Designers Joe Gelb and Jack Cannon reveal a collaboration with Playboy
The emerging jewellery brand Hatton Labs has today launched a collaboration with the American magazine-turned-brand Playboy.
Founders Joe Gelb and Jack Cannon, who are based in London and known for channeling the city’s cultural and subcultural history into their designs, have taken the iconic and instantly recognisable Playboy logo and transposed it to a 28-piece collection spanning bracelets, earrings, necklaces, and rings.
“Playboy is one of the best references out there in terms of ‘how one creates a brand’, Hugh Hefner was one of the greatest marketeers of the 20th century, regardless or whether you like the Playboy brand or not,” says Gelb. “Being approached to collaborate is a huge dream for us. At the very beginning we definitely had this ‘kid in a sweetie shop’ moment with all the million product ideas you can think of.”
Gelb also notes that while the Playboy brand has historically encompassed a wide range of products – with the rabbit head logo appearing on clothes, accessories, footwear, lingerie, fragrances, and homeware – jewellery has never been one of them, until now. “There’s never been a product based around precious metals and stones,” he says. “To me this is kind of crazy – back in the 50s and 60s, Playboy was very much about this tasteful, luxurious, debonair lifestyle. They will forever be iconic but to me this was the golden age of the brand, we really wanted to highlight this particular special moment within the Playboy timeline and create products with precious stones and metals.”
Fusing Britishness and pop culture, which has been a signature of the brand since it first launched back in 2018, the resulting collection is available in sterling silver, 14k and 18k gold, employing precious stones and materials such as diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, onyx, and pink mother of pearl, among others.
However the collection is relatively limited (the maximum production run for any style goes up to just 44 pieces), which is a conscious decision on behalf of Gelb and Cannon who believe that limited production is necessary in order to retain a sense of “special value”.
“Stores and customers don’t know which styles are the most limited or not, it can only be discovered once each product is opened by a customer,” Gelb adds. “I like this air of mystery around the products, it carries some childlike excitement similar to Willy Wonker’s golden ticket.”
Explore the Hatton Labs x Playboy collection here.
