaker: And it's a huge part of what we continue to do today.
Speaker: We have one enamelist in our workshop that's right on Madison Avenue, and she does great work, of course.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, we, we do a lot of, as you mentioned with coral, you know, we have other hard stones like lapis or jade or rock crystal that are really iconic for us.
Speaker: Um, and we employ on staff, uh, people who can carve that and work at in a specific way to, to do carved animal bracelets as well, among other things.
Speaker: Um, you know, we do some work with diamonds of course.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: I see some on the zebra's head here.
Speaker: Yes, precious and semi-precious stones, but it's usually about color and big, bold gemstones, cocktail rings, that sort of thing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But generally, it seems like the emphasis lies more on the design rather than on the... Yes.
Speaker: You know, in contrast with like a Harry Winston, for example.
Speaker: Sure, sure.
Speaker: In David Webb, you don't see the...
Speaker: honking big rock set on a simple setting.
Speaker: I mean, they're there in the archive.
Speaker: If we wanted to pull that out, we certainly could.
Speaker: But we definitely focus on other things at the moment with high color, powerful design.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Let's take a quick break here.
Speaker: When we come back, we're going to dive into the craftsmanship side of the David Webb enterprise.
Speaker: I'm going to talk with Levi a bit about that, but also with one of the longtime jewelers at David Webb.
Speaker: So you can hear it from the horse's mouth.
Speaker: I also want to say a quick thanks to you for listening.
Speaker: I really appreciate all of your feedback, your ideas, the ratings and reviews that you leave on iTunes.
Speaker: Those really help us to get the word out.
Speaker: If you're enjoying the podcast, think about sending it to a friend.
Speaker: I really believe that the stories around these objects are universal.
Speaker: and that there's tremendous value for all of us in hearing them and learning about them and thinking about them.
Speaker: So it means a lot to me that you're taking the time to listen.
Speaker: And to those of you who are helping to get the word out and encourage more people to think about and listen to stories about these curious objects, thank you so much.
Speaker: Again, send your feedback to me at podcast at themagazineantiques.com.
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Speaker: Another subject that I'm interested in getting into with you a little bit, which has to do with the craftsmanship around these pieces and the production process.
Speaker: And I'm looking forward to, you've shown me around the workshop, which is a bustling place.
Speaker: And I'm excited to go back there and talk with
Speaker: one of your jewelers.
Speaker: But give me a sense, because jewelry manufacturer can take a lot of different forms and a lot of different companies.
Speaker: Take a piece like this bracelet, for example.
Speaker: Sketch out for me, what's the, give me a biography of this piece in terms of the
Speaker: process of crafting and producing it.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So this piece's birth certificate essentially is a drawing that we have in the archive that was hand done, hand sketched on a piece of paper with pencil, super rudimentary, but it's a great schematic of this piece.
Speaker: And that was done in 1963.
Speaker: But since then, we have, you know, the molds and we have the workshop on Madison Avenue, all under one house, one roof, I suppose.
Speaker: So, you know, it gets molded, it gets...
Speaker: it jumps around the workshop to different people who do different things to it, the enamelist or the stone setters or the polisher and you know some of the people who still work at David Webb have worked at David Webb for you know 50 some years.
Speaker: We have a polisher named Ray who
Speaker: polished Elizabeth Taylor's jewelry and worked with David Webb when he was alive.
Speaker: And some of the other members of staff have, you know, their fathers worked at David Webb.
Speaker: So I think you'll learn a little bit more about that once you go back and visit again.
Speaker: Well, for sure.
Speaker: And we were talking, you know, last week about how there's very much a feel of a family business, in part because literally families have worked there.
Speaker: You know, multiple members of families have been working there.
Speaker: So how many jewelers do you think had a hand in making this particular bracelet?
Speaker: Oh, good question.
Speaker: Maybe five or six.
Speaker: Yeah, from start to finish, that's sort of a rough guess.
Speaker: I try to know a little bit about what goes on in the workshop.
Speaker: It's super inspiring to go up there and see a piece at different stages of its life.
Speaker: I wanted to get a better sense of what this craftsmanship process actually looks like.
Speaker: So I went to the source, the David Webb Workshop, right above their retail space on Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side.
Speaker: This workshop is buzzing with activity.
Speaker: There are gemstones out by the dozen.
Speaker: There are tools that I don't even recognize.
Speaker: It's a loud and busy place, as you can hear.
Speaker: I was able to talk with the jeweler there who has really seen it all.
Speaker: Well, Lorenzo, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me.
Speaker: You're welcome.
Speaker: And I wanted to ask what your specialty is in the David Webb workshop.
Speaker: Well, there's a few of them.
Speaker: I do necklaces and bracelets.
Speaker: My specialty is bracelets, which is anything to do with animals.
Speaker: And how long have you been working at David Webb now?
Speaker: Since 1978.
Speaker: It'll be 40 years this September.
Speaker: Congratulations.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: And it was your father who brought you into work here originally.
Speaker: Yeah, my father's been working here since 1964, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker: And then he had to retire around 93, my dad.
Speaker: And you started here as an apprentice and then worked your way up, right?
Speaker: Yes, I started as an apprentice, picking up garbage,
Speaker: washing down the sinks, hanging out paper towels and towels, and do whatever else I had to do before I even sat down for a couple hours to work.
Speaker: That sounds pretty glamorous.
