As part of our young jewellers series, Vanessa Fernandez shares her creative world with Kim Parker as seen in Issue 14 – check it out below
As the official jeweller to Joe Biden’s White House, Miami-based goldsmith and designer, Vanessa Fernandez, has crafted precious pieces for global heads of state, including King Charles.
As a child I was encouraged to love art and to feel that I could make it my career
My aunt, who is a sculptor, has been an incredible influence in my life. She effectively helped to raise me. While she was at art school, I was still very tiny, so she brought me with her and gave me craft paper and charcoal to sketch with. I watched her classmates and fellow sculptors.
I met her professors. She educated me and exposed me to books. When I was seven or eight, she helped me to decorate a pair of ballet pumps with red crystals, and I wore the hell out of them. When I was debating which college to go to, she invited me on a tour of her alma mater, Virginia Commonwealth University, and that’s where I ended up going.
I loved every minute of it. Not only did they teach me to make jewellery, but to think about why I’m making it and to deep dive into the story behind it.
I’ve been lucky to have had two fantastic mentors, who I’m still in touch with today
About a year after I graduated, I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Guy Bederida, who was then the creative director at John Hardy. I showed him my very small portfolio, and he was so kind – he invited me to take an internship at John Hardy in Bali for six months.
I had never seen mass production before, or learnt the skill of traditional rendering with gouache, with real speed and precision. I fell in love with everything.
Later, he introduced me to Lorenz Baumer, who was designing jewellery for Louis Vuitton at the time, as well as running his own brand. I moved to Paris for a year to take an internship with him and he taught me a different set of skills, including a more modern way of rendering designs with gouache.
He also introduced me to a whole rainbow palette of coloured gemstones and the possibilities of combining them. I was already a gemstone nerd, but this was over-the-top, in the very best way. I still see him whenever I visit Paris, and I really value his advice.
I’m obsessed with the work of Gustav Klimt
It feels cheesy to say because he is marketed everywhere, but as an artist and as a man he was fascinating. I’ve read every single published book on him. He put the female form at the forefront of his work, and really explored the themes of connection, and the circle of life and death. His work is almost like jewellery, I mean, he painted with gold.
He’s a huge inspiration for me. I also admire lots of artists from the 1970s, like Calder, and exceptional jewellery designers of today, like JAR, Taffin, and Theodoros. Their work is extraordinary. It’s beyond adornment.
I have no time for delicate jewellery
My goal is that my designs should feel strong, bold, feminine, courageous and sensual, with a lot of movement. They should also have a significant foundation in sculpture, otherwise I feel like I’m wasting my time.
It took for me to hit a real low point to lose my fear of rejection and start my own brand
I initially started my company in 2014, and had some success with it, but then I had my children and work had to take a back seat for a while. We can all make plans, but life sometimes just leads you down another path. Then my mother died, and very soon after, Covid happened, and all that pain of loss and trauma just caused an explosion of creative energy in me.
I couldn’t be fearful anymore or hold back. I had to channel my energy into being creative and just go forward. I began to make things again and I documented what I was doing on social media which, because of lockdown, seemed to strike a chord with people. My business grew exponentially. In the spring of 2021, with my children back at school, I threw my focus into my work, and I haven’t looked back.
I was the White House jeweller throughout the entire Biden administration
I was introduced to the State Department through one of my private clients. They were interested in working with a jeweller who could custom-make pieces for the Bidens, for official and State gifts, and [they] liked my hand-crafted approach. I’m also known for getting things done on time, which is great because my very first project for them, for Jill Biden’s office, was to create 48 pieces for dignitaries and athletes at the 2021 Olympics in Japan in just eight days.
It was insane, but also amazing. Over the four years the Bidens were in office, I crafted pieces for people like Kamala Harris, President Macron, Queen Letizia of Spain, and Yuko Kishida, the wife of the Prime Minister of Japan. I only ever made one piece for Joe Biden, and that was a gift for King Charles. I heard the King loved honeybees, so I made a pair of Fairmined gold cufflinks with central citrines, the King’s birthstone, and engraved the President’s signature on the back.
I believe jewellery can be a powerful tool of statesmanship
It’s something that will last for centuries if you care for it. Not only is it a lovely gift, especially if it’s handcrafted just for you, it’s a way of expressing so much, in a very small space, and of honouring the relationship between both nations. It’s so special.
I love gemstones so much, they have made me cry
I adore spinels and chrysoberyls, they just have the most insane, vivid colours. There was a red spinel that Dave Bindra showed a couple of years ago that was so beautiful, it didn’t seem real.
He’s a close collaborator of mine who sources the best gemstones in the world. I also saw the most exceptional chrysoberyl of my entire life this year at the Tucson gem show, which was so bright it looked almost radioactive.
When I see a gemstone I love, I want it so much it hurts. That’s how I know they’re right. It actually feels like burning.
When I’m creating, the gemstone dictates the direction I take my jewellery in, not the other way around
Right now, I’m working on adding some bold new pieces to my Curva collection, which I started a few years ago. I’m making them more tapered and twisted, with more of the illusion of movement. They’re much more complicated to make. I also adore crafting rings – they’re really what I’m known for – so I’m creating lots of toi-et-moi rings with complex twists and waves. They’re my favourite thing to make.
In the next few years, I want to break into the art market
I want to be able to scale back a bit and become the kind of jeweller who produces maybe 50 significant pieces a year, and work with serious collectors who see jewellery as art, like I do. I’m in talks at the moment with a gallery, and I’d love to be able to exhibit my work at international art fairs like TEFAF in Maastricht, or PAD in London.
I also believe in educating my community and my clients and in working to preserve this craft, because I fear that it is a dying one. I want to pass my craft on to someone else, eventually. It’s my responsibility, because that’s what was done for me.
As featured in Issue 14, available now.
Like this? Meet the jeweller loved by Zendaya, Rihanna and Beyoncé: Suhani Parekh from MISHO Designs and see the famous cursed diamonds and the stories that won’t die.
