Jew­el­ry has nev­er been a bad choice for a Christ­mas present but nowa­days, not every­one likes to be drip­ping in gold or di­a­monds, some peo­ple are af­ter an eclec­tic but el­e­gant and so­phis­ti­cat­ed look. T&T Guardian show­cas­es sev­er­al lo­cal jew­el­ers who work with dif­fer­ent ma­te­ri­als to pro­duce a wide range of jew­el­ry to suit every pock­et and every taste, from the root­sy to the avant garde.

Pauline & Re­be­ca's

Jew­el­ry De­signs

This moth­er-daugh­ter duo en­joys de­sign­ing so­phis­ti­cat­ed ar­ti­cles of jew­el­ry for women who wish to make a life­long im­pres­sion with a pol­ished and el­e­gant look. Draw­ing in­spi­ra­tion from an ar­ray of Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­can cul­tures, the de­sign­ers de­scribe their pieces as sim­ple and so­phis­ti­cat­ed. This mas­ter team be­gan in 2007 and us­es on­ly gen­uine ma­te­ri­als such as fresh wa­ter pearls, Swarovs­ki crys­tals and se­mi-pre­cious gem stones.

Pauline and Re­be­ca im­port ma­te­ri­als from parts of Asia and Latin Amer­i­ca. Prices gen­er­al­ly range from $60 to $900 for gen­uine pearl neck­laces. They al­so de­sign ear­rings, bracelets and neck­laces, rosaries and oth­er cus­tom-made pieces which they say make the per­fect gift for loved ones. Cus­tomers are pleased to learn that items of jew­el­ry come with a war­ran­ty are pre­sent­ed in at­trac­tive hand­made pouch­es.

The team says cus­tomers are en­ticed by their colour scheme which in­cludes vary­ing shades of turquoise, lilac, blue and green. Pauline and Re­bec­ca al­so make de­liv­er­ies to cus­tomers and will be show­cas­ing their jew­el­ry at Up­mar­ket on De­cem­ber 15.

Con­tact: 737-8700 or vis­it Pauline and Re­be­ca's Jew­ellery De­signs on Face­book

Jan­ice Der­rick Jew­ellery

Sim­plic­i­ty, clean lines, graph­ic im­agery, and the struc­tures of man-made or nat­ur­al forms are some of what in­spires Jan­ice Der­rick's well-craft­ed pieces. Der­rick has a de­gree in sil­ver­smithing, jew­el­ry and al­lied crafts from the Lon­don Guild­hall Uni­ver­si­ty. In 1997 she start­ed her busi­ness in Lon­don be­fore re­turn­ing to Trinidad to de­vel­op her craft fur­ther.

Every piece of her jew­el­ry is de­signed and hand­made at her stu­dio and con­sists of dif­fer­ent colours and carats of gold, ster­ling and ox­i­dised sil­ver as well as com­bi­na­tions of these met­als. Most of her work lies with­in five the­mat­ic col­lec­tions: coiled, mov­ing, petal, pod and cone.

Der­rick says she tries to cre­ate jew­el­ry that is "con­tem­po­rary yet last­ing" and which is not dic­tat­ed by trends. Der­rick im­ports all ma­te­ri­als from the UK. Her jew­el­ry has been fea­tured in Vogue (UK), Harpers and Queen and the Sun­day Times (UK).

Prices of Jan­ice Der­rick Jew­ellery range be­tween $500 and $4,000. Her stu­dio is at 5 Hamel-Smith Ter­race in Cas­cade.

Con­tact: www.jan­iced­er­rick.com or 621-3319

Vy­ombo De­signs by Ba­ba and Mod­upe

Vy­ombo is the Swahili word for jew­el­ry and these de­sign­ers use pri­mar­i­ly nat­ur­al ma­te­ri­als for their jew­el­ry such as ma­hogany and teak wood, co­conut and plan seeds. The prices range from $40 to $500. Sons of an "or­gan­ic jew­el­er"-the late Ja­ja Oga Onilu, Ba­ba and Mod­upe say each piece has a mean­ing and a sto­ry. Their work was most re­cent­ly fea­tured at the Caribbean Fash­ion Plus Week.

Con­tact: Vy­ombo can be found on Face­book and Twit­ter or via e-mail: vy­ombode­sign­stt@gmail.com or call 363-0090

Ak­i­lah's Jew­el­ry

Ak­i­lah's Jew­el­ry is a fam­i­ly en­ter­prise found­ed in 1994 by Ak­i­lah Jaramo­gi, co-founder of the Caribbean Ar­ti­san Foun­da­tion. The wrist­bands, neck­laces and ear­rings for both men and women are pro­duced from a va­ri­ety of ma­te­ri­als or­gan­i­cal­ly grown in the Fondes Aman­des Hills in St Ann's. Jaramo­gi's busi­ness mod­el is to cre­ate an eco­log­i­cal path­way to fash­ion. Ju­ju seeds, jumbie beads, don­key eye and flam­boy­ant are all ex­am­ples of ma­te­ri­als used to make Ak­i­lah's Jew­el­ry.

Price range: $40-700

Con­tact: Face­book, kjaramo­gi@ya­hoo.co.uk or 689-7794. Ak­i­lah's Jew­el­ry Show­room, Fondes Aman­des Com­mu­ni­ty Re­for­esta­tion Project, 21 Fondes Aman­des Hills, St Ann's

Koko Karibi De­signs

Koko Karibi De­signs is a con­tem­po­rary jew­el­ry and ac­ces­sories de­sign stu­dio owned and op­er­at­ed by Jacque­line Charles and Ja­son Dou­glas. They pro­duce hand craft­ed pieces from a wide range of ma­te­ri­als in­clud­ing pre­cious met­als, pre­cious and se­mi-pre­cious gem­stones and shells, bone, beads and ox­i­dised wire.

