When the biggest pop star in the world is spotted wearing one of your jewelry pieces, you have the right to freak out. At least a little bit.
That’s exactly what happened when Utah-based jewelry designer Jaclyn Elbaum saw Taylor Swift wearing one of her handcrafted pieces from her Audry Rose Jewelry collection when she went out on a date night with fiance Travis Kelce earlier this year.
Her husband, Kevin Elbaum, started filming her reaction, but she says the first reaction was even bigger.
“We were sitting around the dinner table having dinner, and a friend reached out,” Jaclyn said. “First, she sends me a photo, then she calls me and just freaking out, like, ‘That’s your necklace.’ It’s our necklace, because she actually owns the necklace too. She’s like, ‘She’s Taylor Swift, wearing our necklace.’ I zoom in, and I just freak out immediately. Kevin thought someone had died.”
Kevin said he initially got nervous by her reaction until he realized what was going on.
“At first, my heart sank, and then she kept running over,” Kevin said. “And then, yeah, when I saw a picture, it was complete shock. And then eventually I got the wherewithal to get a camera out, but yeah, her first reaction was even more dramatic than the one I was able to record.”
The impact of Taylor Swift wearing the necklace
After the photo went viral, Audry Rose Jewelry saw its website traffic soar, as well as sales of the specific piece that Swift was wearing.
What makes the experience even more exciting to Jaclyn is how special that particular piece was in the collection.
“It was just a real special piece, a real labor of love. You know, we started with a ball of wax and handcarved the locks,” Jaclyn said. “So it took hours to make it completely unique, and so it was really just the piece she chose that made it especially special — that over the past five years, I’ve added charms to mine as we had kids, and so it’s like, I can add things to the lock to make it really unique. And as I grow, I change, and the lock changes with me.”
The story behind the necklace
To get the piece exactly how she envisioned, Jaclyn sat down with a jeweler for hours and guided him on how to carve the piece.
The piece was inspired by the way necklaces tend to flip around, placing the ugly clasp in the front. Jaclyn thought, What if I made the clasp something meaningful and beautiful?
“Instead of it being an eyesore, what if I made it the focus?” Jaclyn said. “That was the inspiration behind the whole thing.”
Starting a jewelry company
Jaclyn and Kevin started Audry Rose Jewelry 10 years ago, naming the business after Jaclyn’s grandmother, who was a true entrepreneur and inspiration for Jaclyn.
“She was a really special woman, entrepreneurial when that wasn’t really something women did then, and just a really stand-up woman who cared about quality, and we wanted to infuse her spirit into the brand,” Jaclyn said.
They started the brand in Los Angeles and later moved to Park City, where the business is currently based.
The idea of starting a jewelry business goes back to when Jaclyn and Kevin were about to get engaged and were looking for rings. They noticed that a lot of the stores seemed to offer similar products. She discovered some independent designers who created a more unique look with a story behind it, and that inspired her to start something on her own.
“My favorite part of designing, I would say, is the initial concept, where I’m just drawing anything that comes out of my head, and the fun exploration of it but the more details later on are a bit harder for me, but at the beginning is super fun, just kind of crafting the crazy things that come out of my head and seeing where it goes,” Jaclyn said.
If she ever got the chance to meet Swift, Jaclyn said the first thing she would do is thank her.
“I would love to thank her and really get to know her brain,” Jaclyn said. “I feel like I could learn so much from her at the same time because I think she’s so impressive in everything she does.”
When asked what they want people to know, Kevin and Jaclyn said to remind people that unique and custom pieces are more expensive but tend to be higher quality.
“Well, I hope people realize about independent jewelry and designers and the things that are handmade, obviously, it’s expensive or solid gold fine jewelry, but we put a lot of love and craft into it,“ Jaclyn said. ”And I hope people can see that, that, you know, I’m not just, you know, creating a plain band with a diamond on it. I want you to feel the intention that goes into each piece.”
This week, Audry Rose is hosting a pop-up at Barclay Butera in Park City on Friday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.