Two sisters, one bench, and a rule.
Rex Jewelz is made in Miami by two sisters who started making chain for themselves because nothing they could buy survived a night out.
How it started
The first waist chain was made because a bought one snapped on a dance floor in Wynwood at two in the morning and disappeared under everyone’s feet. The second was made because the replacement went green in a week. By the fourth or fifth the neighbours were asking for them, and it stopped being about one broken chain.
Everything is still made at the same bench, a few blocks off Calle Ocho, in a room that is far too hot for most of the year. That heat turns out to be useful. Plating that fails, fails here first.
The rule
Nothing gets a price until somebody has worn it out for a full night. Not photographed in it. Worn it, danced in it, sweated in it, got home at four and looked at what it did.
Pieces that slid, snapped, tangled, dug in or turned skin green went back to the bench. The thigh chain took eleven goes before the silicone grip band solved it. Veneno took most of a year, because a nine point body chain that stays true all night is a genuinely hard object to build.
Why the pieces have the names they have
They are named the way things get named in a Miami kitchen, quickly and with no ceremony. Sal because it is small and goes on everything. Brasa because the red stones look like an ember. Diabla because of what it does to a room. La Reina because the person who finished the first one held it up and said it, and nobody argued.
The bench, most afternoons.
Made here, all of it
Nothing is drop shipped and nothing arrives finished. Chain and findings come from suppliers we have used for years, then every piece is assembled, set and checked by hand before it goes in a box. The crystal pieces take days rather than hours, which is why they cost what they cost and why they sell out.
