Bittar creates his hand-crafted bangles, earrings and necklaces out of the same city that both his life and career began—New York.  Bittar has always had the entrepreneurial spirit.  As young as 10, he sold flowers from a hand painted cart across the street from his Brooklyn home.  His attendance at the Bronx School of Science in the early 80’s opened up his eyes to the New York culture, which inspired him to begin his first jewelry line in 1988.

Bittar sold his jewelry on the corner of Prince and Green streets.  The success to follow this debut actually ended up landing him his first real location in 2004 just two blocks away from this first makeshift pushcart of a store.  Accolades from the jewelry industry and collaborations with the likes of Burberry, Estee Lauder, and Alex and Lee,  all brought his name to the jewelry forefront and caught the eye of a very important stylist—Patricia Fields of Sex and the City.

For an up and coming designer, having your work styled into the hit HBO series was like receiving two thumbs up from Robert Ebert on a directorial debut—it awards notarity and credibility.  

He has developed several different jewelry lines over the years but it was his Lucite collection that became his trademark. The Lucite bangles can be layered in numbers for effortless glamour while the Lucite hoop earrings can transition from day to night (and who doesn’t know that Kim Catrall wore obnoxiously large versions of the design as Samantha in the always on-trend Sex and the City?)

Bittar’s pieces can be found at one of his two NYC locations (a West Village spot just opened this year), on his website or at a number of different fine retailers and department stores.  Below are a few of his new pieces from the Miss Havisham collection that are getting a lot of editorial acclamation. Do you appreciate his departures from Lucite (between this new collection and his Elements collection) or do you think he should stick with what has made him famous?  While I own only lucite pieces for now, I am dying to get my hands on the some of the other non-lucite pieces he creates.