Jewelry history is created by designers and makers who use diverse materials to create innovative, beautiful forms and concepts that embody highly skilled artisanship, plus an immediately recognizable style. Mark Davis is one such designer and maker. In addition to being extremely colorful and beautiful, his one-of-a-kind pieces are eco-friendly, luxurious-looking and rare. As Davis explained during a Zoom call conducted in his Beaufort, South Carolina atelier, “Since 1999, I have been incorporating 100 percent reclaimed 18-karat gold, gemstones and diamonds into repurposed vintage and antique Bakelite bangle bracelets and other Bakelite objects from the 1930s and 40s to create new designs. Each one of my jewels,” he continued, “requires a tremendous amount of manual labor, including ancient jewelry-making techniques and contemporary manufacturing methods.”
Sustainable Luxury And Artisanal Excellence
With rare exceptions, Davis related, “My jewelry is made from 80 percent post-consumer recycled materials; in some pieces, that proportion exceeds 95 percent. No one,” Davis asserted, “could know that certain jewels of mine were created from old dominoes, jukebox panels, lamp parts, billiard balls or other old Bakelite objects that we cannibalized. The invisible history of our jewelry,” he said, “is a testament to the quality of our design, workmanship and finishing.” This claim is supported by the fact that Davis’s lushly colored, gem-set Bakelite bracelets, ranging in price from $3,400 to $9,190, are sold at discerning, high luxury jewelry salons as Greenleaf & Crosby in Palm Beach, Florida, and Marissa Collections in Naples and Palm Beach, Florida. “We normally sell multiple pieces in a transaction,” Davis related. “Customers love my big, bright colorful jewelry because it’s vibrant and suitable for everyday wear. Although these are valuable pieces,” he continued, “they don’t have to be locked away in a safe.”
It’s worth noting here that the artisanal excellence and minimal carbon footprint of Davis’s jewelry are testaments to his design vision and redefinition of fine jewels as environmentally sustainable, luxury goods. “Our products are manufactured in a newly constructed, purpose-built facility in Beaufort, South Carolina,” Davis detailed. “Our workspace was built on fallow agricultural land and I believe it exemplifies the positive aspects of manufacturing.” Bringing revenue and income opportunities to an underserved community, Davis’s company employs local residents and teaches them new and marketable skills. “I have also hired some jewelry program graduates from the Savannah College of Art and Design,” Davis said.
Timely Jewelry For Volatile Times
Although 2025 has been a tough year for jewelry brands owned by global luxury holding companies like LVMH and Kering Group, Davis reported that, “2025 has been my best year ever. I think I’m making the right jewelry for these times. With this year’s gold prices hitting over $3,000 an ounce,” he ventured, “my designs offer a big look and a lot of vibrancy for far less than what you’d pay for a solid gold piece of jewelry.”
On the Mark Davis website, his jewels start in price from $1,880 for petite, black spherical stud “Audre” earrings. Made from repurposed black Bakelite beads and set with diamonds in 18-karat gold, these look like onyx but are far lighter, and thus much more comfortable to wear. At the highest end, Davis’s “Blythe” earrings cost $12,040. Embodying seamlessly laminated strips of vintage Bakelite in shades of blue, these disc-shaped earrings span slightly over 1.5 inches or 40 millimeters in diameter and sparkle with 114 individually set tsavorite garnets, plus blue, white and yellow sapphires. The center of each lightweight earring features an inlaid semi-transparent, heavenly blue marbled circle.
The Bakelite Breakthrough
A fireproof, shatterproof and waterproof material that can be molded into any form, Bakelite was invented in Yonkers, New York in 1907 by chemist Leo Baekeland, who combined phenol and formaldehyde to create it. As the world’s first synthetic plastic, Bakelite replaced hard rubber in electrical industry parts, and it also found its way into essential items like knobs, telephones, cameras, dials, circuit panels, cabinet radios and automobile electrical systems.
In the 1930s, various colors of the spectrum got infused into Bakelite, which boosted its use in mass-produced jewelry items. After Paris-based couturiers Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli utilized Bakelite to create their artistic, fashionable jewelry and accessories, Bakelite became a sought-after material for other high fashion and luxury jewelry designers around the world. According to Davis, “Bakelite’s seamless appearance is one of its distinguishing features. Bakelite jewelry is made using a special mold process which never involves making seams. Other jewelry materials, however, will often have a seam because they are either made by fusing multiple pieces together or by using molds that leave visible seams.”
Bakelite Jewels Perceived As Art Objects
Although Bakelite had for a time embodied great appeal, by the mid-1940s, as new, less expensive and easier-to-work-with plastics came on the market, “Bakelite fell out of favor with manufacturers,” Davis said. “Even though Bakelite’s popularity lasted a relatively short time, artfully made Bakelite still remained of huge interest to certain collectors.” For example, the seminal U.S. Pop artist Andy Warhol is one of history’s biggest Bakelite boosters. In his lifetime, Warhol amassed a 10,000-piece Bakelite collection that included many bracelets and other jewels. A year after his death, a 1988 Sotheby’s New York auction yielded stratospherically high prices for Warhol’s Bakelite pieces. The international publicity generated by the Sotheby’s Warhol sale compelled applied art historians, designers and jewelry lovers to consider the beauty, rarity and relative value of Bakelite jewels in a new, and historically brighter light.
Today for example, Davis related, “Many of my repeat customers tell me that when they are not wearing their jewels, they display my bracelets atop their armoires or in their dressing rooms because they’re satisfying to look at as decorative objects. That is a very high compliment,” he said, “and for that, I am super-grateful.” While Leo Baekeland could never have predicted that Bakelite would be reincarnated in the 21st century as a star player in luxury jewelry, thanks to the eyes and hands of Davis and his artisans, Bakelite is making jewelry history.