Thoughts on Creating Art Jewelry for Men

I have always found it interesting that many jewelry makers find it difficult to design for men. I remember making a necklace and beaded hatband for my little brother's dress-up cowboy hat when we were kids, and made bracelets and rings for my dad, grandpa, and uncles. Maybe making jewelry for males at such an early age allowed me to not get sucked into the cultural and gender expectations of man-cessories. I don't really know!

Designing for men doesn't have to be intimidating, so today I'm going to share a few things that you'll want to think about, should you decide to experiment with creating jewelry for men. It's important to keep in mind that these are just guidelines – there are always going to be people that have different tastes or a specific request. However, I've found that if you keep these guidelines in mind while creating for men, you will have success more often than not.

Scale

It's just a fact of nature that men are larger, more heavily boned and muscled, than most women. Therefore it follows that you will need to design with larger beads and components, than if you were going to market the end result to a woman. Another thing I've discovered, is that many men who wear jewelry are not afraid to make a larger statement with their adornment. There is an inherent delicacy to smaller scale jewelry, and that is not something that most men want to be perceived as.

Don't forget to apply this larger scale to the findings that you use, partially to keep them in scale with the rest of the piece, and also because most men have large hands and fingers and will get very frustrated trying to fasten smaller clasps. I usually use a large toggle with nice bumps on the ends of the bar, or an S-hook style clasp. I try to avoid lobster claw styles in particular, because men usually keep their nails short and lobsters are definitely harder to operate with short nails and big fingers.

Color

Because of cultural labels that have been attached to certain colors, most men will be more comfortable wearing darker colors. Earth-tones are a good choice, but any subdued colors will usually be met with approval. When inserting a saturated, or lighter, color, it helps if it is just used as an accent to the main color palette. This is especially helpful when you are making something for a man that has a specific favorite color. Consider pairing that color with black or dark brown, so the finished piece is not quite so bold with its color statement.

Texture & Shape

Unless you are designing for a very effeminate or flamboyant man, you probably want to avoid any beads that are shiny or sparkly – matte or comparatively dull finishes are more widely accepted. Metal and metallic beads are an exception, though copper, brass, and gunmetal are usually preferred over shiny bright gold and silver. When it comes to seed beadwork especially, texture and shape are huge factors. Its very easy for beadwork to become too fussy, frilly, or “wiggly” for a man to feel comfortable wearing. I usually stick to stiffer, more architectural beaded elements, skip the fringe, and keep the dangling parts that will exhibit motion to a minimum.

Personal Taste

In my opinion, the most important thing to consider when you're designing jewelry for a man is his own personal taste. Men vary as widely in their tastes as any other demographic. There's the polished dandy, like news anchor Brian Williams – he wears simple knotted leather bracelets. There's the flamboyant family man, like Johnny Depp – he can often be seen sporting prayer beads mixed with bracelets that his daughter made. Pharrell Williams is all over pop culture right now, and as questionable as his fashion choices might seem to some people, what I appreciate is that he has eschewed the typical music industry hip hop trend for over-sized bling. He wears jewelry that has spiritual or metaphysical meanings for him, and he's not afraid to pile it on.

I've made jewelry for lots of different men over the years. Most of the jewelry pictured here, I made for my significant other, Keven. We picked a few of his favorite pieces to share with you, and it also gave me a chance to ask him what he liked in particular about them. Keven prefers natural tones and textures, as evidenced by all of the stone, bone, and wood beads I've used in his necklaces. You can probably also tell that he likes mossy greens...serpentine, moss agate, and various jaspers are usually what I reach for. He likes focal components that are abstract or simple, with the exception being an affinity for turtles – one of his totem animals.

My friend Steve is an amazing ceramic artist and carver, and he occasionally branches out into making pendants and jewelry components. He is both a biker and very new-age spiritual, so the jewelry I've made for him runs the gamut from very organic to imposing and spiky, and above all his accessories must resonate with him on the spiritual level. He is also never without wide alligator leather cuffs, so I try to work in a larger scale than normal when making a piece for Steve. In the picture above, Steve made the crystal and driftwood focal in the necklace on the left, and the petrified wood disk focal in the necklace on the right.

My friend Bob is a New Mexico desert rat – not afraid to wear flamboyant western shirts, so I knew he would appreciate a bold necklace. I wanted this piece to reflect the desert, and also be a nod to the Native American jewelry artisans.

Don't feel like you're limited to necklaces and bracelets when designing for men. Lapel pins, cuff links, tie tacks, belt buckles, and hatbands are also good options. Do consider non traditional components, like bike chains, nuts, bolts, and washers. I am waiting for a piece of chainsaw chain from Keven's dad. That could definitely make for an interesting piece, don't you think? Above all, think outside your normal creative box – how can you work your style into a piece for a man? Is there already a man in your life that could be wearing your jewelry...but isn't because you haven't made any for him yet? I would love to see what you've made for men – do you feel it was successful, or are there more things you can work on? Please let me know in the comments if you would like to read more on this subject! I hope this post helps you in your creative endeavors.

Lindsay
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Alternative Straps for Seed Beadwork

AJE is thrilled to have the multi-talented Lindsay Starr guest blogging today. You will definitely want to click the links at the end to see more of her work.  ~ Jen

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Confession of a lazy beader – I do not enjoy making beaded ropes. While I do make and use them in my work occasionally, I am more prone to making a necklace strap in some other way. Anything that decreases the amount of time spent on the “boring” part of the necklace, makes me happy! In this post, I will show you several ways to attach straps to seed beadwork in order to shorten the creation time of a piece. If you sell your work, this saves your customer money in the end, as you don't have to charge for all the time that goes into making a beaded strap. With all of these methods, you will need to think ahead about which type of strap you would like to use, and make sure you are leaving an area in the beadwork as your attachment point(s). You will see what I mean as you look at these pictures.

Strung:

One of the methods I use most often is simply stringing a strap with your regular old flexible beading wire and crimp tubes. Not only is it a great way to incorporate the beads used in the centerpiece, but I also like to delve into my extensive hoard of beads for larger accents that coordinate with the beadwork. There are three main ways that I attach beading wire to my pieces, examples of which are pictured below.

The first method is used when you do not have beads available to pass the wire through. You will need to have loops of embellishment that have been reinforced with thread – you do not want these loops to sag over time. String a crimp tube on your wire, then string an odd number of matching seed beads on the wire. Pass this section of wire around the loop of beadwork, just as if you were attaching it to a clasp, then pass back through the crimp bead and crimp! Continue stringing and attach a clasp as normal.

The second and third methods require that you used beads 8/0 or larger in the areas you would like to attach the clasp. Below, you can see that the entire top section of this centerpiece was stitched with fairly large beads. Using larger beads means that there is plenty of room left in the bead holes to pass a wire through.

For this necklace I was able to pass my wire all the way across the top of the beadwork, just as if I was stringing a pendant. Then I strung the rest of the beads for the necklace, and crimped the back to a clasp.

This picture shows two variations on a theme – using double attachment points. I use this method the most often – it's a bit of a hybrid between the first two. You will need to have an attachment area with one or more larger beads that you will pass the wire through, but after you pass through this area, you will string a small section of seed beads before you crimp. The seed bead section allows the piece to hang properly without leaving exposed wire. The double attachment points work best on wider centerpieces, as they hang straight down from the neck, and evenly distribute the weight of the piece to minimize distortion.

Ribbon (or Cord, or any thick stringing material):

I also use quite a bit of sari silk ribbon in my work. The colors are vibrant and I can easily find pieces that coordinate and enhance the beads I use in my work. Plus, unlike some commercially available cords, I feel that the quality of the ribbon meshes with the quality of my work. Sometimes attaching it is tricky though, so I use these methods.

