The Who What Wear Podcast: Jewelry Designer Pamela Love on the Art of Adornment and Creating Her Own Tarot Deck

0:10Kat Collings:Welcome to the Who What Wear podcast, your direct line to the designers, stylists, beauty experts, editors, and tastemakers who are shaping the ever-evolving world of fashion. I'm Who What Wear, Editor-in-Chief Kat Collings, and today I'm speaking with jewelry designer Pamela Love. Pamela launched her namesake brand, Pamela Love Jewelry, in 2008 with a collection of celestial necklaces, earrings, rings, and charms inspired by her love for astrology. The brand quickly became a big deal with those who were hungry for unique jewelry pieces to add to their wardrobes. Everything Pamela has built over the past almost two decades has led her to this moment where she's able to bring together her love for tarot and her love for design with her very own tarot deck and guidebook called Infinite Door, which she debuted earlier this month.

0:57We're

0:58Kat Collings:talking jewelry trends, design inspiration, and Pamela even does a quick tarot card pull for all of you listening. It's all coming up on Who What Wear.

1:13Kat Collings:I'm so excited to be connected today. I'm a huge fan of your brand and I can't wait to talk about your new project. But first, let's start from the beginning and give a little context. Tell us a bit about how you fell in love with jewelry. Well, in the beginning, I really didn't like jewelry at all. My mother was a big jewelry person, but it was, you know, diamond tennis bracelets, classic, but also just like diamonds. The bigger they look, the better, you know, whether it was real or faux, it was all very like a classic prong set. And I just kind of felt it was a little bit boring and formulaic.

1:48So I was like, I'm not into jewelry. I'm not a jewelry person. But as I got a little older, maybe 14 or 15, I started exploring making jewelry out of anything I could find. So I was making jewelry out of found objects and kind of finding clever ways to adorn myself, maybe as an act of rebellion against what I thought was the cookie cutter idea of what jewelry is. Fast forward, I love diamonds and I love working with fine materials. But as a tween and a teen, I fell in love with the idea of making jewelry and adorning myself in ways that were subversive or different and very hands-on to the point where when I was coming out of college, I was like a totally jewelry obsessed person.

2:33And once I started to explore and realize like the vast ways that jewelry can be interpreted and how varied it is, I really started to fall in love with the art of adornment.

2:43Kat Collings:That's so interesting because I think of your jewelry and your aesthetic, it's the opposite of a tennis bracelet. Ironically enough, I wear a tennis bracelet. It was my mom's and she gave it to me. But I almost wear that because it's funny for me to be wearing a tennis bracelet. And it's missing a diamond and I just left it like that. And I have some charms hanging from it now. Yeah, yeah. It has to be something a little subversive or off. I feel like motifs that I've known to be in your jewelry from the beginning are sort of celestial, spiritual, terrestrial motifs. Tell me more about the celestial and the spiritual element of that.

3:18Kat Collings:How did that develop? with regards to the celestial motifs, which definitely are a part of the brand, but by no means like the major part, but maybe a part that a lot of people think of. As a kid, I was obsessed with astronomy, astrology, even the heavens, space, and also Greek mythology, Roman mythology, amongst other things that made its way into the work. Also, you know, when I first started the collection, it was really an exploration of death and mourning, which sounds very morbid, but I had just lost my father and I was kind of exploring the ideas of mourning and of also celebrating those who have passed.

4:01And I was exploring how that is celebrated in different cultures. And I found that the medium I wanted to express that in was jewelry.

4:09Kat Collings:Yeah. That's so interesting. It's a very meaningful connection to draw inspiration from. So one element in your work history that I found interesting was your work also as a painting assistant to Italian artist Francesco Clemente, who became a mentor and one of your most trusted tarot readers. So can you tell me a little bit about what you learned during your time working with him about jewelry, tarot, business? Working for Francesco was probably one of the greatest honors of my life. And I actually ended up doing it for much longer than most people would realize. I continued to work in one way or another for Francesco up until only a few years ago.

