Jennifer Fisher Jewelry (Interview)

A trip to Jennifer Fisher's Soho studio is like a trip to Candy Land — and the designer, herself, is like your fairy godmother, albeit the kind that wields amazingly edgy and awesome studded gold cuffs and jeweled skull cocktail rings instead of sweets. If you haven't yet heard of the insanely talented jewelry designer — whose celebrity clientele reads like a who's who of Hollywood and includes A-listers like Jennifer Aniston, Charlize Theron, Miranda Kerr, and Sheryl Crow (who just sported Fisher's jewels at the Tonys) — consider this your formal introduction. Fisher welcomed us into her studio with open arms – then opened up the jewelry cases, giving us free reign to try on her cool-girl collection and revealing just how she began her career as one of the hottest up-and-coming designers in her field. Read on to get to know our latest designer crush and her gorgeous collection of baubles.

FabSugar: How did you get started designing jewelry?

Jennifer Fisher: I was a wardrobe stylist for film and TV before I made my first piece. I ended up being diagnosed with a really rare sarcoma in 1998, and I was dating my husband here in NY and flying back and forth from NY to LA, working on jobs and going through chemotherapy at the same time for this tumor. Work saved me. After we got married, we wanted to have a child, but my oncologist didn't want me to . . . Long story short, it was a really long journey to get to have my son.

When he was born, I wanted something cool to wear with his name on it, and there was nothing out there. It was all very generic, and I didn't want to look like everybody else. I wanted something that felt heavier and edgier and had some grit to it and some substance.

So I went out and sourced how to make these tags and started making them, just with his full name on a long chain, and people started stopping me on the street and asking me to make them, and that's sort of how it started. And then other pieces, oh, you know, 'Will you make me this?' And it just started growing into 1,000 different options of charms now.

FS: Do you have a specific girl in mind when you're designing?

JF: No, it's funny — I don't design seasonally, although I'm starting to sort of have to, now that I'm in stores. I started designing wanting something sort of different, so in designing pieces, I sort of go for what I feel like wearing. I think trying to worry about what everyone else is doing sets you up for failure. It's not really designing for someone in mind so much, but more what I want to wear that week or that day.

Someone always says to me, 'What season is this from?' But I wanted pieces you would wear in Fall and Summer, and pieces you don't get sick of after a year. I try not to be too trendy, and that's why I don't work with stones too much or with color. I really like the metal base because I feel like it's timeless.

FS: What's up next for Jennifer Fisher?

JF: I'm working on these larger statement things and working toward more earrings — I'm really into earrings right now! – more heavy necklaces, because that's the one thing that's lacking. I was so into bracelets when I started the line that now I want to go into earrings more. It was really bracelets and rings to begin with, and now I want to do big necklaces, charm bracelets on a really heavy level. It's fun! I'm also working on a collaboration, but it's not finalized yet.

It's fun to grow and to see what this has turned into from this little thing. It's fun to create what you want to create and to have people on the street that I don't know wearing it — that's the most amazing thing in the world.

FS: If you weren't a jewelry designer, what would you be?

JF: Growing up I always wanted to be a plastic surgeon. I have such a crazy, type-A, detail-oriented personality that that's something that I would love to do.