Erin Dixon: Precious or plastic?
Alexis Bittar: Plastic.

When talking to Alexis Bittar, the above declaration pertains to jewelry, of course. Bittar emerged in the early ’90s as the alchemist of Lucite, developing a unique process that transforms the particular plastic into luminescent jewels that seem to simultaneously capture and release light. In the post-modern world, his intrinsically inexpensive accessories thrived, gaining value through personal connections rather than precious materials. Their unique nature—a romantic house cameo pendant or an android-inspired gold confetti ring—tends to forge an intense emotional attachment with the wearer that, clichés aside, is priceless. 18 years, 600 worldwide stockists and two freestanding boutiques later, Bittar’s business continues to grow at an annual rate of around 30%, with each piece manufactured by hand at the designer’s Brooklyn headquarters in DUMBO. The jewelry’s ascent imparts a “don’t judge a book by its cover” moral and, as it turns out, the same can be said for Bittar himself. Throughout our conversation, it became clear that the man behind the plastic is anything but superficial. He, like his beloved Lucite, has many layers.

Erin: You’re from Brooklyn, and your parents exposed you at a young age to arts and culture. Is there something that stands out as an initial creative memory or influence?

Alexis: There’s not one thing that stands out, but I was talking to a friend of mine last night, and I was talking about my dad. When I was three, he bought a water tower in Westchester for $300, brought it up to Maine and turned it into a house. Maybe he, in particular, thought very out of the box. Because of that, especially at a young age, the idea of taking illustrations from a 1920s book and putting them in little picture frames and selling them in Bay Ridge didn’t seem freakish. When I was nine or ten, I began taking photographs and developing them myself. I think that it wasn’t one thing, but just a continual stream. My parents gave me the freedom to not feel constrained. My brother’s the same way in his own world.

Erin: You then began selling vintage and that’s when you got into jewelry, right?

Alexis: Yeah. There was a woman in Maine (because we would go to Maine in the summers) and she had a jewelry shop. She gave me a wedding band. I don’t even know how old I was, but I was young. The crow in me really loved the jewel—just the gold and the metal and the preciousness of it. Then when I was 13, my parents spent a few hundred dollars on a bag of vintage costume jewelry and gave it to me to sell on St. Mark’s. That was my birthday present, and that’s how I started.

Erin: Talking about St. Mark’s, you’ve mentioned here and there that moving out of the East Village was kind of a difficult period for you.

Alexis: Uh, yep.

Erin: So if you’re in a dark place, how do you make pretty things?

Alexis: Hmm…I didn’t during that time. Did I? No, I didn’t. It was about survival. I was a drug addict and it was about survival and it wasn’t about being pretty.

Erin: But you pulled yourself out. Any vices left?

Alexis: None that I want to put in print (laughs), but I think movies have become a good vice.

Erin: Any in particular?

Alexis: I have tons of videos, like hundreds. I’m obsessed with World War II, so I have a hundred documentaries on World War II. I tend to like movies with murder or suspense or espionage, and I tend to like pre-80s movies. I still watch everything that comes out, but I find the most comfort from movies that are pre-80s.

Erin: Let’s get into your spring collection.

Alexis: For the spring collection, there were three groups: Lucite, Elements and Miss Havisham. They all have their own roles. I always develop the themes; I try to layer them. It’s not just one linear thought. With the Lucite, there was this kind of look at Gauguin and Schiaparelli and the surrealism of Schiaparelli—going towards this kind of very old 1940s costume jewelry feel. Then the other half of it was Boombox, which was this club in London that’s now shut. We did psychedelic fur patterns and ice cream cones with melted lodium on the top. It’s very ’80s whimsical with little elements of LSD going on. Miss Havisham’s basis is kind of 1930s deco, like Grace Jones ’80s and a little Brancusi sculptural metal. I continued with that but went a little softer with the metal in terms of making it look like it was melting, but there are still some hard lines going on. Then, in Elements we always situate it as 1970s smoking pot on the beach in California kind of feeling. We did these soft porcelain flowers that are slightly surreal, too. There are hands holding them. There’s kind of tacky metal work from the ’60s and ’70s. It’s really sort of hideous and amazing at the same time.

