‘The Jewelry District’ Podcast: Guest Beth Hutchens

By Kathy Passero | July 16, 2025

In this week’s episode, JCK editor-in-chief Victoria Gomelsky and news director Rob Bates talk with Beth Hutchens, founder and creative director of Foundrae. Beth discusses how growing up right near the Mexican border instilled a deep appreciation for mysticism in her at an early age, and how this guides her design aesthetic. She shares her strategies for navigating challenging times, dealing with copycats, and coping with soaring gold prices. Finally, she touches on the importance of brick-and-mortar retail and her commitment to supporting freedom of expression.

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Sponsor: Jewelers Mutual (jewelersmutual.com/solutions)

Show Notes
03:00 Early influences
06:43 Hello, city life
09:16 A move to jewelry
12:23 The language of symbols
13:24 Pioneer of personalization
14:45 Brick-and-mortar matters
16:08 Through challenging times
19:56 Blocking copycats
22:00 Championing freedom of expression
26:12 A thank-you note

Episode Credits
Hosts: Rob Bates and Victoria Gomelsky
Producer and engineer: Natalie Chomet
Editor: Riley McCaskill
Plugs: @jckmagazine; jewelersmutual.com/solutions

Show Recap
Early influences
Victoria and Rob welcome award-winning jewelry designer Beth Hutchens, the creative force behind New York–based Foundrae, a brand best known for 18k gold creations that often incorporate classical symbolism.

Beth’s unique design sensibility is rooted in a childhood spent in Brownsville, Texas, at the U.S.-Mexico border. “It’s a very idiosyncratic place to grow up,” she explains. “It really doesn’t feel like it’s part of the United States, and it definitely influenced me in terms of my design aesthetic [and] who I am.” The town is steeped in iconography and milagros, and mysticism is an important part of the belief structure, says Beth. “I love where I’m from,” she says. “I love that it gave me a perspective that’s not typical of an American citizen.”

Brownsville was the last place her parents expected to raise their children, but when Beth was less than a year old and the family was living in Kentucky, her father’s company called him in one day during lunchj and offered him a chance to open a new factory in Mexico—provided he could leave within the hour. When he broke the news to Beth’s mom, her first response was to put all his clothes in the washer. “So my dad showed up at Brownsville with a suitcase of wet clothes, and then we showed up six months later,” Beth says.

Hello, city life
How did Beth find her way from Texas to Manhattan? “From a very early age—I think I was about 6—I told my parents I was going to be in fashion” in New York or Paris, Beth recalls. She went so far as to make a posterboard drawing of a store with a cut-out window, in which she placed new drawings of dresses every day.

“It was really funny, because I had never even known anyone who had ever been to New York or Paris,” she says. Her inspiration for the glamorous life? Watching Green Acres, she confesses with a laugh—specifically, seeing Eva Gabor on a Park Avenue terrace during the sitcom’s theme song.

Beth studied business and economics in college at her parents’ insistence, but her passion for fashion didn’t dim. As soon as she graduated, she landed a job with designer Cynthia Rowley in the Big Apple. There, she formed a friendship with coworker Rebecca Taylor.

Three years later, the two quit and in 1996 founded the Rebecca Taylor clothing company, with Rebecca designing and 23-year-old Beth serving as de facto CEO—though she says it was more like “two girls in a room making clothes.” They grew their startup into a multimillion-dollar business with 16 stores by the time they sold it in 2011.

A move to jewelry
Rob asks what prompted Beth to shift from apparel to jewelry. “For me, everything was about the symbolism,” Beth responds. “I really wanted to deep-dive into these tools of self-discovery and self-expression, and ultimately I ended up deciding that the vehicle would be jewelry.”

Her designs were far from mainstream when she introduced the first Foundrae collection in 2015, so she had no idea how consumers would respond. “I started off…just trying to break even,” Beth says. “I wasn’t trying to appeal to everybody. I didn’t feel like I needed to rule the world. I just wanted to be able to do something meaningful in a way that could be sustainable, because I wanted to do it for the rest of my life.”

