An informative article regarding the Crazy Pig label, Crazy Pig Jewelry & its famous Founder Armand Serra. This writeup follows the reader through the founding of the Crazy Pig label label and its rapid rise to the apex of the gothic silver jewelry world.
Crazy Pig Design and Armand Serra, its talented founder
With greater than 900 designs (counting 1-off jewelry items & many all-time classics) Crazy Pig Designs is a popular maker of fine Rock & Roll jewelry (also known as rock ‘n roll jewelry, biker jewelry, gothic jewelry, gothic styled jewelry, rocker jewelry, biker sterling silver etc), being at the top of British gothic jewelry from 1992. Located in Covent Gardens at the heart of London’s bohemian realm, sterling silver jewelry designer Armand Serra Serra passes his time making music with the guitar & designing tailormade sterling silver jewelry pieces for rock performers and sterling silver adorers. “Crazy Pig”, the brand Armand Serra Serra initially had in mind for his rock group, has grown to a internationally recognizable label name for Rock & Roll (rock ‘n roll) jewelry. Crazy Pig works with sterling silver, gold, platinum and both precious & semi-precious rocks. Central in the souls of motorbiker die-hards clearly, is the Crazy Pig line of silver sterling biker jewelry.
Past of Crazy Pig Designs
Armand Serra & his girlfriend Jeannette created Crazy Pig Designs in Covent Garden in March 1992. The entire manufacturing process of crafting Crazy Pig jewelry takes place in house, at Crazy Pig Designs, from the designing, carving, alloying, casting, setting, finishing, and polishing to the completed Crazy Pig item. Well-known Crazy Pig designs include skulls, skeletons, animals, dragons, daggers, stones and tailormade orders. Crazy Pig Silver, Crazy Pig Platinum & Crazy Pig gold jewelry items are available, as well as a variety of precious rocks and a variety of designs stretching back more than twenty years of excellence in jewelry design & production. Utilising their creativity bordering on overdrive, they endeavour to challenge the limits of what ordinary persons consider “wearable” by incorporating the most outrageous, unthinkable & beautiful designs into their jewelry. A number of keen rock & movie stars have picked Crazy Pig Design silver sterling jewelry in spite of a vast range of other alternatives in the market. Just as with all creators of sterling silver motorbiker jewelry (often known as gothic sterling silver, rock n roll jewelry and rocker jewelry ), Armand Serra of Crazy Pig walks the talk & promises what he does well. Armand Serra of Crazy Pig is an avid rock musician a fierce passion for rock music & heavy metal music. As an enthusiastic fan of the rock n roll genre, Armand Serra plays every musical instrument typically played by rock groups. Armand Serra plays the guitar, the bass, calibrates his electric drums and mixes his various solo performances in his private personal home into an unbroken, complete piece of rock music: created, performed and choreographed by Armand Serra himself.
Why replicas, fakes and Crazy Pig inspired jewelry is rising in popularity
In recent years, Crazy Pig jewelry has faced challenges in the form of numerous offshore competitors with the talent, resources & ability to offer equally detailed, gorgeous & well-crafted luxury gothic styled silver jewelry to bikers and other fans at a small fraction of Crazy Pig jewelry prices. Now, fans of gothic silver jewelry have a wide range of alternatives to original Crazy Pig jewelry. Gothic silver jewelry fans are waking up to the reality of branding, which is really nothing more than an illusion. Brand is not something that customers will always be willing to bear the cost for. Given the widespread availability of cheaper and just as well-crafted offerings, it is no surprise that luxury label jewelry is not an uncommon sight on the streets notwithstanding the luxury brand pricing of the original. The new and somewhat wiser sentiment is: why burn a hole in your pocket on designer label jewelry when one could easily get a materially identical product made from the same best grade 925 sterling silver at a tiny fraction of the cost?