With a smaller pendant, as in the above picture, you can stitch a beaded tube to the back side of the piece. Personally, I like the fit to be tight on the ribbon, so the piece doesn't travel. If you make the fit looser you can easily slip the pendant off the ribbon and place it on any other necklace, cord or chain. I like to do this with gifts or pendants I'm intending to sell, because you never know if a person will have a favorite chain or something else that they would like to wear your piece on. Versatility is the best thing about this method.

The next two pictures show minor variations in tying a ribbon or cord to the piece.

In this picture, you can see that I made a wire link that the pendant and accent beads were strung on, and then tied the ribbon (regular overhand knot, trim tail when pulled tight) to the loops.

And here, I made structural beaded rings that are part of the centerpiece, and tied the ribbon to those. On smaller pendants, I've also attached ribbon to a beaded ring with a larks head knot...just another way to use ribbon or cord! With some small adaptations, you can even use these methods with a kumihimo or other fiber rope.

Leather:

I must preface this section by saying that my significant other works at Tandy Leather...so whenever I go to visit him at work, I peruse the store for things that I might be able to use in my beadwork. One day I was looking for a wider leather lace, and fell in love with their Kodiak lace in the ¼” width. It is an oiled leather, so while it is thick and strong, it remains supple. I use this lace almost exclusively because it's so easy to work with, and feels better the more you wear it. Because of the width, it doesn't fit in most commercially made leather ends, so I've had to come up with different ways of attaching it to my work and to the closures I want to use.

As you can see in this photo, the lace is so sturdy that you can poke a hole in it and attach a jump ring or wire link, that will then connect to the beadwork or clasp.

Of course, you can always use rivets to attach a leather strap to the beadwork – you just need to have a place that the leather can attach to the beadwork. You can see two different low tech “rivet” methods in the next photo.

In the above photo, the necklace on the left, simply poke 4 holes in the of the lace, spaced out so when the end was folded over the ring, one pair would be on the front, and the other on the back. Cut a short piece of waxed linen, and string an 8/0 bead on it. From the front of the piece, match up your two pairs of holes, and pass each tail of linen through one of the pairs of holes. When the linen is on the back of the piece, tie a surgeon's knot and trimmed the tails short. You can use any type of bead for this method...I personally love it with either a subtle seed bead, or something large like a mother-of-pearl button.

For the piece on the right, I used wire to make something even closer to a traditional rivet. Made a small spiral on the end of a piece of wire, make a 90 degree bend, so that the spiral will lie flat against the leather. Fold the end of the leather through the loop on the beadwork, and poke your holes accordingly. Pass your wire through the holes in the leather from the back to the front, and string on a nice flat bead. Snip your wire so it's just long enough to grip with your chain nose pliers (at the tip), and have just enough extra to fold in. Yeah, I don't know how else to describe that, other than you're making a bend like a staple...hey, I'm a seed beader! After you make the little bend so your bead won't fall off, gently (so you don't break your bead) squeeze the little staple end flat against the bead.

Wire links:

I usually use this method when I'm going to attach chain directly to a centerpiece, though you can use it for any type of strap.

Here, I have passed the wire directly through a bead and made a wrapped loop, that I was then able to connect to my chain. When you use this method, BE SUPER CAREFUL that you do not snag your thread with the wire. It will cut the little thread fibers and make a weak spot, even if you reinforced. This is yet another reason why it's so important to use a larger bead when you're doing a direct connection.

For this piece, I made a large wrapped loop that connected to a beaded loop on the pendant. If you do this type of wire link, please make sure that your bead loop is an architectural stitched piece. You do not want the chance of wire nicking or wearing against your thread.

Can you picture this method with a chainmaille strap? I sure can!

Attaching a strap to seed beadwork does not have to be intimidating or time consuming. I hope these methods give you some ideas to try, no matter what type of jewelry you make! Thanks for having me!

~ Lindsay

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