In my opinion, Ferrari supercars have long offered the best blue colors. Mazda has the light catching Soul Red Crystal and the Nissan Monarch Orange is beautiful. Simply put, we need more color in this world. Either way, a Ferrari in any shade of blue will not soon adorn my personal collection – I’m a journalist with a journalist budget – but it’s not that bad if you can wear Ferraris accessories and more by CRASH Jewelry.
I should have been really good this year because Santa didn’t just bring one cuff, one made from a Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradale in Rossa Corsa and one from a Ferrari 360 Modena painted in the high-metal Azzuro California. Both are made from parts of colliding vehicles, as you would guess.
Four miles south of UCLA, Beverly Coachcraft specializes in collision repair for Mercedes-Benz vehicles. As one drives with an expensive car, the owner often wants a part replaced but not repaired. This means that doors, canopies, screens and quarter panels are replaced with small and large dents, scratches or dents. The by-product of this process is a whole lot of aluminum, and Christi Schimpke had motive, access and a plan to turn the raw materials into custom jewelry for car enthusiasts.
Schimpke started CRASH Jewelry after moving her creative studio to Beverly CoachCraft, where her husband is one of the owners. She sees a procession of luxury cars from Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Bentley, Aston Martin, Porsche, Rolls-Royce, Maserati and more rolling past and starting to think about the discarded parts and how she can recycle them. No one was accidentally injured in any of these fender benders; it will be twilight. CoachCraft works on late-model European cars that usually suffer a lot of damage at the dealership or through a valet. If a car crashes badly, it is usually a total loss, which means that the insurance company owns it and that CRASH does not affect it.
Schimpke has been producing more traditional jewelry as a trained artist, but the price of metal soared in 2013 when she started the business. When she came up with the idea to recycle the parts from CoachCraft, she had an almost endless amount of material. However, she had to come up with her own production techniques, especially since the original factory paint on sheet metal did not want to sit still when she bent the metal into a cuff shape.
It took about three years to really get the metalworking processes under control, she says, but now she has systems in place and is constantly improving them. Sales at CRASH Jewelry increased by 400 percent and Schimpke’s work also finds its fame: a guest in the fifth season of Jay Lenogarage wore one of her handcuffs, and models on the runway during LA Fashion Week wore CRASH jewelry.
It’s not just for women either: if I wore French shackles, I would like these Lamborghini Gallardo links in Monterey Blue. Schimpke is etched into the metal to expose the silver underneath and it is quite hot.
Hey, if you were good this year too, you can buy it for yourself.
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