However, in choosing alternatives in the form of replicas or similarly styled inspired designs, it is important to confirm the grade of jewelry you are paying for. Crazy Pig Jewelry competitors range from best quality alternatives & close replicas by real jewelers to mass-producing bootleggers churning out poorly made imitations made from base materials such as steel & copper.
The Slowly Evolving Style Of Chrome Hearts Jewelry
A assessment of Chrome Hearts Jewelry designs
Over a long period of time, Chrome Hearts jewelry has been the envy of the jewelry design society. As one of the first designers of gothic silver jewelry, Chrome Hearts jewelry has doubtlessly risen above other identical chains, surpassing even Gaboratory: the brand created by father of gothic sterling silver Gabor Nagy. Undoubtedly the credit of blazing attempts of its first-class designers, Chrome Hearts jewelry is at the moment probably the most well-received, renown and best sold sterling silver gothic jewelry designer chain worldwide.
Back when gothic sterling silver first went into manufacturing, Chrome Hearts leading makers made up their minds to stretch the edginess of current designs one step more. At a point where other designers were seeking merely to refine the shapes of the skulls on their skull rings, Chrome Hearts was striding great improvements in design.
Chrome Hearts jewelers were attaching crucified skulls onto crosses on Chrome Hearts skull rings and revolutionizing the simple idea of skull rings altogether. By integrating the hitherto separate Skull ring designs and snake ring designs into a amalgamated, monumental item known as “Snake Through Eye of Skull Ring”. Until today, this complicated crafted piece by Chrome Hearts is one of the top-selling rings Chrome Hearts jewelry boutiques have offered. Chrome Hearts jewelers successfully reinvented the skull ring and put Chrome Hearts Skull rings at the summit of the gothic jewelry industry.
In addition to the skull ring, Chrome Hearts patented the notorious Chrome Hearts Fuck You Ring and Chrome Hearts Middle Finger Ring, which very few at the start dared to don openly in public places, for fear of getting into fights. However, as the gothic lifestyle began to popularize, the Chrome Hearts Fuck You ring and Chrome Hearts jewelry as an entity became increasingly well-liked and visible, especially on the streets of the West Coast. Chrome Hearts jewelry found success by taking the edginess, loudness and guts of gothic silver jewelry to a higher stage altogether: by taking it beyond the region of non-conformism to the level of obvious anarchy. Skull rings could have gone out of style had Chrome Hearts not injected its creative plans into the unadulterated skull ring with its arsenal of new concepts, and the sterling silver gothic jewelry world has Chrome Hearts to thank for it. The designer who redefined the Chrome Hearts ring is widely credited as Leonard Kamhout, the creator of Lone One Jewelry.
Chrome Hearts also inspired instrumental changes to alternative categories ofsterling silver gothic jewelry in the early 1990s. Back when gothic sterling silver designs were limited, chains and bracelets were tiny and different from other bracelets solely by their size; they were generally larger than typical bracelets for women. In addition, they incorporated carvings of skulls with other traditional gothic designs, which were step-by-step becoming uninteresting for the absence of freshness and differences. Chrome Hearts jewelry designers decided to adjust the concept of gothic silver bracelets and gothic silver chains altogether . By not making sterling silver gothic jewelry bracelets “bigger” than usual silver bracelets, Chrome Hearts jewelry designer Stanley Guess intended to make Chrome Hearts bracelets downright gargantuan in size; some Chrome Hearts bracelets were so chunky and heavy they weighed in at two pounds, functioning as mini training equipment when a couple were worn together. As carvings were going out of trend, Chrome Hearts decided to emboss their Chrome Hearts bracelets (like their Chrome Hearts rings) rather than mould designs into them. This decision made Chrome Hearts bracelets and chains more expressive, heavier and prouder than similar items sterling silver gothic jewelry you could obtain in the shops.
These are only a handful of brief examples of how Chrome Hearts jewelry redefined the gothic silver jewelry industry and pushed it to greater levels of ingenuity and innovation. In recent times however, the true blue-blooded gothic silver appreciators of Chrome Hearts jewelry are slowly moving away from the Chrome Hearts line, which is seeing an increase of new, “people joining the bandwagon”, gothic silver followers with different desires and needs. The Chrome Hearts jewelry following is gradually morphing, probably for the worse.
