Old Becomes New

2010 Design Challenge: Repurposing an Art Deco brooch

By Tina Wojtkielo Snyder

DCbrooch“Recycling” or “repurposing” jewelry is a popular trend today. Customers bring you their old pieces or heirlooms they’ve inherited to be reworked into designs that suit their current tastes. For some, the motivation is financial: why sit on all that out-of-style gold when she can trade it in for a new piece that she’ll be proud to wear. For others, it’s sentimental: she wants to wear grandma’s wedding ring and retain its classic elegance…but it needs a few style tweaks to make it her own.

The MJSA Journal team was inspired to make this trend the basis for a year-long “Old Becomes New” design challenge. We asked nine jewelry designers to imagine they were approached with the Art Deco brooch/pendant pictured here (courtesy of auctionmarketresource.com), assuming the following scenario:


Amanda Tate is relatively new client of yours. She became a fan when you designed her engagement ring, and she’s since purchased a few of your pieces. Today she’s come to you with a very special project: She wants you to take her grandmother’s Art Deco brooch and recycle the components to create a piece that will better suit her contemporary taste but echo the style of the original. The ultimate outcome is something she can wear out on the town that goes with her wardrobe but still reminds her of her grandmother, who passed away just one year ago.


At 28, Amanda is just starting her career in the film industry. She and her husband recently purchased an apartment in the city and don’t have much disposable income. But Amanda is using some of the funds from her inheritance to pay for the re-styling. “Grandma would have wanted it that way,” she says.


Amanda chose platinum for her bridal set, but she loves both yellow and white metals. Although she’d prefer to don funky designer labels such as Betsy Johnson on a daily basis, her budget restricts her wardrobe mix to boutiques, department stores, and second-hand shops. Her style is eclectic and fun. She loves mixing and matching fabrics and colors to create unique looks.


Your mission is to take the components of this brooch/pendant and repurpose them into a new piece (or pieces) of jewelry that Amanda will love. You must use all of the gemstones in the original piece and at least the equivalent amount of metal (22.3 dwt). (You can use fresh metal of any type.) You may add gemstones, metal, or other elements, but you cannot exceed a budget of $1,500 (which is the cost of materials and labor).

Each month from January through September on MJSA Journal Online, we’ll feature one of the participating designer’s “re-visions” of Amanda Tate’s grandmother’s brooch, along with the designer’s explanation of the choices he or she made when re-styling the piece. At the end of the nine months of original designs, we’ll open the polls so you, our readers, can vote for your favorite piece. The winner of this year’s “Old Becomes New” design challenge will be announced in the December issue of MJSA Journal.

Click here for images of and specs on the original piece

Click here for the January featured redesign

Click here for the February featured redesign

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