The day a stranger asked Ilene what she was wearing

Ilene Joy designed jewelry for the last three seasons of Sex and the City, and the job began with a single question. As WWD reported in February 2019, the show's property master stopped Ilene on the street, asked what she was wearing, and had signed her by the end of the day.

Off her own neck

Before there was a label, there was a habit. Ilene grew up in her mother's sculpture studio, among people who made things with their hands, and she began making jewelry for herself from stones she found on her travels: Tahitian pearls, opals from Australia, diamonds from Belgium.

By WWD's account she was working in advertising at the time, and the jewelry was a hobby that kept outgrowing the word. She sourced her own stones and sold pieces to friends, sometimes straight off her neck or her wrist. It is the oldest form of word of mouth there is, and for a while it was the whole business.

The question

The person who stopped her was Sabrina Wright-Gilliar, then the property master of Sex and the City. On a film or television set, the property master looks after the objects the cast handles on screen, and on some productions that includes the jewelry. On a series about four women who dressed with that much intent, it mattered.

Wright-Gilliar wanted to know what Ilene was wearing. The two went to a café to talk it through. WWD tells the rest in a line: by the end of that day, Ilene was signed to do the jewelry for the last three seasons of the show.

The series ran for six seasons and ended in 2004. That is the whole of what we claim: the last three seasons, as WWD reported them. We do not name individual pieces from particular scenes, because the coverage does not, and we would rather tell you less than tell you something we cannot show.

A pause, then a return

Ilene stepped back from the business for a time. In February 2019 she came back with a partner she had known all her life: her daughter, Rae Scheer. On 5 February they celebrated the relaunch with a party at the American Thread Building in TriBeCa, which both WWD and Vogue covered. Poppy Delevingne was the face of the new campaign.

The jewelry had changed, and Ilene said so plainly. "When I started, it was heavy beading," she told WWD, describing multi-strand pieces of rubies, emeralds, sapphires and diamonds. The new work, in her words, was "really wearable and layerable": lighter pieces meant to be worn every day and stacked without fuss.

What carried through

Look closely and the thread from the early work is easy to follow. The stones are still there, now as diamonds and set gemstones such as sapphire, emerald, ruby and opal. The hand is still there too: every piece is made to order at our bench in Los Angeles, as we explain in how made to order works.

So is the taste for symbols. The charms draw on shapes people have worn close for centuries: the hamsa, the protective eye, the serpent, the bee. If you want to know where one of them comes from, begin with the hamsa.

What changed is who does the choosing. The jewelry Ilene once sold off her own neck is now something you compose yourself: a chain, a few charms, placed where you want them, and seen on before it is made. Our guide to how many charms to wear is a good place to start, and the whole account of the designer is in who is Ilene Joy. Every piece of coverage, with links, is on Ilene Joy in the press.

Ilene Joy was founded in 1996 and relaunched in 2019 by Ilene and her daughter, Rae Scheer. Every piece is made to order in solid 14K or 18K gold at our Los Angeles bench.