Erin: Has your creative process changed now that the business has grown so much?

Alexis: The creative process, thank God, is still good. It’s the thing that keeps driving me and giving me the energy to go on with the whole picture. If anything, the great thing now is that I can have ideas and they can come into fruition when they couldn’t before. Now, I have the ability to say if I want to do an ice cream cone with dripping lodium and do it. Before, I could maybe think of it and I might do it, but it would be four years from now. Particularly right now and particularly in fashion, and also in jewelry, it’s super important to design as quickly as you’re thinking, because if you aren’t doing it, someone else is. It’s amazing how you’ll have an idea and then see, ‘Oh shit, they’re doing it at the same time. How did that happen?’ But, it happens. So, in a way, now it’s [the creative process] more freeing. It’s less overwhelming, more exciting and more freeing.

Erin: Would you ideally like the company to continue growing, or is there a capping off point?

Alexis: Every year for the past ten years, we’ve grown 20 to 30%. You have to be very careful building that, especially right now. You’re going to see a lot of companies fail that are overextended, who lost their core sensibility. I like 30%. I’m good with that.

Erin: You’ve always talked about being influenced by art and being happy to be sold at MOMA and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. What kind of art do you most relate to?

Alexis: Well, contemporary art actually drives me insane. I hate going to galleries and hearing bullshit chatter. My favorite thing is to go into a gallery and speak some pig Italian and pretend I’m talking about…whatever really loudly. I rarely see contemporary art—I feel like the hype behind it always overshadows the actual work, so I tend to go back. I tend to be more of an antique.

Erin: Any favorites?

Alexis: I’m a big fan of the Vienna Werkstatte Movement; I think it’s amazing. The color sensibility is amazing. For the time, it was unbelievable in terms of the contemporary thought and the way to use materials, even with jewelry. The fact that they were doing this intricate beaded work using color block colors, for 1908, is amazing. The most exciting thing for me was Modern art at the turn of the century. That’s the most inspiring, and there’s a list of artists that would be put into it; the Vienna Werkstatte was one of them. When I think of the era and what was going on and the rest of the art that was going on then…For someone to do something surreal in 1908, I’m just like ‘Wow! What’s going on with that person’s brain that they could think that far out of the box?’

Erin: You seem to keep going back to the phrase “thinking out of the box”. Is that something you really strive to do?

Alexis: (Laughs) Yeah, I try. I think it’s important for me. Like when we did the soft porcelain flowers, I felt like I hadn’t seen that. I like to design things I haven’t seen, like the ice cream cone.

Erin: How does that come to you? Does is arrive in a flash?

Alexis: Yeah. The truth is probably on some level I have seen…who knows. Your brain has all this information and you don’t even realize it. It just kind of comes. With the hands holding the soft porcelain flowers, hands have been there forever—since the Victorian times. I’ve always wanted to use hands. I never had and I thought, ‘What would be beautiful? What would they be holding?’ And I thought it would be great if they were holding these matte white flowers, which would be super delicate and pretty and also slightly creepy.

Erin: I like the creepy aspect. It’s that Schiaparelli bit.

Alexis: Exactly. It’s just a culmination and you just keep pushing yourself. Also editorially, as the demand has grown and the demand of the stylists has grown, it really pushes you to really expect more, which is good. There is always momentum of drive.
Quite recently we did a shoot for Italian Vogue and she [the stylist] was showing me some pictures of Gattaca and I thought it would be great to do a shirt collar with the buttons—literally, so that you could put your shirt over it. I’ve never seen that, so I was excited about it. You just keep trying to think of what you haven’t seen, what hasn’t been done.

Erin: Italian Vogue, for example, really uses your statement pieces. I believe they recently shot your cone earrings. You seem to really enjoy that kind of collaboration.

