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Nashville designer Judith Bright opens jewelry store

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Photo courtesy of Judith Bright.

Her first stop was Nashville. Next up was Atlanta. So Birmingham was the natural third location for Judith Bright’s jewelry. The Mountain Brook Village store will hold its grand opening Oct. 22 from 6-9 p.m. The event will feature food, drinks and door prizes, and ten percent of proceeds from that night will go to Mitchell’s Place.

Judith Bright offers 25 different gemstones sourced from all over the world and cut in India. Designs come in rose gold, 14-carat gold filled or sterling silver. They are not precious metals but they are the next best thing, she said. 

“You come in and you can design whatever it is you want within the parameters of the designs we put out there,” Bright said. 

Bright and her team of artisans make each piece by hand, so “nothing is perfect.” 

“It has a very clean aesthetic with very modern lines. It’s unfussy,” Bright said. “Our jewelry is meant to layer, and there is no end to the layering. We are big on stacking.”

Her jewelry starts at $38, and couture pieces top out around $1,000. The designs have been worn in films by Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lopez, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Frances McDormand, among other stars. 

Her latest collection, Mollie, is themed around a marquis shape and named after a Nashville sales associate. Likewise, each collection has a name that means something special to Bright. 

Bright said her sandalwood pieces are particularly meaningful. Aromatic sandalwood beads are blessed by the Buddhist Lama in Kathmandu, Nepal, and mailed with rice and marigold dust. Judith Bright stores also share the meaning of different gemstones to add another layer of meaning to gifts. For instance, blue topaz, which represents success, is popular for graduation.

Bright has always had a passion for making jewelry, but she maintained it as a hobby for many years while she pursued a career in media. In 2004, she and her family decided to leave Los Angeles for Nashville, a place they thought would be good to raise their three boys. But first, they spent a year in Italy, where Bright developed her voice in the craft.

“Italian jewelry is my favorite. Italian everything is very inspiring for me,” she said. “Taking classes there, I remember walking through cobblestone streets after classes thinking, ‘I’m Cinderella and the shoe finally fits.’”

The niche Bright ultimately started to pursue was “affordable heirloom quality” jewelry. Today she said her pieces bridge the gap between fashion jewelry and fine jewelry. 

 “People like me who were on a budget were able to buy great-looking pieces without breaking the bank,” she said. “I wanted to give people expensive-looking jewelry at a price that was reasonable.”

Her showroom started in her windowless basement in Nashville and worked its way to her upstairs and then, in 2010, to The Mall at Green Hills in Nashville across from Tory Burch and next to Free People. From there, she moved the showroom to the 12South neighborhood in Nashville and opened a second location in the Virginia-Highland area of Atlanta. 

Bright has been holding trunk shows in Birmingham since 2008 that have became an “integral part of business.” Seth Adams, who owns Village Sportswear and Marella, encouraged Bright to take the former Christine’s space in Mountain Brook Village when it opened up. They knocked down the wall between Marella and the new Judith Bright storefront so shoppers could fluidly move from one to the other to pair clothing with jewelry. 

“We have so many loyal Birmingham customers shopping with us online that a store here just made sense,” Bright said. “Birmingham is a city on the move with an entrepreneurial spirit much like that of Nashville.”

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