Jewelry Designer Profile: Judith Ripka
Judith Ripka is a Award winning designer Judith Ripka creates jewelry of understated elegance that is meant to be worn everyday, from day into evening, from black tie to blue jeans and everything in between. Taught by her mother, a European couturier, to see the beauty in all the little things around us, each piece of jewelry Judith designs is an expression of that beauty as shared through the eyes of her mother.
Taking cue from her busy life as wife, mother, grandmother and business woman, Judith designs versatile jewelry with a special twist, ancient inspired, classically informed, timeless, yet modernized to complement today's wardrobe.
Amongst her many achievements and awards, Judith won the prestigious DeBeers' Award for Diamond Design and was inducted into the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Please read the full interview on National Jeweler Network
Being persistent and surrounding yourself with positive, encouraging friends and associates can catapult your business into the big time, jewelry-design powerhouse Judith Ripka told attendees of the Women's Jewelry Association's Women in the Know Conference at the Fashion Institute of Technology on Friday.
Passion for creating jewelry can also take your business a long way, she added.
"Even if it had not become my business, I would still design jewelry," Ripka said. "Persistence is one of the keys to my success. I've sketched two days a week religiously for 34 years."
Ripka told the story of her business, the Judith Ripka Companies Inc., a multimillion-dollar wholesale and retail jewelry company that now employs 150 people (90 percent of whom are women) and is opening its 13th retail store in Las Vegas this year. [...]
But when Ripka started out, she was a struggling mother of three running her business out of the living room of her house in Long Island, where she was one of the few working mothers in her neighborhood at the time.
She balanced caring for the children with sketching during all of her free moments, initially selling jewelry out of her own living room from a $12 case she bought in the Bowery section of Manhattan.
Her business got off the ground with a $1,000 loan from a dear friend who was among those who encouraged her as she began making jewelry at a manufacturing facility in 1973, Ripka said. Other friends lent her cars to get around since she didn't own a vehicle.
"Don't have anyone around you who doesn't wish you well," Ripka said. "There were countless people along the way who told me to give up, that the chances were slim. But I am telling you, the chances are not slim."
to use what has already been harvested or utilized. Sometimes this means that we rework antique pieces (such as the natural carved emeralds in the ring attached here). We use cameos that were carved and never set into jewelry that are from the 1870s-early 1900s (see the pendant attached here). We use recycled gold and diamonds when we can. When we use wood, we use reclaimed wood (some of it comes from guitars, ships, other wooden structures). Because Nature is the focal point of the collection, it is always with a healthy respect that I approach anything that I know will involve "taking from" the earth. I think that is the best that any of us can do and if everyone would do the same, I am pretty sure it would benefit our planet immensely. 