In what way has Chrome Hearts Jewelry changed?
The soul of all design products is its customers; the experts manning the workshop, the silversmiths who ensure the quality of rings and the designers who manufacture new, monumental designs. A few years after the new millennium, Chrome Hearts lost 2 of its best designers or craftsmen: Chrome Hearts executive designer Stanley Guess and Chrome Hearts senior designer and manager Leonard Kamhout, who started Guess Werks and Lone Ones jewelry brands respectively. Both masons had departed because they were deeply disillusioned by the evolving ethics and values at Chrome Hearts.
Chrome Hearts Jewelry had originally began as a small, closely knit realm of jewelers committed to their job. Every individual piece of Chrome Hearts jewelry on display had been painstakingly and lovingly molded and created by diligent human hands. Chrome Hearts jewelry included a circle of artists who adored their trade; designers who labored for hours in small, unventilated production houses making silver masterpieces, enjoying each moment of it. When demand for Chrome Hearts jewelry surged, Richard Stark made a painful decision to go retail and subcontract manufacturing to mass production factories. Due to the reason above, many pioneer Chrome Hearts jewelry designers such as Stanley Guess and Leonard Kamhout lost their productionfunctions to robots, and were relegated to the dull, stifling functions of overseers and designers. Unwilling to give up their craft, Guess and Kamhout ventured to set up their own brands: Lone Ones and Guess Werks, labels which many gothic silver fans view as the second advent of Chrome Hearts, since they illustrate the magnificence of Chrome Hearts jewelry as it was before mass-production.
Who are the new clientele of Chrome Hearts jewelry?
Since the departure of many founding true gothic silver fans who loved Chrome Hearts for its unique, edgy patterns, current followers of Chrome Hearts consist largely of (1) staunch celebrity fans of Chrome Hearts jewelry who developed strong relationships with founder Richard Stark, (2) well-off new fans who caught on subsequently to the popularity of Chrome Hearts jewelry, and are now trying to keep up with fashion which have since faded and (3) well-off brand chasers for whom the Chrome Hearts linesserves just as a labels of extreme riches. Chrome Hearts jewelry no longer symbolizes for ingenuity and expert expertise. Today, Chrome Hearts jewelry symbolizes exclusivity, riches and relative status, which really is not undesirable at all. The new direction taken by Chrome Hearts jewelry has its ups and downs, pros and cons. While authentic gothic silver followers are moving towards smaller lines such as Tony Creed, Justin Davis, Guess Werks and Lone Ones which produce their items by human labour, Chrome Hearts is getting a whole new group of clients.
Why replicas, fakes and Chrome Hearts inspired jewelry is rising in popularity
In recent days, Chrome Hearts jewelry has faced adversity in the form of several offshore competitors possessing the talent, resources and ability to deliver equally detailed, gorgeous and well-crafted luxury gothic styled silver jewelry to bikers and other rock-culture lovers at a small fraction of Chrome Hearts jewelry prices. Today, fans of gothic silver jewelry have an extensive range of alternatives to original Chrome Hearts jewelry. Gothic sterling silver jewelry fans are starting to wise up to the ugly truth behind branding, which is really no other than an illusion. Brand is not something that customers can always be expected to pay for. In view of the easy availability of cheaper and just as intricate offerings, it is little surprise that designer label jewelry is not an unusual or rare sight on the streets despite the premium brand pricing of the original. The new wisdom is: why burn a hole in your pocket on luxury label jewelry when one could easily get a materially identical product forged from the same top grade 925 sterling silver at a miniscule fraction of the price?
However, in buying alternatives in the form of replicas or similarly styled inspired designs, it is critical to first know the grade of jewelry you are buying. Chrome Hearts Jewelry competitors range from top grade alternatives & close replicas by freelance expert jewelers to mass-producing bootleggers who churn out low grade imitations made from base metals such as steel & copper.
