KATKIM Jewelry

KATKIM Jewelry

Katherine Kim launched KATKIM in New York in the fall of 2015 after training in graphic design in Pasadena and then jewelry at Central Saint Martins in London and the Fashion Institute of Technology. The brand is built around a single idea she developed at her kitchen table, the Ear Pin, a slim gold spear that threads through the piercing and locks behind the ear, since multiplied into diamond-paved and petite versions.

Collage of rings, earrings and layered necklaces worn up close, in the spirit of KATKIM

Jewelry

Kim's graphic design background is easy to spot once you know it is there: clean lines, geometric repetition, silhouettes that read almost like line drawings rendered in gold. The Ear Pin remains the throughline, but the wider jewelry here shows the same instinct for a shape distilled down to its simplest, most wearable form.

Precious metals with restrained sparkle

KATKIM has always leaned on precious-metal minimalism over heavy embellishment, a choice that traces back to Kim's early years designing private-label collections before she struck out on her own. This stretch of the edit keeps that restraint intact, favoring line and form over stones doing all the talking.

Single-ear jewels and fine bands

After roughly twelve years based in New York, Kim relocated the brand's home base to Los Angeles, and the collection has kept growing without losing the pared-back vocabulary it started with. These pieces round out the range, proof that a brand can expand output for over a decade and still look like the work of one person's eye.

Restraint became the signature

KATKIM's reputation rests on one very good idea, the Ear Pin, and the smartest thing the label has done is resist over-explaining it: everything since has just been a variation on doing less, better. It is a narrower point of view than some jewelry labels attempt, but that narrowness is exactly why the pieces still look distinct on a red carpet or a subway platform. When I want to build around KATKIM's sculptural ear pieces, I like following them with rings and necklaces to layer.

 

For more in the same spirit, take a look at ELHANATI Jewelry and Earrings and 8 Other Reasons Jewelry & Bags.