Alexis: Yeah, I’m very focused on only what literally sells, but the editorial, if I didn’t do that, I’d be so bored because it is the creative energy. If I wanted to just make money, I’d be doing QVC stamped gold with big diamonds. Not that there’s anything wrong with any of that, but I think that I have found a good balance for myself in combining the commerce with art, and the thing that’s exciting about that editorial is that it is art. In the U.S. it’s depressing because there are so few really good designers who are really pushing the envelope. Marc Jacobs is one of the few that is doing it. It doesn’t matter that it’s not wearable; that’s missing the whole point. It’s about giving the fantasy, the whole fantasy. It can’t look like a student project. It has to be a whole luxurious fantasy. And then yes, you’ll have your bags and whatever the selling items are. If you’re big into fashion, I would think that’s why most people want to do it. Otherwise what the fuck is the point? Why are we doing this? There are only so many black pants that you can be looking at.

Erin: Do you ever wish that you had left New York so that you could have had more exposure to that European creativity you’re referring to, or do you find enough here?

Alexis: I find it here because I am working with all the stylists from Europe and they’re all traveling, and I’m doing a show in Paris and England and shows here. The stylists are so global these days. The more I’ve grown with them, the more that they know what I’m capable of. They’ll lean on you because they’ll need to. They’ll have a vision and they’re explaining this vision to me of how they want this shot to look, and can I make it happen? If I can make it happen, I’ll make it happen. Not always can you make it happen within the timeframe.

Erin: So where did your love for plastic and Lucite come from?

Alexis: At first when I was starting, I had no money. Zero money. I’ve never had a backer and my parents had no money. When I was selling antiques—there used to be an outside flea market on 26th Street and I sold there for a few years; that was in ’88—I was always drawn to it, probably because I could afford it. At the time, I loved Bakelite so much. There was so much hype around it and the prices were soaring, and I felt that with metal it’s hard to do stuff that hasn’t been done. With plastic, it’s somewhat of a pioneer place. I could carve it and sculpt it and manipulate it. I quickly put this idea together and fused a bunch of different processes from different places and came up with the Lucite and have just been entranced with it. Which is kind of crazy because it’s been 18 years and I still look at it and think, ‘Ooh, that’s so pretty.’ (Laughs) The thing that’s weird about plastic is that there is no intrinsic value. So you feel like, ‘Is this garbage or is this beautiful?’ 18 years I’ve gone back and forth, but overall I still love the glow, the reflection, the light. It still looks like how I would equate being modern.

Erin: Aside from work, what do you like to do?

Alexis: Well, I’ve grown up in the city. So in terms of feeling the need to be the East Village token clubber, I did that in spades. I mean, I sold on the street for 15 years. That’s a long time. I find that I like routine. My routine is somewhat simple, but there are lots of remnants of the past that are intertwined with it. I love the simplicity of the same friends I’ve had. The friends I have are friends I’ve known for about 20 years. They’re from the era of Area and Dancetaria; it’s kind of an old-age home of clubbers. I like that because I know that we all know the background history. I’m fairly simple. I go to the movies. I go out to eat. I will occasionally mix it up in terms of a weekly thing that I love, like a tranny bar (laughs). A real tranny bar, not like Lips, which is not a good tranny bar. I now love an old ball, but those are hard to come by. Although they are still completely going, and amazing. The kids are still completely bringing it and there’s a bevy of trannies happening.

Erin: What are you wearing to these bars?

Alexis: Oh, the same thing. (Laughs) No, I’m not a tranny, although that would be amazing. Well, you never know down the road… There’s something about the tattoo world, too. I used to go to the tattoo conventions in New York. Finding the underground of New York these days is difficult. It kind of doesn’t exist. Finding that…what I remember of that feeling of walking into a place and being like ‘Holy Shit! This is a whole world that is going on that it is so unlike anything on the outside.’ I feel like that is a hard thing to find, but I have found it in those two areas, for better or for worse. And I love good food. I love to travel. I try to travel twice a year to a place that I’ll learn from and to relax at the same time, but my form of relaxing is different than probably some of my boyfriends of the past. I like to go to places that are off the beaten path. I love Africa.

