Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
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Curated Accessories Brand Profile: Digby & Iona

Digby & Iona, a hand-wrought jewelry line based out of Brooklyn, is today’s featured brand. Owner/jewelry-maker Aaron Ruff creates incredibly eclectic pieces that seem all at once whimsically narrative, while displaying a smart and intrepid nod to history. The necklaces we carry come from two of Digby & Iona’s themed collections, Wanderer In A Sea of Fog, Vol I and Fight or Flight, inspired by pieces from the Civil War and the era of British Imperialism. Read on and unearth The Story of Digby & Iona…

Dagger & Citrine Claw Necklace

Lost Love Compass

Phileas Fogg Necklace

Inspector Closeau Necklace

Caged Sparrow On A Swing Necklace

 

Digby & Iona Essence Statement:

My mission is to continually create work that envokes story and memory and that reinvents the past.

Pick 3 words to describe your line:

Meticuluous, romantic, mechanical.

How Digby & Iona began:

The line began in a corner in the back of my woodshop in Brooklyn. I started making pieces for my friends and myself and it took off from there.

Criteria for materials selection:

I tend to stick with the traditional materials of silver and gold. But I’m very interested in upping the cache of other metals that were traditionally frowned upon in jewelry making such as brass and bronze.

A challenge that you/the line overcame:

I don’t have any formal jewelry smith training, so learning new techniques or working with new materials is always both exciting and a challenge.

Favorite part about your job:

I get to live out all my childhood fantasies exploration and finding lost treasure through my designs!

Tell us one secret or “little-known-fact” about you or your line.

While now I’ve got a nice studio, for the first year, all the work was produced at a small bench in my living room.

How would YOU wear/pair your product?

With a nice worn in and well loved t-shirt and pair of jeans.

What is your response to this passage from “The Work of Art In The Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (Walter Benjamin, 1936), as it relates to your brand story/philosophy? 

An analysis of art in the age of mechanical reproduction…leads us to an all-important insight: for the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual.To
an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility.

My product walks a fine line between being dependent on modern methods of reproduction and at the same time ageing the jewelry to look like an original antique. I think we’re at a very interesting time in art and design, where we are utilizing methods of mass production to keep cost down and make the product more accessible, while the product itself references a romanticized vision of the pre-mechanical reproduction era.

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Thank you, Aaron, for your time and wisdom! The story of your entry into the world of jewelry-making, as well as your pieces themselves, are truly inspirational!