The Value of Intention: Rethinking Costume Jewelry in the Age of Meaning
By Mia Hebib
The Redefinition of Value
For centuries, we measured jewelry's worth in karats and carats. Gold content. Diamond clarity. The rarity of stones extracted from deep earth is truly remarkable. It was a mathematics of scarcity, a language of wealth that spoke in grams and purity percentages. This is shifting, especially now, people choose pieces not for their price tags but for what they say.
Value is being redefined not by what something costs to extract from the ground, but by what it costs to pull from the heart, by intention, through a story.
The Evolution of "Costume"
Let's talk about that word: costume.
The term "costume" entered our vocabulary through Coco Chanel in the 1920s, representing the idea that women could wear theater on their bodies and play with pearls that weren't real, as well as jewelry that didn't require insurance. It was revolutionary then, democratizing adornment and making beauty accessible beyond bloodlines and bank accounts. But somewhere along the way, "costume" became code for fake, imitation equaled inferiority.
In my early career, this is the early 2000s, I worked at Liz Claiborne that owned a few of the costume jewelry brands in its portfolio. My first account was Monet, a brand that was launched in 1927. It had a religious following among department store clientele in the 90s and early 2000s. One of the most amazing things was that Monet also owned a lot of the old Trifari (founded in 1910) molds and sample pieces. The library that spanned decades of jewelry was incredible, and we were able to take trips to the warehouse to peruse and get inspired by these iconic pieces.
Jewelry was exceptionally made, all produced in the USA, in the mecca of jewelry making, Rhode Island.
Today, I partake in one piece of that history through Oblik Atelier by working with a plating facility in Rhode Island. Fun fact- they also plate pieces for NASA that go into space.
Let us get back to today:
What is happening nowadays with “Costume” is that we are reclaiming the term. Costume jewelry isn't trying to be fine jewelry anymore. With Oblik Atelier, I am not interested in passing or pretending. Oblik is design-forward, concept-driven, unshackled from material expectation.
The Collapse of Boundaries
The lines are dissolving between fine, studio, costume. Materials don't define prestige anymore. Concept does. Craftsmanship does. The why behind the what.
A cultural shift is happening where we're collectively deciding that wearable art doesn't need to justify itself through the periodic table. A well-designed piece in acrylic can hold more presence than a badly designed diamond ring.
I love all of my clients, and some of my fans are women that consider only fine jewelry “real jewelry”. I made it my job to be the educator and make sure they feel proud and excited to wear pieces of real art jewelry and feel the connection between them and the artist. Never anything against famous old jewelry houses, there is room for all “real” created pieces in the world!
What we value now is individuality, authenticity and we feel emboldened to wear something because it speaks to us.
Oblik Atelier: Jewelry as Dialogue
I started Oblik Atelier because I wanted to make jewelry that lived in bodies, not just on the bodies. Sculptural, architectural, and always designed with the understanding that these pieces need to move with you, shift with your gestures, and settle into the hollow of your throat or the curve of your wrist like they were always meant to be there.
My work sits in that collapsed space between categories. It's the costume in its materials and its accessibility. It is studio in its handmade, sculptural approach imbued with meaning. It's fine in its execution.
It is my own visual language that I am cultivating through dialogue with all those who wear these pieces. Because that's what this art is: a dialogue. That's emotional luxury. When someone tells me they wore one of my pieces to a difficult meeting or to a job interview, and it made them feel braver, or that they touch it throughout the day like a talisman, I know the piece is working the way I intended. It serves as more than just a decorative item, it is a constant companion, a tool for becoming.
Jewelry isn’t meant to be precious in the old sense, locked away and too valuable to risk. They're meant to be worn until they're part of your routine, until you forget you're wearing them and then suddenly catch your reflection and remember. That jolt of self-awareness, that's when jewelry does what it's supposed to do. It reminds you of your presence.
I work mostly in gold-plated brass and sterling silver because these materials give me freedom. I can push forms further, take risks, and explore sculptural possibilities that would be economically limiting in precious metals. The accessibility of my materials means I can be more daring in my concepts. It also means my work can reach a wider audience. Educating and growing a collector base and a following that can afford interesting and unique artisan made pieces is of utmost importance.
The Return of the Maker
There's been a homecoming to the handmade. There's intimacy in the handmade that allows you to see the fingerprints, literal or metaphorical, in the work, it changes your relationship to the object. It stops being a commodity and becomes a communication. The maker becomes a storyteller.The piece becomes a bridge between the person who made it and the person who wears it, both of them putting their intention into the thing until it's almost vibrating with meaning.
However you want to label it, fine, studio, costume or art- every piece passes through my hands multiple times. I shape it, I sand it, and I adjust the weight and balance. I test how it sits on a body. I live with it before I let it go. The return to the maker's hand is really a return to intention. We understand that objects carry the energy of their creation, and that this energy is just as important as the form itself.
Here’s a list of some of my favorite makers right now in different mediums
Costuming is a way of assuming another part of yourself or that of another. Through adorning we are taking part of another and layering that onto ourselves. Regardless of the material choices what remains is the connection: between maker and wearer, between body and form, between intention and expression. When the maker's intention meets yours, the object becomes charged with both. This is why we return to the handmade, why we seek out the makers. Because in a world of endless production, what we're really craving is that charge, that current of human intention passed from one pair of hands to another.