Style on Vivid Magazine - International Chinese Luxury and Style

STYLE

Haute for Hu

Fall 2009
Classically trained cellist turned jewel couturier Anna Hu creates one-of-a-kind masterpieces inspired by her love for music. June Chow Babtiwale reports.

Products Photographed by David Katz.
Store and Anna Hu images courtesy of Anna Hu Haute Joaillerie.

It is rare that an individual can turn on a dime, embark on a new career, and catapult upward along this new path with the same fervor, energy and commitment invested in her first profession. Anna Hu of Anna Hu Joaillerie didn't set out to be a jewelry designer initially, but an unfortunate shoulder injury early in her music career forced her to change course and pursue another passion that had long been brewing on the sidelines.

Today, at 32 years of age, Hu is known amongst her profession for her trademark designs, which incorporate musical elements, French haute joaillerie concepts and Asian aesthetics.

Originally hailing from Taiwan, Hu moved to the United States at age 14 to further her music studies at the prestigious Walnut Hill School and later, New England Conservatory of Music. Given Hu's musical talents, it is no wonder that many of her jewelry creations naturally reflect this influence. In fact, her work and her entire career path have been predicated on the whirlwind of different experiences she has had, both in her previous life as an aspiring professional musician, and her current one as a fine jewelry artist-designer.

Steady exposure to many of the most prominent names in the art and jewelry worlds enabled Hu to garner critical knowledge of her craft. From an internship at Christie's auction house in New York to merchandising and jewelry production stints at Van Cleef & Arpels and Harry Winston, Hu was able to broaden and refine her experience in the jewelry business. It was at Harry Winston that Hu met her mentor, renowned jewelry designer Maurice Galli, who was responsible for honing her skills and in part, instilling enough confidence for Hu to break out on her own and establish her own jewelry brand at a mere 29 years of age. Armed even further with two master's degrees in art history and arts administration from the Parsons School of Design and Columbia University respectively, Hu used her newfound perspective to take the jewelry arena by storm.

With such a formidable resume, one might expect Hu to be pretentious in her demeanor. Not so. She is matter-of-fact, with absolutely zero loftiness. On first impression, Hu's soft-spoken tone belies her steely determination and boundless ambition. Deeper conversation, however, unveils a palpable sense of pride and conviction; it becomes very apparent that, for Hu, excellence is a simply a way of life.

Early influences

"I was fortunate to have parents who would tell me, 'Do whatever you want with full passion and devotion.' For the first twenty years of life, I was actually trained as a professional cellist. During breaks, I would play with [my father's] rough and loose diamonds. So it was like I had a parallel life. I started to look at diamonds when I was eight years old. I remember one day, in the summer, I opened my daddy's office door and saw a pile of shiny rocks, which turned out to be diamonds. Daddy then said, 'Why don't you just sort them by color and shape?' So that's how I got started. [My parents] are so spontaneous and inspiring. They just let me explore, so I got inspired without being told that I'd have to get into the jewelry business. It was a very natural thing."

A perfect match: The Plaza Hotel in New York

"Before I started at the Plaza, I was working at Harry Winston. The head designer, Maurice Galli, told me that I was too wild to be in a big company. I needed to get out and start my own designs. So for about six months, I began taking on private clients in New York City. One of my customers was very connected to the Plaza, and she told me that there was retail space available. She said, 'You have to meet this Plaza director, because I think you are a perfect fit.' I didn't even take it seriously. The day I met Tony, who was in charge of the [Plaza's] retail development, I was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, like a college student. I brought my portfolio and a few of my pieces that were 100% French craftsmanship. He looked at everything and was extremely impressed, and, according to him, 'stunned' by the quality a Chinese-American designer could provide. He came from Bergdorf Goodman and had seen a lot of Hong-Kong made, or Asian-made jewelry designs, and he was like, 'How come your jewelry is so French-looking?' [To which] I responded, 'Well, it's because I got my training at Van Cleef,' so that's how all it came together. He was thinking that [amongst brands] like Van Cleef, Cartier, and Harry Winston, there was not yet an Asian name in international, high-end jewelry. The Plaza, at the time, was looking for an international, niche brand. So I said, 'Okay, show me the lease, and I will work on it,' and it just came naturally."