4:50It just became a thing that I couldn't stop doing. Obviously, it wasn't like a full-time thing, but anytime there was an opportunity to assist

5:00Kat Collings:him on a painting and I was able to, I was there because nothing fed me more than being around this person from a creative perspective. Like he's truly the most creative, inspiring human being I've ever met. I started working for him in my mid to late 20s and just absorbed that level of creative intelligence. And also something that I learned from him was to really not question my inspiration. There are some elements of my inspiration that I questioned their validity, whether people would take it seriously or not. But seeing the way he works with his inspiration and wholeheartedly dives into everything and doesn't question it, I think was really fortifying for me.

5:47Yeah, I started my brand while I was working as a painting assistant. And it's just such a gift.

5:52Kat Collings:Yeah, absolutely. And you did tarot together. He's an incredible tarot reader. And he's also passionate about tarot. I fell in love with tarot when I was about 14. As I started to create jewelry and build my brand, I was pulling a lot of inspiration from tarot and other sort of esoteric inspirations. You know, there was a part of me that definitely questioned, like, is this going to be taken seriously? I feel this stuff is valid and meaningful, but it's not fashion with a capital F to pull your inspiration from the tarot. And so seeing that so many of my favorite artists also were fascinated with tarot and working with tarot from Francesco to Salvador Dali, to Leonora Carrington, to Alejandro Jodorowsky, there was sort of these dots connecting all of my favorite creative people to the tarot.

6:45And so for me, that was really like a validating thing. And yes, Francesco is an incredible reader as well and has given me some very meaningful readings in my life. And his tarot paintings are phenomenal.

6:59Kat Collings:Wow, that's so cool. And I actually didn't know that about those artists you named and the tarot through line. So while you were working with Francesco, you said you launched your brand, Mid-Late Aughts. 2007, 2008. Yeah. When was the moment when you were like, okay, actually, I want to start my own brand. You know, I've been doing this as a teenager. I have an interest in jewelry, that kind of thing, where it was like an endeavor that I want to really put effort behind and launch a business. So before I was working for Francesco, I was actually working at Barney's of all places. Iconic. I was the women's trunk show coordinator.

7:31I had a friend who also worked at Barney's. She came from a jewelry background and we started a line together. We were very close and we would talk about all the time we should make jewelry together. So it just kind of came out of that love of working together and creating together. Shortly after I left Barney's to go work with Francesco, she decided to move to San Francisco. And at this point, we hadn't even really gotten the business off the ground. We started making a couple pieces. I think we sold to like one store on consignment. She left and she got pregnant and, you know, she didn't really want to pursue it.

8:11But I was like, oh, but I really love this. I really want to keep going here. I wasn't skilled as a jeweler. I had taken some metalsmithing classes, but I definitely wasn't where I needed to be. And actually, my mom was visiting and we were in the jewelry district. And she actually just walked into the jewelry exchange up to some guys and was like, can my daughter assist you? Like, she'll do it for free. And I was like, oh, my God. I ended up doing that for a little while on top of work and started making my earliest pieces while apprenticing. For some guys making really basic tennis bracelets and engagement rings, it always comes back to that.

8:54I was making like snake cufflinks and, you know, eagle claw talons and all that stuff. And so it's always like that juxtaposition of like this very straightforward forward stuff. And then the stuff I was doing in response to it was always this push against what was standard. So that's sort of where it started. It was a fun time to be in New York making things.

9:17Kat Collings:Yeah. I love that mom just inserted herself and pushed in that way. So after I had the five spike ear jacket style and it was to me, I was like, these earrings are sensational. It was my whole personality for a very, very long time. I believe I still have them and I cherish them. And I want to hear about this earring because I hope it just wasn't me. Do you think of that as one of your like iconic styles? Yes. And it was a top seller for a very long time. And the way it came to be was actually quite funny. We used to make this necklace that was a carved skull. We had like a turquoise one and a jade one and carnelian quartz crystals.

9:57So it was like a hand carved skull. And at the bottom was this like little kind of spike. but when you are making large amounts of something you don't cast just one you make a casting tree so the mold had like six or eight of them that would cast at one time and one day I was like looking at them as they came out of the casting and they come out all attached and then you clip them and then you attach the jump ring and attach it to the necklace and so I was like hmm this thing makes an interesting earring and maybe it'll be good behind the ear. We used to say it in our offslot, jewelry happens.

