Last April, I had a great time at the annual gold conference hosted by Initiatives in Art and Culture, where I participated in a panel about story-telling through jewelry.
In fact, I had such a good time that I happily accepted an invitation to speak at IAC’s annual Fashion, Jewelry and Design Conference last November. That conference’s theme was “White: Palette, Prism, Possibility,” and I did a video interview with IAC founder Lisa Koenigsberg to talk about what that meant. My panel was mostly about the symbolism of rings, but Lisa sneaked my Queen of Scots tiara onto the big screen!
There are always great guests at IAC’s conferences — besides me, I mean! In November, I was especially excited to see fashion icon Daphne Guinness and amazing jewelry designer Shaun Leane speaking with Valerie Steele from FIT about their long collaboration with Alexander McQueen and what they’ve been doing since McQueen’s death in 2010.
For some reason, Lisa hasn’t yet gotten tired of including me alongside such esteemed company, so I’ll be speaking on TWO panels at this year’s gold conference on Thursday, April 12, and Friday, April 13 (oooh, spooky!), in New York City. On Thursday, we’ll be talking about women in the jewelry industry … after a Champagne reception. So you won’t want to miss that, because who knows what I’ll say?
The Friday panel is about social media, and I’m excited to see that all my friends are on this one, including Monica Stephenson, the founder of ANZA Gems.
Monica is also part of Thursday’s 2:15 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. panel about ethical and sustainable jewelry, and if you’re interested in labor and/or environmental issues, I highly recommend that one. I’ve seen Monica and other experts address these important topics before and there are always a lot of new developments. I’m sure I’ll be taking copious notes.
I had another little chat with Lisa for YouTube ahead of the event and if you watch the video till the end, you’ll get my special VIP discount code for tickets, which are available for purchase on EventBrite.
By the way, I saved a few of the beautiful notebooks I put in IAC’s goodie bag in November.
Until supplies run out, these notebooks will be included as a gift with purchase when you buy any 18K gold pieces from my website. I know there were a few people who wanted to buy a notebook by itself, so if that’s you, you can holla at me at info at wendybrandes dot com. I have a different insert in the gift bag for the upcoming gold conference. I like to keep shaking things up that way.