If You’ve Got It, Jules Kim Will Put a Ring on It

Jules Kim of Bijules NYC makes luxurious, uncanny jewelary for M.I.A, Karen O, Beyonce, Eve, Rihanna and glamorous Gelflings. The New York-based designer gathers inspiration from Jean-Luc Godard, Wonder Woman, Barbie hair and her Aunt Winnie’s dentures. She renders life’s random bits and bobs in gold and gives the body’s neglected nooks—the inside of your mouth, tips of your tips, your shoulders—some hard-won attention. Here, we discuss the logic of surreal beauty, and how she gives both “concept to form” and wearers everywhere “the balls to pull it off.”

ANA FINEL HONIGMAN: What was your thinking behind the nails Beyonce wore?

JULES KIM: The “nail rings” have asserted themselves in such a great place. With Beyonce I knew she would love the diamond vibe, so I laid them in all of the nails and spiked the snake eyes with rubies. They needed to be super luxurious, especially if they were going to be worn with Theirry Mugler.

HONIGMAN: You separate brand advocates into “deepest underground acts” such as Natasha Khan and Spank Rock and “mainstream clients” like Peaches and Britney Spears. What separates the two groups’ relationships to your work?

KIM: I separate these clients because there are some people who relate to mass celebrity and others who prefer independent status. But the interaction between Bijules piece and its owners is consistent regardless of their celebrity status. But when Peaches got “2 in tha pink, one in the stink” medallions for her world tour merchandise… she’d raise her gang sign on stage and thousands of people would mimic her. It was an amazing feeling to be part of that.

HONIGMAN: What is the story to the ear tip?

KIM: If you could imagine a fly elf chick waltzing into a club, she’d barely face the bar before exiting to the bathroom to apply her party. She opens her black box of pixie magic and inside is a golden elf ear with a bag of 3 pennyweights (jeweller’s unit of measurement) of gold fairy dust. She dips her Bijules ear tip into the gold mess and as she slips it over her own. The dust falls around her shoulders and into her hair. Now she is ready to get a drink…