Only in fiction might you expect to find someone who is a jeweler, a sleuth, and an historian, all at one time. But Vermont can claim Caitlyn Wilkinson, owner of Renaissance Fine Jewelry in downtown Brattleboro, as that person.
As a jeweler, Wilkinson manages one of the largest collections of antique jewelry in New England, as well as contemporary rings, pendants, bracelets and other adornments. As a sleuth, she researches the authenticity, identity and value of certain gems and pieces of jewelry. As an historian, Wilkinson, former vice president of the Bellows Falls Historical Society in Rockingham, explores the historical context from which unique styles of jewelry emerged: Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Retro and Contemporary. Wilkinson says she is particularly fond of Art Nouveau.
“I’m completely passionate about antique jewelry,” Wilkinson confessed. “I’ve specialized in it, and I work with estate jewelers all over the U.S. and Europe.” Her expertise includes gemological testing, appraisals, buying and selling, and trading and identifying vintage pieces.
In 2003 with start-up funds from both parents and a co-partnership with her mother, Wilkinson launched Renaissance Fine Jewelry in a Main St. storefront with roughly 1,000 sq. ft. of space. In 2008, a U.S. Small Business Administration loan through Chittenden (now People’s United) Bank enabled her to move toward sole ownership of the business.
Despite the global recession which has put a strain on so many small businesses, Renaissance Fine Jewelry has prospered, enjoying steady growth every year since its founding. According to Wilkinson, the business has grown 40% in just the past year. With a keen ear to her clients’ needs, along with aggressive advertising and extensive use of various media technologies, Wilkinson said she viewed the recession as an opportunity to grow.
“There was no point where I could sit back and do things the old way,” she said. “During hard financial times, many people drop advertising, and that’s the one thing you shouldn’t cut.” Wilkinson also believes her penchant for networking and creative collaboration with the store’s master jeweler, a wax model maker, and a laser operator for gold repairs, has helped secure her success. Her advice on starting a business is to “be passionate and surround yourself with people who are already successful in the field.”
Despite intense local competition, Wilkinson also feels the business is thriving because she and her six employees love people as well as jewelry. “The key to building a great company is bringing in others who share your vision,” Wilkinson said. “We have fun every day at work, we love working together, and we’re all intensely interested in what we’re doing. We want to make our clients happy because that’s what makes us happy. Because of that, we’re deeply concerned about quality.”
Wilkinson’s passion for jewelry began with a childhood fascination for gems. At age 14, she was designing her own jewelry and felt she was already following her chosen career path. She never gave up on that dream. Even while focusing on business management at the University of Vermont, she was also working part-time in a jewelry store, and later expanded her education with multiple in-depth courses at the Gemological Institute of America. Wilkinson went on to develop and manage Von Bargen’s Jewelry in Burlington and received valuable mentoring from the owner, John Von Bargen. Despite and perhaps due to serious health challenges in her youth, Wilkinson said she honors her passion for life by working with gems and by making people happy.
Referring to customer satisfaction, Wilkinson said, “It’s all about perceived value. Our clients have to have a great time purchasing the product, and they have to have a fabulous piece that’s useful and brings them pleasure. People are still spending money in this recession, and they will travel a long way to come to a jeweler they trust.” Wilkinson said the bulk of her clients reside in the New England area, but she has regular customers as far away as California and Italy.
Much of Wilkinson’s work as a jeweler involves the custom design of engagement rings or the reworking of estate jewelry and other precious gems. “Emotion plays a huge role in the jewelry industry . . . people often bring in their family pieces, which are priceless emblems of their personal history. For instance, to make a single, gorgeous ring, I might combine a grandfather’s wedding band, a diamond from an aunt, and the engagement ring sections from a mother’s ring.”
According to Wilkinson, gem analysis in terms of historical context, the availability of materials and special techniques as well as designs that were in vogue when it was crafted, can reveal a lot about vintage jewelry. “You have to understand history to understand jewelry,” she said. “For example, the hues and color tones of antique gems carved under gaslight or candlelight can look very different in today’s world of electric lighting.”
Wilkinson lifted an eighteenth-century Victorian piece from the jewelry cabinet, a cameo with a woman’s profile carved in agate. Placed in a handmade Collette-style setting, the cameo is free to move and catch light reflections of various color hues. She said the piece was probably carved in Idar-Oberstein, Germany, a world-class gem stone center known for its superb craftsmanship, but because it had not been stamped with identifying marks, its date and place of origin remain difficult to detect. “It’s beautifully made, incredibly labor-intensive, and still here today because of the extraordinary craftsmanship,” she said. Wilkinson’s interest in history is probably related to the fact that she was born and raised in Rockingham, which she said her father’s family helped develop hundreds of years ago.
Wilkinson’s plans for the future include a possible expansion of Renaissance Fine Jewelry, in Brattleboro. And with her cadre of like-minded employees, she says she looks forward to continued collaboration in all things Renaissance. “We often spend our evenings after work continuing to talk about and analyze jewelry,” she said. “It’s our passion, it’s intense, and it’s definitely geeky,” she said with a smile. Wilkinson said she also participates in numerous trade shows each year, discusses industry trends with colleagues around the country, and takes continuing education courses with the Gemological Institute of America.
Within the year, she and her husband hope to move their family to Brattleboro. “I enjoy the opportunities for friendship in a small town, and I love the community here in Brattleboro,” she commented. “As you’re going down the street, it’s much more fun to know your neighbors and say ‘Hello’ than to be anonymous.”