Gavriel and Izzy of NYC Luxury Talk Creating for Lil Durk and the Current Hip-Hop Jewelry Industry

In today’s Hip-hop, your chain is everything. If your diamonds aren’t dancing right, the fans know and most importantly, their fans know. With the demand for VVS diamonds at a high, it’s necessary to get your jeweler right. For Lil Durk, Lil Baby and more of Hip-Hop’s elite, NYC Luxury is the go-to.

Led by Gavriel and Izzy, NYC Luxury prides a unique shopping experience and has provided some of the best-handcrafted products. Fans have seen the work, most notable when Lil Durk proposed to India on stage at United Center. That piece came from NYC Luxury.

Speaking with The Source, Gavriel and Izzy break down how they have cornered the jewelry game.

How did NYC luxury get its start?

Gavriel: NYC luxury started from an Instagram name. We used to work for another company and we had a falling out. I decided to branch out and go on my own. I started thinking of a couple of different, cool names and I’ve always loved the city I was from. I didn’t want to be limited to just jewelry. So I wanted to have something that had a well-versed name or linked back to my home city. So NYC luxury made the most sense. I started the business in November 2015, just hustling, going to nightclubs, going to different events, going to strip clubs, and just meeting guys. I was handing out cards and shaking hands. Then just with word of mouth, then the brand started to grow in notoriety. People are kind of hunting us now. And then in 2017, I linked up with Izzy and he joined the company as a partner of mine. And we put our heads together and took this to the next level we’re at today.

Izzy: Me and G met when we were in middle school. We weren’t the coolest friends then but it developed into a good partnership and friendship. But at that time I was running around, like a hawk, just making sure we got this business going and it work. Gavriel and I were competing for a while but we had a falling out with our bosses, so the timing worked out well. He hits me up like, yo, let’s go do our own thing. We’re only making these guys richer. We could do it for ourselves. It was a side venture that, that really got me interested. We had a couple of meetings, created a business plan, and just went over a couple of things and it kind of made sense.

Gavriel: This industry’s a bunch of moving parts, right? So initially what we honed in on and what I thought was the most important was the network to offload the goods too. You know, it’s very important to have a network and of interesting clients. And then once you have a core following, the next step for us was figuring out manufacturing methods to lower costs, to increase our performance in terms of our creates in terms of our execution to kind of constantly put in the bar. And then the third step was sourcing goods and making relationships and proving ourselves to the industry to get trusted for larger quantities of credit and, you know, bigger purchases so that we can have lower costs across the board. I like to compare our industry to the drug business. It’s all about the product you get, the source you have, how close it is to the main source, and then the clienteles you have.

At what moment were you able to begin that alignment with the stars of hip hop? Who was the client that you knew was gonna change everything?

Gavriel: Rae Sremmurd I ran into them in Vegas. I ran into Jimmy and Swae Lee and these guys just started getting checks from their label and from the songs they were making. They were going crazy with me on different pieces, they were pushing the bar and Jimmy asked me to make him a solid gold blunt. And then he went and bought like four watches. Then about seven, eight rings. He would buy something for his whole camp. Then he goes to me, “can you make me a solid gold beer pong cup?” And that started my creativity. Like, wow, I don’t have to just make a chain. I’m making a solid gold blunt.

I’m sure for Izzy, having Lil Baby, Lil Durk, and Drake as clients really took his career to the next level. So they were the breakthrough that created a Hip-Hop jewelry dealer.

You mentioned having that access to the artist. What other ways do you collaborate with artists? Do they ever contact you and give you the creative license to design whatever you like or do they typically come to you with an idea?

Gavriel: It could go both ways. Sometimes they’ll have a crazy concept, like Virgil for instance. Virgil called me up and he said, “yo, we gotta go crazy. I have a couple of ideas. I wanna just back brainstorm with you.” And usually, that’s how it goes. I like to get on a FaceTime or a call them. And just pick their brains and see where their creative mind is at. From that idea, I’ll turn it into completely something different and they would love it.

Izzy: I was want to dive in a little bit deeper into what he was mentioning. Virgil was the only client to ever in my career, send us a 3D wax printout of exactly what he wanted. He did the design on the computer, made the file and send us a printed wax in the mail, and said, “make me this.” You know, most of the clients tell that we have told us the concept and have our green light, the design and what we create the design for them. Some clients really hone in on what they want. But Virgil, I’ve never seen somebody this creative and this well-versed.

Where do you see trends in jewelry going next?

Gavriel: I see big transitions in jewelry. The word investment has been coming up a lot in the jewelry business compared to where it was maybe five years ago. It was more of like an accessory. Now a lot of people are investing money into certain appreciating assets when it comes to jewelry.

I heard you guys assisted Lil Durk with the ring that would be given to India. What is the process like for creating that?

Gavriel: So actually it’s vice versa. We just did Durk’s ring. That they got engaged with. Now we’re doing her ring that she’s giving to Durk.

You have a working relationship with Durk. How did this go for the rings?

Izzy: So I got the call from India. She told me that she wanted a ring. I gave her my thoughts and she told me she wanted something a little more simple, but extravagant at the same time. So we just went back and forth on a couple of different designs. I was trying to incorporate some different shapes in there. She wanted it to kind of match her band. So her ring has emeralds on the side and she told me she kind of just wanted to straight outmatch her band. So we went with emeralds throughout the whole eternity band. And then I went a little bit extra and I put diamonds on the side of it. So they actually looked bigger than one karat each. It looks like two karats, it’s an illusion.

Gavriel: To add to that, just to talk about the investment and the luxury aspect of this, we went with all colorless, GIA certified Emerald cut diamonds in this band. So it comes with 17 individual GIA certifications for every single stone that went into that ring.

Izzy: And it took us about a month and a half to source each diamond to match because you have to match each millimeter from the height to the width, to the depths to make sure that everything fits flawlessly throughout the whole range.

You can keep up with NYC Luxury here.