Designer Dossier: Alexis Bittar

Searching for a vocation, he thought he might be able to fashion jewelry from lucite. He began carving small earrings in his apartment from the material, selling them for $20 a pop on the streets in Soho. This is where rags turn to riches for Bittar. Though big department stores had agreed to carry his jewelry in the mid 90s and he’d designed furniture for the Cooper-Hewitt Museum and Barneys New York, he considers his big break to be a deal he made with Burberry in 1998 that came from a legal bout with the huge fashion house. He had used the legacy Burberry plaid design on his popular lucite bangles. They got hold of him with a cease and desist order (at the time he didn’t realize he was infringing) and then asked him to make the bangles for them to sell in their collection. The rest is fashion royal history. 

He understands the value in appealing to a wide variety of customers and most of his pieces are affordable enough for the working girl (provided she can save up an extra couple hundred dollars), though he creates high-end pieces for clientele that run in the thousands of dollars. He still works with lucite, creating jewelry that’s as much part fantasy as it is trendy statement. Nowadays, he adds luxe materials like gold and precious stones and claims that on some level, all of his designs are a reference to the opulence of the 80s. He’s also happily reunited with his parents who accept him for who he is, who he’s become and, no doubt, are extremely proud. Check out some of his most current pieces available online and see why the CFDA awarded him the Accessories Designer of the Year Award in 2010.