While the judges had varying levels of familiarity with one another before they walked in the room, from casual acquaintances to working relationship to never-laid-eyes-on-you-before, everyone showed up promptly at 7:45am on Saturday morning and immediately gelled. This year’s panel included Corina Madelin from Single Stone, Miguel Enamorado from Harper’s Bazaar, writer Smitha Sandanandan, Carla Carter from G. Marie Luxuries, and Jon Kaiser from Bloomingdales, each of them contributing their unique points-of-view to their assessments and frequently bouncing their opinions off one another.

We came in hot with the judging process by starting with the Best in Diamonds Above $40K Retail category. While several pieces “made it into the room,” the panel was immediately enamored with the Lighthouse necklace from Stenzhorn’s NOTES collection, inspired by life at sea and the symbolic language of the sailor’s knot. Noting that the Crisscut and IDORO submissions, which took home 2^nd and 3^rd place in the category, were also going to be considered in Best in Debuting, they ultimately decided that the contemporary interpretation of high jewelry best represented the category.

Accepting the award at Encore Theater, Chris Stenzhorn stated, “We are deeply honored to receive this recognition and grateful to the COUTURE community for this distinction. This award is a tribute to the passion, creativity and craftsmanship of our entire team, and we are proud to see our creation recognized among so many outstanding pieces.”