Erin: What’s coming up this year?

Alexis: I don’t know. I’ve got to figure that out. I’ve really been wanting to go to Russia, and I’d like to go to Botswana. I’ve been all over East Africa, but I haven’t been to Botswana. I also really want to go to Jordan. I love the Middle East. I’m half Syrian, half Irish, so I love the Middle East.

Erin: Are these travels reflected in your work or are they a subconscious part of the larger mix?

Alexis: I always wish they were. I remember when I went to China, I thought ‘Ooh, I’m going to find all these Chinese antiques,’ which don’t exist. There are, like, none.

Erin: Why do women wear jewelry?

Alexis: I think that women wear jewelry…it’s very similar to why men work out. Women wear jewelry for other women, and men work out for other men. Not that they are trying to attract other men, but I think that women want to set themselves apart. It’s survival of the fittest. It’s completely breeding and status and all that, and it’s to empower. It should be to empower and bring attention. Then it becomes personalized. In terms of what women should wear, they should wear what they’re comfortable wearing, but I always do feel like it would be good if they pushed themselves a little to have some fun.

Erin: I notice that you don’t wear jewelry.

Alexis: Yeah, I don’t wear jewelry. I used to wear a lot of jewelry. When I was a kid and when I was on the street, I’d wear a big heavy chain, very street chic, very Victorian. I had this Alexander Parkes necklace, the first plastic necklace, and I’d wear a big link bracelet. But over time, I just felt ridiculous (laughs), like I didn’t want to wear this shit anymore. The last piece I had was this pendant and it flew off when I was jet skiing in Turkey and I thought, ‘That’s it.’

Erin: Why, more than clothes, do we develop such an emotional attachment to jewelry?

Alexis: It’s very odd. I don’t understand completely. I know that it drives me crazy as a businessperson. We sell to 600 stores. Mass amounts of product are going out and we’ll get these letters from customer service…Someone will handwrite this letter and they lost an earring. They’ve had this earring for two years and can they get a replacement for it? Their husband gave them the earring. That pair of earrings might have cost $150, and I’m always like, ‘What!? You would never do this with clothing.’ You would never say, “Oh I poured cranberry juice on this. I wore it for a year. Can I get it replaced?” The sweet part of it is the sentiment. As a businessperson it’s crazy. Like, they’ve been wearing it for six years and you think, ‘Shit, you got a lot of wear out of that.’ (Laughs) I don’t know. Do you know?

Erin: I don’t, but I know I feel it. I had a ring for ages and then lost it. It was like losing a security blanket that was hard to replace because it was with me through a lot of experiences.

Alexis: I remember, like with your ring, I had this necklace, this beautiful necklace that was old. It was out of bloodstone and it was Jesus with thorns and the stone had little specks of red. It was from the 1700s, beautifully done, and when it flew off, I was like, ‘Ooh, that was a few thousand dollars. Whoosh.’ There is this thing with jewelry that even if it isn’t that valuable, we perceive jewelry as being valuable. There’s that ‘I can re-sell this.’ But I do think it’s the memories if you are wearing it every single day. And it’s small. You can put it in something and leave, unlike your clothing, which is heavy. Maybe that’s it….

Erin: Beyond jewelry and business, what are you dreaming about these days?

Alexis: Right now it is about…it’s so mid-life crises (laughs). It is about what you leave when you end up with a tag on your toe. I feel like I have one big venture left in me that’s not this business. I’m trying to put together what that might be. It would probably either be having children, which is kind of obvious—although less obvious since I’m gay—or combining my experience and connections with humanitarian work and knowing that no matter what you do, at the end of the day you’re leaving it all behind. No matter what you are doing, you want to enjoy the moment.