ISLAND STYLE
Jewelry designers making big, bold style statements

By Paula Rath
Advertiser Staff Writer

Mahnon DeBenedetti creates two lines of jewelry: Boutique line: At Riches Kahala and Anne Namba's boutique in Kaka'ako. Prices range from $200 to $600 Fine jewelry line: At Neiman Marcus. Prices range from $1,500 to $8,000. Uhr Designs Uhr's jewelry is available only through the artist and occasional trade shows. Prices: $75 i $ 3,600 Contact: 780-5207 or uhrdesigns@yahoo.com

What's also big, however, is jewelry with a personal manifesto — telling the world who you are.

This is not as simple as wearing a birthstone. It's conveying a mood or a state of mind.

Two Honolulu jewelry designers are tapping into this trend with one-of-a-kind pieces made for women who are not afraid to be "out there" with their accessories.

Hot dogs and haute jewelry may seem an odd combination, but Michael DeBenedetti has successfully combined the two with characteristic enthusiasm and an infectious sense of humor.

DeBenedetti owns Miller's hot dogs, a San Francisco-based manufacturer of hot dogs (they can be found here at Safeway, Daiei and Times Supermarkets). It's a business that's been in the family since the 1960s.

He's only been making jewelry as a business for four months, but he loves his new venture because "stones don't have a shelf life like hot dogs do."

Jewelry is an accidental second career for DeBenedetti, who lives part-time in the Bay Area but is trying to spend more and more time in Honolulu. An avid traveler, he and his wife, Staige, began collecting beads during their travels to such countries as Jordan, India, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Libya, Cambodia and South Africa. He began stringing beads into bold necklaces for his mother, an interior designer in Marin County, and then for Staige, often layering multiple strands to suit her sophisticated personal style.

Staige was going up the escalator in the Neiman Marcus Ala Moana Center store one day when a buyer from the fine-jewelry department spotted her and asked where she had bought her multistrand pearl necklace, which looked like a permanent lei.

"My husband made it," she said.

"Have him come see me," was the reply, and a new business was begun.

Michael DeBenedetti, a hot-dog manufacturer and jewelry designer, wears his own design, a cross pearl with labradorite beads.

He is working on a lariat of pearls that can be worn as a belt, a long necklace or a choker. "But the safety clasp isn't right yet," Staige piped up. So it's back to the workshop.

"They aren't wallflower pieces," said Karran Uhr of her jewelry designs. Indeed.

Her signature wire wrapping and attention to proportion and scale offer women a style option that's highly individualized. "I try to make each piece like a talisman for a woman so she knows she'll be noticed and so it will open up a conversation," Uhr said.

There's a dichotomy in Uhr's work: It's delicate yet strong. Her jewelry is also characterized by complex shapes and curves, unusual pairings and surprising juxtapositions.

"I try to keep things simple, but it's not in my nature," she said.

Jewelry designer Karran Uhr models a gold wire-wrapped, faceted Baltic amber necklace.

She is interested in Japanese doll making and kumihimo, a form of weaving that originated in Japan. These folk arts have influenced her palette and aesthetic.

Uhr has not always been a jewelry designer. She had a gift-basket company in New Jersey, managed a wholesale menswear business in Los Angeles and operated a commercial real estate office in Arizona.

In jewelry she finds delicacy and strength that appeal to her nature. She especially enjoys creating custom pieces for women who may have a special stone or pearl they want incorporated into a piece. Or someone looking for a necklace or brooch to go with a garment.

Uhr enjoys working with pearls and gold, emeralds, Peruvian opals, onyx, topaz, peridot, coral, abalone shell and citrine. She discovered some cameos carved into cassis shell from Italy that she wraps with gold wire and surrounds with pearls.