STORY KIM LEE Aaron Basha has sold jewellery for fifty years, but his latest collections are his most charming, and fun, ever. MISSIONS tend to be serious. With jeweller Aaron Basha, you’d be forgiven for thinking it so. The patriarch and namesake of Aaron Basha, the luxury jewellery boutique on New York’s Madison Avenue, seems a formidable man. But wait, something about him calls for a second look. Those buttons on his white shirt beneath that dark jacket – are they really jewelled frogs in green enamel and diamonds?
They make you smile. It is hard to resist asking for a closer look. When you do, Basha breaks into a wickedly happy grin. It chalks up one more for the mission of Aaron Basha – to put smiles on customers’ faces. The ‘Godfather of Charms’ has succeeded yet once more. Basha started delighting the world with baby-shoe charms in 1996. These captured the hearts of mothers, grandmothers, mothers-to-be or anyone thinking of an item to celebrate a newborn child. Then came playful ladybugs in red and black enamel, an icon associated with good luck and love.
Basha never expected Baby Shoes and Love Bugs to tug with such a force at the hearts, and pockets, of people from the ordinary to celebrities and royalty.
“Charm bracelets are not something that we invented,” stresses Basha. “The idea is hundreds of years old.” The idea has come and gone in waves of fashion.
But Basha doesn’t see his charms as a passing fad. Their emotional appeal is an evergreen quality. In 2002 for example, when the luxury market had jitters after 9/11, business at Aaron Basha grew by 40%, its best year ever. In this exceptionally emotional period in the world, people sought to reassure themselves and their families – and for many, Aaron Basha charms became a touchstone to remind them of the most important people in their lives.
Crafted with the celebration of family and love as a guiding philosophy, the charms have brought Basha’s family together in business. His son, three daughters and wife help with design, marketing, technology and administration of the business. The charm collections have grown to include marine life, aeroplanes and teddy bears. (The first teddy bear charm was created because actress Demi Moore asked for one.) There is a charm for practically every occasion, from birthdays to Mother’s Day to Christmas. The more successful designs are adapted into rings, cufflinks and earrings.
As such, unlike many luxury retailers who do as much as 80% of their business at Christmas, sales at Aaron Basha run on a more even keel through the year, with highpoints at every special occasion on the international calendar.
People new to the name may not realise that Basha is a jeweller with 50 years’ retail experience. His father was a pearl dealer and his mother a jeweller to Middle East royalty at a time when women were rarely allowed to work. From 9 till 12 years old, Basha escorted her as she took her collections to the royal harems. “It’s fascinating what jewellery means to all kinds of women, not only a woman from a palace,” reflects Basha. “(Gold,) coloured stones, diamonds – you see their reaction… I saw all this when I was a kid, which kept me thinking about how to use it in designs, in beauty, in selling.”
A career in jewellery came naturally. He started as a diamond cutter and setter, before learning about manufacturing and design. Life moved the family and business from Israel to Canada and to London before ending up in America in 1990, but his passion and fascination
for jewellery remained constant.
This has fuelled innovation. It was Basha who made briolette-cut diamond jewellery popular a decade ago. Charm jewellery evolved from the playfulness of the swinging briolette – with a trendsetting edge of colour and fun.
Basha has been intrigued by the colour possibilities of enamel for some 40 years. When he started creating charms with it though, enamel had limited appeal in jewellery. People thought he was crazy. Yet, it was undeniably fun.
“We take fun very seriously,” says Basha, with a straight face. And fun has paid off handsomely. The company is expanding around the world as other retailers ask to carry the charms. Yet he takes time out from those demands to enjoy his customers.
“At least once a week, I’d like to sell to consumers,” he says. “They think I am a salesman. That’s OK. But to see their reaction, why they like it…” Basha smiles. It also gives him much pleasure to “talk to a woman who is 90 years old and make her feel like she is ten years old with our charms.” Now, that should chalk up a few more smiles for the Aaron Basha mission. S