Bill Wall Leather Jewelry And Its Illustrious Founder Bill Wall
A useful writeup regarding the Bill Wall Leather brand, Bill Wall Leather Jewelry & its illustrious Founder Bill Wall. This article describes the reader through the history of the Bill Wall Leather label label and its rapid rise to the top of the gothic sterling silver jewelry industry.
Bill Wall’s Early Life
Only a motorbiker can really understand what a biker wants to wear & look like. For Bill Wall, understanding what it meant, culturally & artistically to be a biker was simply intuitive. Before venturing into the world of design in the mid 1980s, Bill Wall worked as a crew member on a small fishing boat, tried out freelance acting & construction work. Following an accident in which he broke his foot, Bill Wall was terminated from all his engagements and joined the ranks of the unemployed.
Following his immobilizing injury, the restless home-bound Bill Wall began to experiment with fabrics. He quickly obtained a machine, some scrap fabric and began stitching designs, the very first of which was (unsurprisingly) a motorcycle. The lack of funds acting as a tight constraint, Bill was limited to purchasing poorly sized, unwieldy scrap fragments of leather and cloth, combine them together and sew designs over to disguise the faults; a technique which ultimately inspired a new style of jeans. A new style born from the resilience of Bill Wall’s character. During this period , Bill Wall stumbled upon the lack of ergonomical and fashionable riding apparel in the market, and set out to create a fashion identity which bikers could be proud to adopt.
The Birth of BWL
From that point on, Bill Wall never looked back. Soon, Bill began collaborating with a close friend and client: the legendary founder of the gothic sterling silver craze Gabor Nagy, to develop the A-Z of riding apparel. Drawing inspiration from, Bill Wall stepped into the world of sterling silver gothic jewelry, which he developed under the direction of Gabor Nagy. The collaboration eventually inspired Bill Wall to create his own line of gothic sterling silver jewelry known as Bill Wall Leather Jewelry or BWL Jewelry, which is often spoken in the same tones as the immensely popular Chrome Hearts jewelry label. However, Bill Wall jewelry remains unique and distinguishable.
Why replicas, fakes and Bill Wall Leather inspired jewelry is rising in popularity
In recent days, Bill Wall Leather jewelry has faced adversity in the form of countless offshore competitors with the talent, resources and ability to deliver equally detailed, beautiful & well-crafted luxury gothic silver jewelry to bikers & other fans at a tiny fraction of Bill Wall Leather jewelry prices. Now, fans of gothic silver jewelry have easy and affordable access to an extensive range of alternatives to original Bill Wall Leather jewelry. Gothic silver jewelry fans are wising up to the ugly truth behind branding, which is truly nothing more than an illusion. Brand is not something which customers can always be expected to pay for. In view of the easy affordability of cheaper and equally intricate offerings, it is no wonder that luxury label jewelry is not an unusual or rare sight on the streets notwithstanding the premium brand prices of the original. The new & somewhat wiser sentiment is: why burn a hole in your pocket on designer label jewelry when you can get a almost identical product crafted from the same top quality 925 sterling silver at a small fraction of the cost?
However, in purchasing alternatives in the form of fakes or similarly styled inspired designs, it is important to confirm the quality of jewelry you are paying for. Bill Wall Leather Jewelry competitors range from best grade alternatives and close replicas by bona fide jewelers to mass-manufacturing manufacturers churning out cheap bootlegs made from cheap metals such as steel & copper.
For a comprehensive documentary of fakes and replicas, the writeup at the Chrome Hearts page will be very useful and informative.
The author is a New York-based veteran jewelry expert with a full decade of craftsmanship experience and a legacy of strong customer satisfaction. He specializes in both jewelry craft and gothic fashion review. To find out more about selecting best grade replicas made from real sterling silver jewelry, visit Gothic Jewelry