Jill’s career as a jewelry designer started when she was 3 years old. Forbidden to have pierced ears, she craftily resorted to gluing beads to her ears. The daughter of two designers, you could say she has design in her blood. You could also say she crossed an ocean to find it.
While her design education from Cornell and Pratt gave her discipline, it was her travels through Europe in her early 20s that ignited her passion. Her love for shopping led her to bead stores, and her talent for putting them together in unique ways found her her first admirers as she travelled on trains. It was then she realized that she could be making money to buy her an extra day in Europe. That extra day turned into a year, and Elements/Jill Schwartz was born.
You’ll no longer find her jewelry sold on the beaches of Mykonos or hawked at cafés in Amsterdam. Her company’s brands are now sold in boutiques and major chains around the world. And while her mixture of unusual vintage and modern materials has evolved over the years, each piece is still unmistakably, inimitably “Jill.”