10:34It was like a jewelry happens moment. We ended up interpreting it in many different ways and doing 18 carat gold versions with diamond pave, doing some with hand carved stones. And it's still a solid seller for us. Now I feel like it's a little farther away for most of what we do, but it's a classic, so it stays.

10:55Kat Collings:Yeah, absolutely. And just the playing of the front and back. Yes. I think I was in college, but there wasn't a lot out there like that. No, it was pretty much a new thing. And then it became everywhere where everyone's like, oh, this is incredible. A front back earring. And then once everyone had a front back earring, I grew tired of the concept. If it makes sense for a design, sure. But I no longer feel this like, I have to make sure I do it every season. Yeah. I'm curious what it was like, because from my understanding, the brand kind of took off quite quickly and kind of became like an it jewelry brand.

11:30Kat Collings:And I wonder what that felt like as a designer having this big moment, because oftentimes from the outside, it looks like, oh, wow, overnight success, you know, and that's not always the whole story. I definitely think the success happened very quickly. Like you said, it was a great moment. It was the right time, the right product. for me though it was so much work and I was so in the work and the day-to-day that I didn't really step back and go wow we're like one of the hottest brands right now oh wow like we're in magazines we're doing jewelry for all these runway shows and I mean there were moments where I was like this is cool right but for the most part even if there was a wow this is cool moment I was like okay now I gotta get back to work I have too much to do I have a friend who's an entrepreneur and she says that it's like whenever you pause or you're not working for a certain period, it's like you're in a boat and there's a hole in the boat.

12:22Sure.

12:22Kat Collings:You always have to be scooping out water, constantly working and churning. For sure. There's always like a fire to put out. There's always something. And when you're like in your 20s and you don't have the self-awareness yet or like the emotional intelligence, there's not a part of you that's like, hey, this isn't going to always be like this. Take a moment and be like, wow, holy shit. I would say, you know, that kind of success is often wasted on the young. Yeah. You know, and if you're so ambitious and driven and passionate about what you're doing, you're not doing it for the accolades or whatever.

12:56Kat Collings:You're just so heads down in it. Yeah. As someone who's been in the jewelry industry for pretty much your whole career, I'm curious if you've seen any big shifts in fashion accessories that you've witnessed firsthand. I mean, it's always changing, right? I would say Phoebe Philo at Celine was probably a very big kind of line in the sand for where things went from like an accessories perspective and especially a fashion jewelry perspective. A lot of the silver jewelry, the costume jewelry coming out from that point on kind of shifted in its aesthetic to this more minimalist, like Elsa Peretti-esque.

13:34And I think some people do it very well. The handbags and the shoes. Also, I think there was this just shift ultimately to where like H &M, Zara, anywhere had this like phyloed effect. I would say that was like a very big marker. And it was interesting to me because I appreciated phylo, Selene, and I liked it, but it wasn't like my be all end all. I was like Drees Van Noten worshiper, still am. Yeah, like fully in the church of Drees. But not that there's a competition. I have some beautiful things from that era of Celine, but it was interesting to see what a mark she made on almost everything.

14:17Yeah, a thousand percent. It's remarkable. But yeah, I think that was an interesting one because it kind of shifted what everyone was doing in a way. And it even shifted for me what I was doing for a second. Sometimes you kind of lose your way a little and you get very influenced. And there's nothing wrong with being influenced, but if it doesn't feel 100 % true to what you want to create, then it's a problem.

14:37Kat Collings:Right. Ultimately, it won't sit right. Or it's unnecessary. Yeah. It's a little detour. Having run Pamela Love for almost two decades now, is there anything that you would change about the jewelry industry? I would change the price of gold because it's getting stupid. It's making everyone's life very difficult, except for people who invested in a lot of gold. I would say the price of gold should go back to where it was so that we could all freely create. Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk about the current collection. You have a super wide range of beautiful pieces, and I feel like your brand is a great one where someone can really find something that speaks to their personality or point of view.

