Signature Aviation Spring 2025

61 elite traveler SPRING 2025

“My philosophy is that jewelry should beworn”

every jeweler there is some element of artistic touch that they add, and you can tell the fi nish between one and another.” While a lead jeweler is chosen for each project, a piece might pass through 10 pairs of hands before it’s ready. The individuality of Lugano’s jewelry also means that there’s no exact time frame for creating pieces: “We have a sense of what the labor should cost but we don’t have a set time… one could take 10 hours, something else could take 300 hours. There are some projects that take a year to do. Because of the experience of the team, it’s just intuitive.” While Lugano’s stamp is on each piece that leaves the Newport Beach workshop, to Ferder, the most important story around a necklace, a ring, a bracelet is the person wearing it. “It’s about telling your story, not the brand story,” he explains. Pieces often have secret details included that might only be known to the wearer, and not visible when worn, such as a hidden gemstone on the inside of a bracelet or the back of a pair of earrings. “There’s always a surprise in there,” Ferder says. To Lugano, the marker of a ‘successful’ piece of jewelry is really how a client feels when wearing it. “I can tell you from my wife, when she puts a piece on, she doesn’t need a mirror. She puts something on and she knows if it’s good or not. When you feel it’s right, it’s right. I see that reaction with women trying on [our jewelry] a lot.” Clients are often surprised by the backlog of pieces, too. “We had one customer — and it was her fi rst time with the brand — and she was shocked at the depth, and the di ff erent materials and the di ff erent way of doing things. She tried on maybe 50 pieces, but we have more than 5,000 unique pieces in the company,” Ferder says. “This depth helps create inspiration as to why to even buy jewelry. It’s a di ff erentiating factor and something that clients really appreciate.” In fact, making the jewelry is only a small fraction of the Lugano process — the real process comes when it’s ready to be bought. The brand’s ‘salons’ are less retail space, more like the home of a friend; you’ll often fi nd no jewelry on display at all. “We actually changed what return on investment meant to us,” Ferder explains. “For us, it’s ‘relationship, opportunity, inspiration.’ I would say that nine times out of 10, [a client has] no idea what to expect — and the element is creating the inspiration.”

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