JA New York—What inspires your designs?

Cari Streeter for Jewelry by Cari: Aesthetics, smooth organic shapes, beautiful gems, fashion, and a strong desire to wear the piece myself. I love pieces that are substantial, have a nice weight and can be admired from many angles.

JA New York: Walk us through your design process…

CS: Most ideas come from collaborative brainstorms with my husband. We’ve stayed up many late-nights, date-nights, or talking while driving on a road trip and get inspired with ideas about what would be beautiful and popular with our customers. We’ll sketch out the idea, play with arranging the gems, take notes and then ponder over time. Then we discuss how exactly to go about making the piece out of clay. It’s a multi-step process sculpting, drying, sanding, filling, adding, smoothing and when it’s finished it get’s fired in a kiln. The next steps involve hand-finishing, adding details like how the piece will hang, hand-stamping and diamonds, all of which is collaborative between the two of us.

JA New York: What was your favorite part about exhibiting in the New Designer Gallery?

CS: The coordinators really did a great job of putting us in the spotlight and of supporting us to make the process of exhibiting easy. Most buyers and editors made a point to visit our section. Many editors took their time to talk to New Designer Gallery exhibitors and have featured many of us in their publications. The turnkey booth design was awesome and allowed me to focus on the jewelry and the marketing. I loved “The Big Pitch,” made some great connections and gained an awesome new account from the opportunity. It also inspired me to refine what our strongest selling points are. A couple of our established accounts were at the show and placed new orders at our booth. And I loved getting to know the other designers and continue to network with them.

JA New York: If a theme song played every time you walked into a room, what would it be?

CS: Don’t Worry, Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin