Nyc hip hop jewelry10/6/2023 When Jane meets a new client, she takes a second to understand what they’re about, observing their style, rhythm, and demeanor. Yes, New Top is a business that needs to make rent, but for Jane the bottom line doesn’t compare to her customers feeling cared for. Her intuition shines its brightest here as Jane works closely with each customer to help find an existing piece or to create a custom order. Something Jane hears on a regular basis is, “How did you know?” She’s referring to the awe she witnesses from her customers, who typically come in with a vague idea of what they want, and leave with a piece of jewelry - and an experience - that they’ll keep for life. That’s how I do business.” On a recent trip into the store, I watch Jane help two sharply dressed girls visiting from Germany and within minutes they giddily leave with a gold eagle pendant - one of the girls had been to New Top before during a previous visit and her friends loved her jewelry so much, they placed orders with her upon her return to the city. If they come here, I should take care of them. “Why do they choose New Top Jewelry? So many stores. She talks about young men who come to her to get their first, real gold chains, college-aged girls on a budget looking for something unique. There’s an unshakable maternal essence about her, one that’s confirmed with each happy customer story she tells. In person, Jane is tender with big, soft curls, an immaculate, barely-there glitter smokey eye, and a voice that registers just above a whisper. Jewelry in NYC is a competitive business where gut feelings rule supreme, and at New Top, Jane is the gold standard. Playful, eye-catching rose pendants, marijuana leaf charms, and bamboo-detailed hoops, along with classic cuban link chains and signet rings reflect onto a mirrored hallway. It’s a narrow store, gilded from top to bottom with gold pieces in varying karats, and close enough to the Canal Street JMZ subway stop that the store faintly rattles with the passing of each train. For the past 17 years, Jane has been working at New Top Jewelry, a small jewelry store with a staff you can count on one hand, stationed directly in the bustle of Chinatown’s jewelry district. Her intuition is keen - something she partly attributes to being born under the empath water sign, Cancer - and it’s served her well. From an early age, Jane was taught to recognize how people moved their faces, how their bodies shifted, and where their eyes looked. In partnership with Hip Hop 50, $1 of each ticket sale goes to support the Universal Hip Hop Museum.When Jane Shuai was a young girl in Hangzhou, China, her parents taught her a valuable lesson in reading other people’s emotions. Tracing the cultural genre’s collective trajectory over five decades, the exhibition spans photography by hip-hop’s earliest documentarians of the 1970s to younger hip-hop photographers who are furthering the proliferation of the genre’s aesthetic. The exhibition’s lifeblood is the period before hip-hop knew what it was. There was an exponentially paced transition where hip-hop culture became conscious of itself as an incredibly lucrative global export. The works on view traverse intersecting themes such as the role of women in hip-hop hip-hop’s regional and stylistic diversification and rivalries a humanistic lens into the1970s-Bronx street gangs whose members contributed to the birth of hip-hop and the mainstream breakthrough that saw a grassroots movement become a global phenomenon. Blige to modern icons such as Nicki Minaj, Megan Thee Stallion, and Cardi B. Co-curated by Sally Berman and Sacha Jenkins, Chief Creative Officer of Mass Appeal, Hip-Hop: Conscious, Unconscious presents images ranging from iconic staples of visual culture to rare and intimate portraits of hip-hop’s biggest stars from legendary pioneers including Nas, Tupac, Notorious B.I.G, and Mary J.
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