Jewelery runway show explodes on IMAX theatre
- ch9029
- Aug 22, 2013
- 3 min read
BIG changes at Hillberg and Berk’s fall luxury jewelry launch this week!
How big? Fifty-two feet (16 metres) by 72 feet (22 metres) the size of the giant Kramer IMAX screen.
Instead of showcasing the Aurora Lux collection on a traditional fashion show runway, the Regina-based company decided to use the IMAX theatre to present the line of sci-fi-inspired jewelry.
“I’m really excited to do something different,” said designer Rachel Mielke, who founded Hillberg and Berk in 2007, and has watched it grow into a multi-million-dollar, internationally recognized business that currently employs a dozen people.
“It’s important to recreate what you do, and do something different and exciting,” she said.
For the past three years, the fall jewelry launch featured a runway show in a luxury car dealership.
But this year, Mielke said she “just really wanted to do something that was outside the box and unexpected and extraordinary. We wanted to create a screen play.”
“We’ve always done a runway show, but it’s hard to see the jewelry from your seat, even if you have a front-row seat,” she explained.
The IMAX screen allowed Hillberg and Berk to “explode the runway show,” Mielke said, and allow the audience to experience the 134-piece jewelry collection “crystal clear, in high definition.”
The launch video was created by Regina-based Play Creative Media.
Mielke described the video as “a really cool, artsy, fun, ski-fi. screen play that showcases the jewelry.”
In addition to the video screenings, the launch featured a live runway component, with models from the video walking through the theatre, sporting sci-fi hair and makeup, wearing Aurora Lux jewelry designs.
The Aurora Lux collection includes everything from winter pastels to winter brights. Gold is back. And gold and silver are mixed together in numerous pieces, reflecting the trend to mix metals.
Prices range from $55 for a simple pair of gemstone earrings to $745 for a luxurious, gold and crystal quartz, multi-functional necklace
“The majority of the pieces in this collection are under $400,” Mielke said. “So it’s investment jewelry, but it’s still affordable.”
Every season, Hillberg and Berk picks a new face of their collection.
“It’s not just a model; it’s a real woman with an amazing story to tell. And we tell that story through our look book,” Mielke explained.
The face of the Aurora Lux collection is New York Times best-selling author Gayle Lemmon, who wrote The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, an empowering story of how Afghan women worked in underground businesses to support their community and provide for their families after the Taliban took over power.
An Aurora necklace has been created specifically to raise funds for charity. For each necklace sold, $50 will go to two charities:
*The Malala Fund, to support women’s education. The fund is named after Malala Yousafzai, the teenage advocate for girls’ education and the rights of all children to go to school, who was shot in the head by Taliban insurgents;
* The International Center for Research on Women, “which goes into Third World countries and identifies women’s contributions to their communities and the barriers, such as HIV, violence, lack of education, and things that prevent them from being economically stable and be able to fully participate in society. And then it takes that information and develops research,” Mielke explained. “They take that research and give it to donors, policy-makers, and from that hope that governmental policy and organizations will come out and be able to give back to those communities and really focus the money on where it really needs to go.”
Hillberg and Berk jewelry is available across Canada, as well as online.
“We’ve had orders from the U.S., UK and Australia,” Mielke said.
“Ninety-five per cent of the collection is still being made in our little yellow house on McIntyre Street,” she said. “I have four girls dedicated to making jewelry. And me.”
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.hillbergandberk.com.
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