| It's hard to imagine that RISD-trained jewelry designer Philip Crangi (who I've known since we collaborated on a runway show years ago) has enough space in his head for all the people, places and concepts that shape his work and his world. These include everything from science fiction and the potential order of junk to the barnacles that dot Venice and the beauty of Charlotte Rampling. It's no wonder he jokes that he has aesthetic schizophrenia. At his live-in showroom, I intended to start our conversation at the beginning, but before I knew it, the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Award winner had taken us into the future and beyond. For Philip, I realized, this is the beginning. —Haidee Findlay-Levin |
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Have you always been interested in making jewelry?
As a kid I wanted to make science fiction movies. I had all those books on the making of Star Wars. I was about six when Star Wars came out. It altered me forever, like so many nerds of my generation. More and more I think that the idea of science fiction influences art and design in ways that don’t seem obvious. I read this book called “The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of.” It's about the notion we have of the future and how it will look. The idea is that the world we're living in comes from science fiction. Apple products are a perfect example; they are designed to look like the future.
Sounds like the '60s, too.
Yes, exactly. Now the '60s look sort of dated. The idea that the future can seem dated is interesting to me.
 Which interests you more, the past or the future?
I'm interested in moments in design that are difficult to place. I grew up with art history teachers for parents, who were constantly quizzing me on things. So for me, I like to be confounded. I like to see something and be unable to say where it came from or when it was made. Recently I saw a light fixture designed in the '20s by this company in France called Maison Desney. It was an upside-down, mushroom-shaped plaster fixture that hung from the ceiling with a suspended metal reflecting dish. It looked like something out of [Eero] Saarinen's TWA terminal at JFK, yet it had been made 45 years earlier by these kooky French guys messing around with Modernism.
What other designers fascinate or inspire you?
[Cartoonist] Gary Panter said he only sets out to make the work that he can create. This was such a revelation to me. The Modernists, on the other hand, set out to create something radically different. Right now I am really into the English designer Christopher Dresser. His work from the 1880s predates Modernism by decades, but when you see it, it's kind of radical-looking. Some of it looks like a Bauhaus piece that I've seen at MoMA, but it's from 1879. That's insane.
Why do you think that was?
I think it had to do with the high Victorian moment of over-stimulation and exuberance. I think we ourselves are living in a new Victorian moment, a new Golden Age.
But hasn’t all this communication and cross-fertilization resulted in a dumbing effect, as in international style?
Speaking from a jewelry perspective, this is an amazing moment right now. A lot of people from other backgrounds have come to jewelry, making all this incredible and weird work. There is certainly a marketplace for it that hasn’t been around for a long time. Just look around Barneys and Bergdorf and you will see a huge diversity unknown for ages, just in those two stores. There is an artistic exuberance that I find very exciting.
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Unlike fashion, where an idea becomes redundant the following season, jewelry designers tend to build up a body of work that remains relevant…
Exactly. In fashion there is the notion of constant newness. I feel we all live in Karl Lagerfeld’s universe. It's all about what’s next. But we have pieces in our line that we have been making for fifteen years. We make new pieces all the time, but in the sense of building on, as opposed to discarding. We are very reluctant to get rid of things. If people buy them, they should last.
Perhaps in this climate people will start to appreciate what will last.
Jewelry is personal, even big statement pieces, which can easily become quite dated. If you aren't wearing it, you still have it as an object. Naturally, as I practically live in my showroom, I have the view that jewelry can serve as adornment for the body as well as the room.
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Do you see jewelry as wearable art?
I have a strict German fine-art jewelry background. I was introduced to high-concept pieces from an early age, like the famous graphite pendulum piece. A hunk of graphite hung from the neck by a piano wire. As you wore it, the pendulum swung across a white shirt, creating an arc in gray graphite. The arc that was created was the art, not the necklace. This turned me off a bit to the idea of wearable art, until I reinterpreted it. For me, the jewelry has to be the primary reference point, not the art. It has to be more about the inherent beauty of an object. I am very object-driven!
Yes, you are a notorious collector of objects, and a very organized one.
Occasionally I'm organized. I joke with my assistant Hanna every morning when she cleans and organizes our shared desk. As you can see, there is tape down the center of the table to separate our space. Usually my side is a pigsty up until this border, after which her side is perfectly clean and organized. It's very Laverne and Shirley.
I don't know, I see order here. Look at that collection of heads in a perfect row. It's like a display at the Met.
That's the thing about junk. I am interested in the potential order of junk. Books are a great example of that. You can organize them in any number of ways, but essentially they are a pile of different things collected at different times. I am constantly reorganizing the junk in here, scooting it around. I'm really into the idea of all these white pots and vases. They are all different sizes, so the scale becomes really important. (cont'd)
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