![]() ![]() “As soon as you become a rapper yourself, you want to start your own jewellery collection,” Khalifa says. Wiz Khalifa, who also comes from Pittsburgh, is one such customer. ![]() The brand has secured noteworthy licensing deals, including with the NBA and Marvel, and has become embedded in the hip-hop community, referenced in songs and attracting a celebrity clientele. GLD’s annual revenue has increased from $300,000 in 2015 to more than $50m in 2020. GLD steel Iced Alpha Era watch, $899 © Dan Folger GLD Prong Cuban choker, $359, and Clustered Tennis necklace, $299 © Dan Folger Its first store is due to open there this year. In 2017 the company moved to a space in Miami it’s now based in a 12,000sq ft facility in the city’s arts and culture district and employs over 60 people. “It was clear to me that this company had a trajectory to be wildly successful,” says Seremet. A year later, they were introduced to Seremet, a serial tech entrepreneur who, among other ventures, co-founded the company responsible for Grand Theft Auto. Before long they were designing their own styles, and moving into a small office in Pittsburgh through which to grow their sales. Using Instagram to showcase pictures of themselves wearing the jewellery, and persuading Johnston’s teammates on the Duquesne basketball team to buy it, the pieces sold well. They worked out of Johnston’s dorm room and the basement in Folger’s parents’ house. “We wanted to be proud of our jewellery, to truly belong to hip-hop culture.” They saved $1,500 between them, took the bus to New York and spent it all on a shoebox-full of jewellery they picked up in the city’s Diamond District, on 47th Street, with a view to reselling it back home. “It was all either too cheap and badly made or very expensive,” says Johnston. When, in their early 20s, they wanted to buy jewellery, they couldn’t find what they wanted. As teenagers, they vowed to start their own lifestyle brand. GLD skeleton made for Trippie Redd, $100,000 © Dan Folgerįolger and Johnston are childhood friends who grew up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh and were both infatuated with skate culture, streetwear and hip-hop. ![]() Quavo holds GLD custom The Large Rolling Loud pendant, alongside GLD co-founders Christian Johnston and Dan Folger © Brandon Dull It’s a strategy that would be anathema to a mainstream jewellery brand. The accessibility is owed to a price structure in which identical jewels and watches are available in different materials and at different price points: a gold-plated necklace “iced” with cubic zirconias costs $329, for example, while the same style in 10ct solid gold and diamonds costs $59,500. ![]() CEO Mark Seremet says GLD offers accessible luxury with “cultural relevance”. The duo hope GLD will become the first jewellery “brand” to popularise the space in the same way that Nike, say, has done with footwear. The brand making the biggest impact in this realm, however, is GLD – a Miami-based jewellery business founded in 2015 by Dan Folger and Christian Johnston. Nelson made another one-off four-finger ring, this time depicting famous female musicians, for a recent Sotheby’s auction. There’s also Johnny Nelson, a New York-based jeweller who creates necklaces and rings depicting famous figureheads, including a four-finger ring known as the Hip Hop Mount Rushmore – featuring the faces of Biggie, Tupac, Ol’ Dirty Bastard and Eazy-E. London-based O Thongthai, which makes pendants and studded signet rings favoured by ASAP Rocky, was picked up by Browns Fashion last year. O Thongthai gold, diamond and tourmaline ring, £15,400, īut lately, the motifs of hip-hop have been seeping into the broader jewellery and fashion market, too, thanks to the work of Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton or Matthew Williams at Givenchy, as well as via a handful of contemporary brands. ![]()
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