DesignTeeth Monthly | July 2026
Gray & Davis's Knicks Subway Pendant, the Jewish Museum's Women of the Wiener Werkstätte, and museum gift shops leveling up their jewelry game.
A monthly dispatch of new finds, quick takes, and happenings in design.
More than a month after the Knicks' historic win, I'm still not quite ready to stop celebrating. Like so many, I got swept up in the fervor — Jalen’s shrewd command of the court, OG’s brilliant Hail Mary play in the final minutes of Game 4, and Jose Alvarado’s scrappy New York grit — not to mention witnessing the joyful redemption of lifelong fans like Spike Lee and John Turturro. But it was also that buzzy energy reverberating throughout the city, from the sidewalk watch parties to the nods exchanged when you passed someone sporting a Knicks hat or T-shirt. The win — and the lead-up to it — made New York feel like New York: rule-breaking of the best kind, loud goofy antics, and people of all stripes coming together.
During the final game, in all the excitement, I went looking for some nameplate Knicks necklaces, but my online searches mostly turned up cheesy stuff. Then, just recently, I came across Gray & Davis’s Knicks Subway Pendant, an exact replica of a 1953 subway token cast in platinum and set with orange and blue sapphires. As the description puts it: “New York is a city of people who believe in something bigger. Be it a better life or the best latte. This pendant is a nod to the city life and the network that connects us to our big dreams.” I think Spike would agree.
On Bastille Day, my friend Tom and his husband Richard kindly invited me to the opening of Modernity and Opulence: Women of the Wiener Werkstätte. Openings aren’t always the best time to absorb what’s on display, but it was a nice yet brief introduction to this exhibition on the key role Jewish women played in the movement. What stood out most was the sheer diversity of media, from ceramics and graphic design to jewelry and textiles, and how it shaped modernism more broadly.
It was also a chance to see the renovated third and fourth floors by UNStudio and New Affiliates Architecture, which open up the galleries and lend transparency to viewing the art, alongside glass cases filled with objects and relics — including a vitrine of 130 Hanukkah lamps — that together read as one complete artwork.
For years, museum shops filled their cases with hokey historical replicas or hippie beaded earrings. But over the past few years, as Gem+Jewels points out in “Museum Gift Shop Jewelry Is Getting Good,” merchandisers are getting more creative, tapping outside designers to reinterpret pieces from their collections into limited-edition jewelry. Author Amy Elliott does a nice job covering this shift, interviewing designers and museum staff, including Morgan Pearce, the Met Store's general manager of marketing, brand partnerships, and licensing.
I previously covered the Metropolitan Museum’s latest collaboration with designer J.Hannah in my inaugural March Monthly — one of several capsule collections the Met has produced with designers like Pamela Love and Munnu The Gem Palace.
Last December, the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) tapped local jewelry designer Jenni Stuart to create replicas of friendship rings inspired by ones 19th-century Salem resident Elizabeth Ropes Orne gifted to friends. And coinciding with the Frick’s renovation, the museum shop debuted the Off the Canvas collection with Donna Distefano, who has been named the museum’s official goldsmith.
I’d love to see more museums, especially those with impressive jewelry collections of their own, get in on this. What about the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum? RISD Museum? Or the Victoria & Albert? Hint hint.