Jessica McCormack: Sinfully Chic
September 2010
Diamonds would be an everyday necessity, if Jessica McCormack had her
way. “I wear mine down to the pub with jeans and a T-shirt,” says the
jewelry designer, a native of Christchurch, New Zealand, who moved to
London five years ago. And she’s not talking about puny quarter-carat
studs. One shining example is her singular earring inspired by Greek god
Hermes’s winged headpiece, bedecked with 37 sparklers, which Rihanna
swooped up and rocked at KFC, much to the paparazzi’s delight.
McCormack’s fall collection, named XIV Sins and Virtues, is devoted to
the seven deadly sins and seven lively virtues: The Sloth earrings, for
instance, are made of dangling diamond-studded spheres and skulls with
detachable partridge feathers. “The balls look like blowing bubbles,
which symbolize wasting time,” McCormack, 31, says. “And the feathers
are for the lazy-in-bed kind of thing.” Meanwhile, 11 little hardworking
gold bees (their eyes made of—you guessed it—diamonds) hang from her
Diligence chain necklace, and a crooked eyebrow of an emerald is affixed
above a champagne diamond on her “eye of a jealous lover” Envy ring. The
line—which McCormack launched in 2008 after an internship in Sotheby’s
jewelry department, her only formal experience—is sold at such stores as
Dover Street Market in London and Luisaviaroma in Florence. Until her
baubles hit Stateside (soon, she promises) she will take orders via her
website (jessicamccormack.com) and hand-deliver “significant”
commissions to U.S. customers. She also has dreams of opening a
Manhattan boutique modeled after her salon in London’s Clerkenwell
neighborhood where, besides her gems, she keeps rare books and
curiosities like pickled animal hearts. Yum.