On her global outlook toward work

"The privilege of going overseas makes me feel like I am a bird. I'm able to fly and see different cultures. For example, the Plaza is like a little United Nations. You get to meet people from the Middle East, from Russia, pretty much every single nation. When I physically visit, for example, Paris, London and China, it's like a global village. I get to see each individual country's regions and tastes, their style and their fashion sense. And I design pieces according to what I see and observe. For example, I have Byzantium styles and Renaissance styles. Because I also studied art history, I have a deep educational background of understanding people and cultures, and my designs are made according to that custom."

On the connection between music and jewelry

"What makes me different than other artists is that I have a very deep, fundamental, solid background in classical music training. I look at jewelry like I'm composing music. For example, in music theory, there are three components: melody, harmony and rhythm. And melody is the Monetic line, the contour to music. I apply the same concepts to jewelry. If you look at all my jewelry, almost all of them have Monetic lines. They're never geometric, and they never have stiff lines…they're like a flow[ing] melody, very curvy, very free form. In terms of harmony, it's the relation between different gemstones. Think of the combination between diamonds and rubies, sapphires and emeralds. The colors match as if composing music…how each type of material, how each gemstone harmonizes with another to result in this smooth relationship. In terms of rhythm, I think of jewelry sculpture…the engineering, the technical part of jewelry. I could write a whole thesis about this… but basically, I apply music theory to jewelry design. It just works perfectly to me. My teacher, the head designer for Harry Winston, is the same. We are all opera fans; we love music, and we talk in another language that others find difficult to really understand. Somehow it just works for us."

On her unique approach to custom designs

"I never take any special orders unless I know the people, and we become close friends. Let me give you an example. I met with a customer who told me that she wanted something very symbolic and meaningful. I got to know the customer and her kids. I visited [her] home, [looked at her] wardrobe and [made note of her] favorite fashion designer. This customer told me that she wanted a pendant made of her own fingerprint. She is very wealthy and wanted to have something meaningful to leave to her offspring, so a fingerprint turned into [a piece of] jewelry was something she felt was unique and one-of-a-kind. I thought of Dali, who liked surrealistic heart shapes. Inside the heart shape, I put her fingerprint. I used rubies, which indicate passion and love and the heart…the color of blood. It was a very contemporary, modern piece. I could promise that nobody else had this original idea, as it was a one-of-a-kind piece. She just had to wait six months before it was finished. So this is what I do…I understand [my clients] first, then come up with designs that I feel are going to be preserved at museum-level. That's how I work with my customers, and that's why they love me."

On her style and favorite gemstones

"I only wear black, and I can go from very vintage to avant-garde modern, depending on the mood I am in that day. I don't really have a specific style – I'm like water. I like classical romanticism. These are two of my favorite styles – classicism and romanticism. I have several collections right now…Monet's garden collection, his Giverny collection, a modern Regina, and the Shangri-La Collection. My designs embody the opposite of trendy, fashion jewelry – I'm aiming for timeless art pieces. My favorite gemstones are diamonds and rubies. Diamonds mean purity, cleanliness and holiness. Rubies mean passion."

On the courage to go solo

"Even though I'm 32 years old, I would say that I have one of the most solid resumes. It's ten years of solid training, from GIA to FIT to Parsons and Christie's auction house, Van Cleef and Harry Winston. I have the resume of a 50-year-old. For instance, the GIA GG degree takes most people about a year to complete. It took me two to three months in one summer. I just work fast. I have the spirit of a 50 year old; I've never thought of myself as a young girl. I don't feel young at all."

Her interpretation of haute joaillerie

"That means 100% handmade. It's connected to us. It's one-of-a-kind. I shared with you my fingerprint project. It's like couture clothing. I don't mass produce [jewelry]. [My approach] is more from an intellectual angle. I have to know the person, and everything takes more than six months to finish: first getting the idea, to providing three to four sketches, [securing] approval from the customer, starting to make the waxes and do the layout, then working with the jewelers and the artisans to complete them. Each one object is like a journey. That's the spirit of haute joaillerie. It does not happen in one second. It's not one big collection that we give to every single department store. It's just like giving birth – it takes forever, and it's very painful. But I love it, and I would die for it."

On achieving work-life balance

"That's the beauty of being an individual artist designer. For example, during a typical day, I will take my son to MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), and while he is in his Matisse sketch class, I am looking at Picasso's paintings, so we can work together. Or we'll go to the Natural History Museum. He will study insects, while I will study the spiders, and perhaps a spider brooch will develop as a result. So we work together. We inspire each other. I don't separate work and play. They are merged in my life."