True Religion Designer Launches Jewelry Line
After more than 20 years in the apparel industry, Kymberly Gold-Lubell wanted to experiment with something different: jewelry.
The designer and co-founder of Los Angeles premium-denim company True Religion Inc. launched a bohemian-style jewelry line in May called BabaKul.
Jewelry is a slight departure from Gold- Lubell’s years of designing blue jeans, one of her favorite items to wear. It’s where she made her mark working for L.E.I. and Laundry by Shelli Segal.
In the late 1990s, she and her then-husband, Jeff Lubell, launched the blue-jeans company Bella Dahl Inc., then Hippie Jeans, before launching True Religion in 2002.
When Gold-Lubell left True Religion earlier this year, she had a non-compete clause. She also receives a $30,000-a-month retainer for consulting with True Religion for two years. So her creative talents had to be directed toward something beyond the apparel world.
“This is an exciting new challenge but very different in the sense that I am working with metal, quartz, gold and diamonds instead of fabric,” said Gold-Lubell as she traveled by taxi in New York, where she was showing her new line at the ENK Accessorie Circuit trade show at Pier 94. “There’s not a lot of fitting to do except on your neck, ears and fingers.”
The idea for a jewelry line sprung from talking to longtime colleague D. Joseph Bortoli, who created a line of accessories for True Religion and has known Gold-Lubell since their teenage years, when he dated one of her triplet sisters. Nubar Boyadjian, the third partner in the venture, owns a factory in Burbank, Calif., where the jewelry is manufactured.
To get the venture off the ground, Gold- Lubell bought a 2,800-square-foot loft on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Los Angeles’ Venice neighborhood, where the small operation is based. Most of the $300,000 to $500,000 investment in BabaKul is being funded by Gold- Lubell, who received a sizable sum when she divorced her husband earlier this year.
Jeff Lubell, True Religion’s chairman and chief executive, sold 2.3 million shares of his True Religion stock as part of the divorce settlement. At the time, the stock was trading at about $18.90 a share. Gold-Lubell also received $675,000 in severance when she left as vice president of women’s design and the second largest shareholder.
BabaKul, which is French slang for “hippie,” has just started shipping its line of artistic cocktail rings, earrings and bracelets to highend stores such as Barneys New York, Neiman Marcus and Fred Segal Couture.
The line could be described as chunky metal and oversize stones. Its signature metal-embossed symbols are flowers, stars, moons and peace symbols. The collection retails from $250 to $3,500.
“Our stuff is special. It’s not for everyone,” Gold-Lubell said. “It’s for the person whose accessories are as important as the clothes she is wearing.” —Deborah Belgum
