JADE TRAU X THE NEW POPPY COLLECTION

Designing and launching this collection has been the biggest creative hurdle I’ve had to overcome in my career so far. In 2020, I was inspired to work on a collection that was floral inspired. When we were in lockdown and for the weeks after and were still staying very far apart, my day revolved around the walks in my neighborhood. Over that time, I started to have favorite trees. It was spring and the dogwoods, magnolias and cherry blossoms were in full force. They were life affirming in a time where the conversation was surrounded more around illness and death. I’m pretty sure that’s what got me thinking about flowers and how they could have a place in my own personal collection.

As I started thinking more about it, I also realized it would have been my grandfather’s centennial birthday in 2021, so naturally I decided to name the collection Poppy, which is also what I called him, in and out of the office. It’s pretty unusual for me to name a collection I haven’t designed yet, but this is how it went.

Poppy is the reason that I am doing what I am doing…he taught me to be a person of integrity and honesty and told me many times that in this business, you are only as good as your word.

So, I started designing this collection. No pressure right? Just the namesake collection in honor of the person I looked up to the most and who also taught me everything he knew in this business that I then used as the building blocks to start my own company. I designed it and it was ready to be launched last summer, but something just didn’t feel right and no matter how many times I tried to fix it, I couldn’t make it right. In fact, I started to do that ‘overdesign’ thing that I work so hard to stay away from. The idea that ‘you’re only as good as your word’ kind of gnawed at me. My word, my integrity… and my honesty to myself more than anyone else, since no one other than my team had really seen the pieces, said it needed to be changed.

So after weeks of wondering what to do and sleepless nights because I did think it was pretty, but just not what Poppy was supposed to be, I decided to scrap the whole thing. It’s the first time in my career that I’ve had to do that. It was a little gut wrenching…and ego bruising, even though it was a self inflicted ego thrash.

And I started over again. Fresh. It was hard..until it wasn’t. I looked at books of poppy flowers and started to fall in love with them. The hearty stalks that stand straight even when they wind around or drip down at the end. I love the fuzzy bulbs that slowly start to peel away into delicate leaves of crimson red and vibrant oranges. And I Iove how irregular they are…no two are the same. It reminded me of diamonds and how we always talk about the unique characteristics of each one. And most of all I love their name. Then the designs came..first the building blocks for the pieces. The 4 unique clusters we are using to create a collection of floral inspired, diamond focused jewelry pieces that still speak to our aesthetic of reinterpreted classics. An ode to vintage but totally modern with a dash of sex appeal.

So this is kind of Poppy 2.0…it’s already a better version of itself and it hasn’t even been seen by anyone yet. We are so excited to share it with you and to welcome it into the Jade Trau family. It’s the beginning of many styles to come. I have dozens of ideas that I’m just sitting on my hands waiting to design and bring into fruition. For now, we start with these. Thanks for being a part of our presentation, for being a part of our Jade Trau community and for believing in what we are doing together.

The Poppy Collection launched April 7, 2022