15:16Kat Collings:So I'm curious which styles have risen to the top or are most popular. In 2020, we launched a piercing line. So like a new category, which is earrings, but they're typically with a threaded back or a pushback so that you can be pierced with them along with huggies and clickers that are smaller scale. That line has become an enormous part of the business. And even our store in Brooklyn, we offer piercing and that's a very popular service. So I would say the piercing collection definitely has really grown as well. Our engagement ring collection, which is more bespoke, gives me the opportunity to work more closely with a lot of our clients.

15:57We can only do so many engagement rings a month. So it's a really special thing. We have a waiting list and I just love the process. And the Sterling Silver line that we just launched has been doing great as well. I think there's definitely been this shift back to Sterling Silver for a lot of people. when the gold price is just continuing to surge.

16:17Kat Collings:Yeah. As I sit here, I'm wearing gold jewelry right now. It's okay. I'm wearing all gold jewelry too. I'm a gold lover. I recently made this big silver cuff. I wore it around and I kind of felt like a million bucks. I just felt awesome in it. So striking and bold and like working in silver allows you to go to a larger scale. Right. A little more dramatic in some ways. Yeah. But I do live in my gold jewelry. Right. your daily. You mentioned inspiration a little bit before, and I just wanted to ask about it because I bet you have some really interesting places where you look for inspiration for your designs and how you go about being creatively inspired.

16:56I mean, it's harder lately. I used to say that so much of my inspiration came from travel, but I don't travel as much as I used to. I have a little person. How little? He's three. Today was his first day of school. Oh, that's a big deal. So yeah, it's definitely traveling less. And I would say art, film, music, the personal style of my heroes and my icons, mythology, magic, mysticism, all the things. I'm most interested in symbols, symbolism, and the symbols that kind of repeat themselves throughout cultures, throughout time. I would say earlier in my career that Pamela Love was an exploration of the symbols of humanity.

17:41But in a way that feels different

17:43Kat Collings:because I feel like there's so much of that now and it needs to have its own point of view and also sort of push the envelope from a style perspective and aesthetic perspective. I know. And I think some designers, it's like a trend or like something that's a short-lived exploration, but it's definitely part of your DNA, I feel. Okay. Well, let's talk tarot because that's the fun occasion that brought us together was the launch of your tarot deck and book called The Infinite Door. I live in LA, so maybe I'm biased that I think most people are familiar with tarot, but from your perspective, how do you use tarot in your life?

18:19So in my life, I use tarot whenever I have a question. I'm feeling lost or unsure, or even if I'm really feeling unsafe, I'm having a rough time. I go to the cards. I usually would do like a single card pull, but sometimes more to sort of look at what the cards are telling me. And I use the cards as sort of like a tool for introspection. So all these cards are teachers and you pull the card that you're meant to pull. And so I use them to guide me through tough spots, sometimes just because.

18:53Kat Collings:Yeah. Like a portal to receive messages. For sure. I use them more when I'm struggling than not. You're in need of some guidance. Some guidance. How did you learn to read tarot? Was it with Francesco or? No, it's really easy actually. And anyone can. I was about 13 or 14 and I went into Borders Books and I literally bought a book and a tarot deck and I read it. That was it. Simple as that. Simple as that. How to read tarot for dummies. They literally have that book. There's literally tarot for dummies. And the cards themselves have the tools you need to read the cards. That's what was so brilliant about the Rider-Waite deck, which was the first deck that I ever encountered.

19:39It was the first deck in the history of tarot that had imagery on every card that sort of allowed the reader to glean the meaning. I didn't know that. That's so interesting because that's like the classic. It's the classic deck for divination. Prior to that deck, there was a whole lot of other decks that were also used for playing cards because tarot originated from Turochi, which is an Italian playing card deck. And so if you look at the earlier decks, like the suits, like wands or cups or swords, if it's like the 10 of wands, it'll have 10 wands on it. That doesn't tell you very much. So the Rider-Waite deck was the first deck that was really created with the intention of being used solely for divination.

20:25And so therefore the illustrations were a lot more helpful to people.