Our three currently active collections are A Memory of Water, our first full collection of original designs; Loved and Found, our constantly evolving collection of antique and vintage pieces; and Cate’s Translation, our collection of pre-loved pieces that we have designed into new forms. 

Loved and Found came first because antique and vintage pieces are such a forever love of mine, and curating them allows me to ground my vision for Cate’s in my passion for art history, and history more generally. That collection was also our starting point because when I first began selling in earnest I was offering pieces from my personal collection of antique and vintage pieces. I have been lucky enough to collect from flea markets and farmer’s market stands and estate sales and old school LA and New York and London road sales for as long as I was old enough to hunt for treasures and use my allowance and first earnings to do so. (I truly was that friend who came to your 17th birthday party and gave you a weird ceramic Bob’s Big Boy piggy bank I found in this place that no longer exists on Venice Blvd, and didn’t understand why you didn’t think it was cool).

Once it became clear that people enjoyed my aesthetic and curation, I started to slowly bring pieces into the collection to sell–which was an unexpected joy. After so many years as an art dealer, which has a passionate but relatively small collector base, the huge variety of ages and income and background and location of jewelry collectors I became connected with during the pandemic was so wonderful and unexpected. I have dear friends and collectors in their 20’s and in their 70’s and my life has been changed for the better by each of them. 

Cate’s Translation is made up of what those in the industry usually call ‘conversion’ pieces when a seller takes a historical jewel and changes its form while keeping its heart. This is a practice as long as the history of jewelry–unlike clothing (unfortunately), the precious materials used in jewelry offer strong motivation for jewelers to reuse the materials in a way that updates them for the fashion of their time. For instance, these days, far fewer people wear broaches (though we all love that they are making a comeback on the red carpet, especially with men!)