By Kim Palmer

Today, Erickson Beamon is a worldwide brand, its pieces a fixture on high-fashion runways and in more than 600 stores in 75 countries. But the brand’s handcrafted aesthetic started spontaneously thanks to quick thinking by Detroit natives Karen Erickson and Vicki Beamon while they planned a fashion show. Over thirty years later, the duo’s global company still embraces the spontaneous spirit it started with.

“We’d go out clubbing,” Beamon recalls. “There were a lot of great vintage thrift stores in Detroit, and we grew up putting things together, old with new.” Erickson and her husband, Eric, founded the company, and Beamon soon joined them, moving to London to spearhead a European division. “Having the influence of two continents helped explode our creativity,” Erickson says. Now, in addition to fashion jewelry, the company has continued to push the possibilities of pearls, crystals and chains by branching into a collection of housewares including chandeliers, frames, mirrors, candelabra and pillows. STIR® caught up with the designing duo at their studios: Erickson in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood and Beamon in London’s Belgravia.

STIR: How did you start designing jewelry?
Karen Erickson: I was doing a ready-to-wear collection, and we needed jewelry to style our fashion show. It was the ‘80s, and jewelry was really defined. No one would loan us jewelry, so we designed our own. We took Swarovski crystals and strung them on strips of suede, made huge lariats and wrapped the models up. Everyone loved our clothes but they loved our jewelry more. Hence we were in business.

STIR: How do you collaborate while living on different continents?
Vicki Beamon: We’re pretty in tune. I start something and she develops it, or she starts something and I take it another step. Karen has more demands on her. The American market demands faster turnaround. In Europe, we can get away with things a little dressier - there are more balls and events. In America, it’s more laid-back. KE: We speak all the time. We finish each other’s sentences. It’s like we’re both working on a puzzle, and the pieces fit. We’ve never had a business plan. It’s an organic, magical company.

STIR: Tell us about your process regarding working with color. Do you approach it differently when designing fashion versus jewelry versus chandeliers?
KE: We don’t really think like that. Things happen organically. We don’t follow a recipe to bake a cake. I don’t think creativity comes that way. I don’t overthink the process. I let the process happen.
VB: I choose a vibe or an inspiration, then go from there. Last year I did a collection, “Tropical Punch,” inspired by birds and feathers. There was a book I was reading on South American birds, and the color came from that. We did a whole collection based on Mad Men. You take that ‘60s palette and make it a little stronger, deeper, to modernize it. You can never keep something the same.

STIR: Do you think modern eyes see color differently?
VB: Yes, modern eyes are bombarded with so much information that the colors are stronger now too. People wear a lot of black and white to balance all that strong color.

STIR: How does your use of crystals impact color and design choices:
KE: I don’t think about materials. I use what I find beautiful. I can be inspired by a piece of wood or a seashell.
VB:We use the crystals to build up colors and shapes. You can come out with something completely different. I like the Swarovski Aurora Borealis crystals, which have an iridescent finish. You can put it on top of any color.

STIR: Tell us about a recent color inspiration.
KE: Our last Fashion Week show was a cabaret, a show within a show. It was inspired by decadence, nightclubs, and we called it “Deca-Dance.” I had a vision: We can’t just make jewelry. We have to make the clothes. That led to a ready-to-wear collection, very intricate and handmade, inspired by lingerie. Originally it was going to be all black. But instead it’s really dark: bottle green, moody purple, navy and a rich raisin color.

STIR: You have an amazingly diverse list of customers, from Lady Gaga to Michelle Obama. Tell us about something you made for them.
KE: We work with Gaga all the time. We’ve made masks, body pieces - a million things. We made a body harness, with dark metals and dirty diamonds that looked amazing. Michelle Obama has been a customer since her Chicago days. We sell to a store in Chicago - ikram. Whatever she likes is my favorite.
VB: I do a lot for Beyoncé. We made a beautiful headpiece for her last video [“Run the World (Girls)”]. Samantha Cameron, the Prime Minister’s wife, wears a lot of our pieces. She wore an Erickson Beamon necklace on her Christmas card photo. It was orange, one of the Mad Men pieces, with a pendant-y thing on the front. So we work with both First Ladies, in Britain and the U.S., which is kind of nice.