Dream Collective

Dream Collective

Kathryn Bentley, the designer behind Dream Collective

By Sierra Feldner-Shaw

Crystals, tree-houses, twisted and burnt wood, prisms, old barns, the art of Cy Twombly, a hand-drawn map of Paris' arrondissements, the patterns that rain makes on a window pane - these are just a few of the inspirations that jewelry designer Kathryn Bentley used in creating Dream Collective, her just-launched line of high end costume jewelry.

Featuring chunky beadwork and lots and lots of texture, the pieces in Bentley's Dream Collective line are bold and refined, ethnically-inspired while retaining a classic elegance. In contrast to her eponymous first line, Kathryn Bentley Jewelry, which features recycled gold and precious stones, the Dream Collective line is made up of oxidized brass, antique African beads, wood and bone - giving it a rough-hewn, organic edge that manages to be beautiful without being "pretty."

We recently sat down with the 31 year old Bentley, who lives in Echo Park with her boyfriend and adorable pet chihuahua Dot, to talk to her about her new venture.

Bunker Hill: How did you get started in design?

Kathryn Bentley: Well, my dad is an architect, and being a minimalist architect was kind of rare for where I grew up in Texas - my bedroom was like one big piece of contemporary art and that's it. I always made art, that was my outlet, I kind of locked myself in my room, but it wasn’t until I was in high school that I started to have my own voice. I got a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2001, got out of art school and had no idea what to do with a degree in painting - my only thought was, “Maybe I’ll go to grad school so I can teach.” I had some friends that hooked me up with a woman named Aurora Lopez who had a jewelry showroom in Tribeca - really having no interest in jewelry and not knowing anything about it. I worked for her for six years, and through her I met Philip Crangi, who I worked with in an elevator shaft in the basement of a building on Lafayette Street. He trained me to do beading work, and from there Manon von Gerkan hired me to redo her line, and through the experience of working for Philip and Manon and also taking some classes at the 92nd Street Y in New York I decided to start my own line. I started out with the gold line, Kathryn Bentley jewelry, which is now four years old. It started with really classic pieces that were somewhat timeless; the theme was these sort of symbolic pieces. I developed that and then after a while decided I wanted a more organic approach, and started using more stones and organic shapes and textures, and that has just kind of grown.

Bunker Hill: Who or what are some of your influences?

Kathryn Bentley: I love jewelry and I love finding antique pieces, but as far as looking in magazines or things like that I really don’t look. It sounds kind of cliche to say a lot of it comes from nature, but it does - it comes from nature and the textures found in that. A lot of the inspiration comes from architecture, too. For instance on my scale rings and pieces: that texture you find in buildings all the time, it’s very specific to iron work. I went to Italy a few years ago and I kept finding that texture everywhere. I get inspiration from sculptors and people making more abstract work. I often find with the pieces I’ve made that they’ve been made in Victorian times or Edwardian times or even Native American - so without even knowing it I’m kind of being intuitively influenced by these cultures. My new line has more of an ethnic cultural approach, where I think the older line comes more from a Victorian, turn of the century moment.

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