David Yurman
David Yurman: Unparalleled Craftsmanship
David Yurman Inc. designs high-end jewelry. It is still owned by the Yurman family, based out of New York City. Currently, they have almost 20 American boutiques and four in three different cities around the world.
The Founder
David Yurman grew up on Long Island in New York state. When he was still just a teenager, he expressed his artistry by making sculptures and selling them in his high school cafeteria. He met Ernesto Gonzales, a welder and sculptor, while on a visit with his sister in Provincetown, Massachusetts. With the help of Gonzales, he honed his skills, refining his natural talent for sculpting.
Art became the focus of his life. He apprenticed himself to a pair of talented sculptors, Theodore Roszak and Jacques Lipchitz. Of the pair, Lipchitz was particularly famous – he frequently worked with Modigliani and Picasso. Following his dreams of artistry, Yurman left New York Univeristy after one year to hitchhike to the west coast. In California, he stayed for a time in a beatnik colony in Big Sur.
At the close of the 1960s, Yurman returned to his native New York to stay in Greenwich Village, where he did some work with another sculptor, Hans Van de Bovenkamp. While working with this sculptor, he met a painter, Sybil Kleinrock, who had also just returned from California’s beatnik community. Sybil would eventually become Yurman’s wife.
The couple attended an art event, to which Sybil wore one of David’s pieces. The gallery owner was so enthralled by the jewelry, he asked if he could buy it. While David would never sell something so personal to him, it sparked an idea in Sybil’s mind. They moved out to the countryside and created Putnam Art Works. Both of them would show their work at craft fairs, making a living that way. They learned the jewelry and crafts business, laying the foundation for what would later by the David Yurman brand.
David Yurman, Inc.
David Yurman Inc. was established in 1980, where he would create what would become the iconic David Yurman creation – the cable bracelet. This was metal twisted into a helix with gems on the end. His other famed collections include the Buckle Collection, the X Collection, and Silver Ice. The company produced some truly beautiful jewelry and watches, as well as an eyewear collection.
The time had come for them to create a fragrance to match their elegant jewelry designs. David and Sybil looked for the perfect way to introduce their first fragrance. In the end they turned to the same perfumer who created Ralph Lauren Romance and CK One, Harry Fermont. The David Yurman fragrance became their latest jewel in August 2008.
The signature fragrance is different from most others. Standard perfumes unfold, like a blossoming flower, first displaying the top, then the middle, and finally those scents toward the end that linger. The scents of David Yurman’s fragrance are woven together, like fine cloth, each note wrapped around the other, so they can all be experienced at once. It contains a touch of citrus fruitiness in mandarin, green notes of black currant leaf and petals, and a floral bouquet of water lily, peony, and rose otto. Exotic woods, patchouli, and musk give it a sensuous fullness.
The creative director of the company, David Lipman, created the bottle. To represent David Yurman, Inc, the bottle is shaped like a sparkling gemstone, made of brilliant Italian crystal. It is capped with woven gold, much like the Yurman Cable Collection. Even the neck is distinctively Yurman, made into the distinctive shape of their popular wedding bands.
Creativity in all things runs in the Yurman family. David and his son Evan created a new collection in 2009 – the Classic Collection of fine watches. These come in Chronograph, Moon Phase, or Three Hand options. And naturally, the iconic cable design adorns the outside of every watch case.
Compared to some jewelers and watchmakers, like Chopard, David Yurman, Inc. is just in its infancy in the watch business – but what a promising start it has had. The Yurmans have already made their mark in the jewelry business and in the fragrance business. Now that a new generation is coming to the fore, it is only a matter of time before the world will see what new innovations will come out of David Yurman, Inc.