Stephen Russell

Stephen Russell

Russell Zelenetz, who had been headed for dental school before taking jewelry classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology, teamed up with Stephen Feuerman, who had worked the jewelry trade in London, to open Stephen Russell on Madison Avenue in New York in 1984. The shop built its name on carefully vetted vintage and antique jewelry spanning the Victorian, Edwardian, Art Deco and retro periods, alongside original contemporary designs made in the same spirit.

Jewelry

This range reflects four decades of the same instinct Zelenetz picked up in his FIT jewelry classes under professors like Samuel Beizer, who worked alongside Elsa Peretti, and Tiffany designer Donald Claflin: chase a period detail worth preserving rather than just a big stone. The shop's reputation was built on hunting down pieces like a 1930 Janesich necklace convertible into two bracelets, and that same eye for a specific, checkable provenance runs through what is stocked here.

Our honest take

A dealer that has spent forty years on the same Madison Avenue corner has earned real credibility in vintage and antique jewelry, the kind that is harder to fake than a runway show. Our honest take is that Stephen Russell is most worth shopping for pieces with a genuine period story behind them rather than for anything trying to read as newly designed, since that is where four decades of vetting actually shows.