The de­signs are in­spired by trav­el and world cul­tures and are de­scribed as by the duo as "art to wear." The de­sign­ers have a stu­dio at 27 Jern­ing­ham Ave, Bel­mont where they en­cour­age clients to come for con­sul­ta­tions on cus­tom pieces. The de­sign­ers pre­fer for each cus­tomer to have a one-of-a-kind cre­ation.

Price range: Starts at $65 and varies de­pend­ing ma­te­ri­als used and client de­mands.

Con­tact: On their Face­book page or their web­site: www.kokokaribidesigns.webs.com

Bel­la Gioiel­li-by Edelle

This just sim­ply means hand craft­ed fash­ion jew­el­ry. Edelle Man­nette a florist by pro­fes­sion be­gan mak­ing jew­el­ry in 2009 and has since built a rep­utable clien­tele.

She says the type of jew­el­ry she makes at­tempts to cap­ture most styles which in­clude clas­sic, con­tem­po­rary, tra­di­tion­al, out­ra­geous fash­ion state­ments as well as un­der­stat­ed pieces.

How­ev­er, her de­signs pri­mar­i­ly tar­get con­tem­po­rary women who lead a cos­mopoli­tan lifestyle.

Fash­ion for­ward art jew­el­ry as she calls it, her pieces in­clude neck­laces, mem­o­ry, toe rings, bracelets, chok­ers, sham­bal­la, an­klets, coiled bracelet ear­rings, rings and pen­dants.

Ma­te­ri­als used (find­ings, beads, com­po­nents) by Edelle in­clude se­mi-pre­cious stones such as nat­ur­al quartz, rose quartz, amethyst, howlite, jasper, yel­low turquoise, feldspar, flu­o­rite, swarovs­ki, crys­tals, pre­ciosa crys­tals.

For met­als al­loy, alu­mini­um, iron, nick­el and bras­sus­es are her choic­es. She al­so us­es gen­uine or sil­ver ear­ring hooks (by re­quest on­ly).

Oth­er ma­te­ri­als used are suede, leather, fab­ric, ny­lon, hemp, glass (pol­ished), sea glass, glass pearls, ce­ram­ic, wood, poly­mer clay. Found items such as unique shells, stones, met­al, glass, seeds and wood are used.

String­ing, link­ing and her favourite-wire-wrap­ping are the tech­niques in­volved.

She said she strives to main­tain unique­ness and ex­clu­siv­i­ty by nev­er re­pro­duc­ing any piece.

Edelle's Christ­mas col­lec­tion will be on dis­play all day at Up­Mar­ket on De­cem­ber 15 at the Wood­brook Youth Fa­cil­i­ty Cen­tre.

Her work can al­so be viewed on http://www.face­book.com/fior­i­diedelle/pho­tos_stream and http://www.fior­i­diedelle.com/gallery---bel­la-gioiel­li.html.

Price range: from $10.00 to $1,000. De­pends on the com­po­nents used and in­tri­ca­cy of the piece.

Con­tact: Face­book page @Fiori Di Edelle or on the Web site www.fior­i­diedelle.com/gallery

Al­ter­na­tive mar­kets for gifts

Up­Mar­ket

Up­Mar­ket is a month­ly food mar­ket that al­so pro­motes lo­cal ar­ti­sans. Held at the Wood­brook Youth Fa­cil­i­ty, 15-17 Hamil­ton Hold­er Street, Wood­brook, Up­mar­ket fea­tures near­ly 100 ven­dors in­clud­ing chefs, cater­ers and cooks as well as ar­ti­sans and jew­el­ers.

The mar­ket is meant to serve as a plat­form to as­sist lo­cal pro­duc­ers and show­case of the af­ford­abil­i­ty of lo­cal­ly man­u­fac­tured goods. Food items on sale in­clude fresh cheeses, sauces, dips, home­made ice-creams, pestos, fresh herbs, cheese­cakes and even tiramisu.

Oth­er items in­clude cloth­ing, wood­work, leather craft and jew­el­ry. Those look­ing for Christ­mas good­ies will find pastelles, Punch-a-creme and more. The next Up­Mar­ket takes place on De­cem­ber 15.

For more in­for­ma­tion vis­it their Face­book page: Up­Mar­ket or e-mail them at Up­Mar­ket­trinidad@gmail.com

Month­ly Arts Mar­ket

This Christ­mas, the Month­ly Arts Mar­ket is host­ing what they call a Christ­mas Shop­ping Ex­trav­a­gan­za with a spe­cial three-day edi­tion of the mar­ket. For­mer­ly known as the Wood­brook Arts Mar­ket, the Month­ly Arts Mar­ket is an ini­tia­tive of the Uni­fied Caribbean Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion (UC­BA) aimed at pro­mot­ing high qual­i­ty prod­ucts from lo­cal de­sign­ers, artists and craft ar­ti­sans.

Start­ing on De­cem­ber 21 and end­ing De­cem­ber 23 from 10 am to 6 pm dai­ly at 27 Jern­ing­ham Ave, Bel­mont Port-of-Spain shop­pers can pur­chase cloth­ing, jew­el­ry, ac­ces­sories, hand­made soaps, cui­sine and much more.

For more in­for­ma­tion call 792-8678 or find them on Face­book: The Month­ly Arts Mar­ket.

Writ­ten by Bo­bie-Lee Dixon,Zahra Gor­don & Tremaine So­ca Warn­er