Speaker: No, it wasn't so bad.
Speaker: How have, over the course of the time you've been working here, 40 years now, technology has changed.
Speaker: I imagine some of the tools have changed.
Speaker: How has that affected your work, and how is what you do now different from what you did 40 years ago, aside from taking out the garbage and that kind of thing?
Speaker: Well, as far as tools, nothing has changed, really.
Speaker: I mean, I still got, like, tools that are 40 years old with me.
Speaker: I really don't buy them.
Speaker: But as far as the technology to making jewelry, the CAD department took over, which comes out a lot better now and a lot easier to assemble.
Speaker: Lorenzo told me that the zebra bracelet was actually one of his favorite pieces to work on at David Webb.
Speaker: And he described to me how, after decades of production, he and the other jewelers actually came up with a new and improved way of constructing the piece.
Speaker: The old connection used to be a little more difficult.
Speaker: Not difficult, but it didn't do anything for the bracelet because if a piece of the bracelet itself, on the zebra especially,
Speaker: If a piece broke in the middle of the bracelet, we would have to take the whole bracelet apart just to get to that point.
Speaker: But now, in the 90s, we had an idea of making screws and tubings into the bracelet.
Speaker: So you can just screw the piece that you want to replace or repair.
Speaker: So it's more of a modular...
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Kind of structure.
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: And this change with using a different kind of screw, is this the only change in the way that the zebra bracelet is made?
Speaker: That's the only thing we changed about it.
Speaker: Everything else is still the same from back in the 1960s.
Speaker: Lorenzo told me that he only works on a small number of pieces at a time, maybe one or two in a day.
Speaker: Still, he's been working long enough to have made a lot of zebra bracelets.
Speaker: I would say maybe 100, 150 pieces I made of that one piece only.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And they're all out in the world now.
Speaker: Somewhere.
Speaker: Yeah, somewhere.
Speaker: Have you ever seen someone wearing one out in public?
Speaker: No, I never did.
Speaker: Never did.
Speaker: I wish I did because I would have said, you know, I made that.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, keep your eyes open.
Speaker: Yes, I will.
Speaker: Well, Lorenzo, thanks so much for talking to me.
Speaker: You're very welcome.
Speaker: I want to move us onto a subject that's a little more personal, which is to say, you know, I think that part of the reason that I even know that you work at David Webb and that you exist, the reason that I found you in the first place has a lot to do with
Speaker: your presence in social media, your presence online.
Speaker: You're a very active promoter of jewelry, decorative arts, the history of craftsmanship.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And as someone who's fairly socially media stunted, as I am.
Speaker: That's not true.
Speaker: Well, we don't need to get into that.
Speaker: But it is, you know, it's impressive for me to see the way that you are bringing these pieces and these ideas and these concepts out into the world and in front of people who might not
Speaker: Otherwise be exposed to them.
Speaker: And, you know, I'm very interested in this idea of being an evangelist around these things.
Speaker: One particularly, you know, well, there are a lot of people these days who are concerned about new generations of collectors and enthusiasts and so on.
Speaker: So what do you think, what are people of our generation, we're both young guys, what are our compatriots?
Speaker: What is our cohort motivated by?
Speaker: What brings them into this world?
Speaker: You know, it's a really good question.
Speaker: I guess I think a lot about authenticity, and I know that that's sort of a social media buzzword, but I think it's
Speaker: couldn't be more true when you think about you know the objects that were were surrounding ourselves with right now in in this very room as we record to to think about the craftsmanship and the history and the story and you know my background is in decorative arts and design history and i just think about context every day all the time right i think you know if you're in if you're a young interior designer i don't think you can make informed choices unless you know
Speaker: you know, how a rug is going to sort of translate across time to people in the room that you're creating.
Speaker: I mean, that's for any field.
Speaker: That's for tons of different sort of ways of thinking.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So yeah, in my personal Instagram, I've always tried to tell stories that give context and that talk about where things come from and how, you know, especially jewelry and, you know, why it's important, why it should be important.
Speaker: And I don't necessarily think I'm
Speaker: preaching to just a young audience.
Speaker: I think there's a lot of different people that are interested in that sort of thing that you can educate.
Speaker: I do forget sometimes that people older than us are on social media.
Speaker: Sure, of course.
Speaker: And I run social media at David Webb too and that's something that we think about all the time.
Speaker: What's the client want to see and how can we tell the story of the brand through that medium?
Speaker: Because to be an archivist and a social media manager, I always say it's all storytelling.
Speaker: Sure, right, right.
Speaker: it fits together perfectly honestly.
Speaker: Do you wear jewelry?
Speaker: I do.
Speaker: I wear a David Webb nail bracelet every day.
Speaker: I'm wearing it right now.
Speaker: And it's part of our tool chest nail collection from 1971 that we revived a few years ago.
Speaker: And it's a unisex line so I love it.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: That's going to wrap us up for today.
Speaker: Thanks for listening.
Speaker: And a big thank you to Levi Higgs and to David Webb.
Speaker: I'll just remind you once more to send your feedback to podcast at themagazineantiques.com.
Speaker: Don't forget to subscribe and to leave a rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening right now.
Speaker: Today's episode was produced and edited by Sammy Delati.
Speaker: Our music is by Trap Rabbit.
Speaker: And I'm your host, Ben Miller.