Customers responded so positively that Foundrae still carries all the pieces from Beth’s original trunk show at Barney’s—medallions and cigar bands embellished with four tenets: strength, karma, protection, and dream. (She has since expanded to 10 tenets.) “We’ve really grown in breadth, but stylistically it’s exactly the same,” Beth says.

The language of symbols
Rob wonders if consumers have grasped the symbols’ meanings and how much of a selling point they are. “That’s what’s most important about our collection—the meaning behind each piece and the fact that the meaning is authentic,” says Beth. “That’s at the heart of everything I do.”

She intentionally chose universal symbols, those that are found across cultures and have stood the test of time. “Each symbol exists as a unique glyph, but what is proprietary about Foundrae is that we put these symbols together, and that creates a language,” Beth says.

Pioneer of personalization
Victoria points out that Beth was a trailblazer in the personalized jewelry trend that caught on during the pandemic, when demand skyrocketed for pieces that reflected the wearer’s passions, values, and life journey. Vic asks how the pandemic affected business for Foundrae. Beth says that living above her store on Lispenard Street in lower Manhattan proved fortuitous in 2020, because she was able to continue working, photographing product, posting on social media, and shipping orders.

“Simple goals are what drove us,” Beth says. “My whole intention was to get through the pandemic, paying everybody full-time and not firing anybody. And we did it.”

Brick-and-mortar matters
Since then, the company has expanded to five stores—Miami, Dallas, Los Angeles, and two in New York City. Rob asks if a brick-and-mortar presence is a priority for Foundrae. “For me, it’s everything,” says Beth, who intentionally maintains just a handful of wholesale accounts.

Though there are “a million reasons why I feel like retail is right for us,” the most important of them is to have a robust assortment of pieces in stores that reflects the entire range of symbols in the Foundrae line, Beth explains. That way, shoppers can find exactly what they want rather than seeing a small, curated selection. “I never wanted to be a fashion brand,” she says. “I really wanted to create modern heirlooms that have more meaning…. I never wanted to present the line like, ‘This is the piece that Gwyneth Paltrow wore.‘”

Through challenging times
The brick-and-mortar expansion is part of Foundrae’s becoming “metaphorically and physically” accessible to more people, Beth says, though her focus is on deepening customer connections rather than adding superficial ones.

“We want to be a continual part of their life,” she says. “So as their story evolves, it evolves with us…. It’s why we have a bench jeweler and a hand engraver in all of our stores—so they can modify and change and grow their piece as they want.” The connection with those who love and wear Foundrae designs has helped Beth and her team stay positive during challenging times, she says.

Speaking of challenges, how does a brand firmly committed to 18k yellow gold cope with soaring gold prices? Foundrae was forced to raise prices in 2024 and again this year, Beth says. Still, retail jewelry prices have increased far less than the prices of other luxury items like handbags, she notes. And any price hike at Foundrae is a small fraction of the actual rise in the price of gold, she says. Rather than pass that increase on to customers, “we have taken lower margins.”

The company also emailed customers to alert them about when new prices would take effect. “We really try to be as transparent as possible,” Beth says.

In addition to expanding the brand’s physical footprint, Foundrae reaches new customers through word of mouth, social media, and those key moments when famous fans bring attention to the brand by wearing its jewelry. “It’s multi points that’s pushed us forward,” says Beth.

Blocking copycats
In her startup days, Beth says she was “extremely sensitive” about copycats who appropriated her designs. “It would hurt my feelings and make me cry,” she remembers. Today, Foundrae has an attorney and takes a thorough approach to copyrights, patents, and trademarks to protect its intellectual property.

Customers are some of the best allies, notifying the brand when they see imitators. Nowadays, when that happens, “instead of being emotional about it, I just forward the copies” to the lawyer, Beth says. “Truthfully, we’ve found the customers are really kind, and identify the copies for us, and send them to us. Because they don’t want to see copies out there either.”

Not only is she able to avoid the energy drain of fretting over knockoff artists, she also relies on Foundrae’s CEO to oversee business matters like operations, fulfillment, and production. She finds it “refreshing” to focus on more creative endeavors—namely, designing product, creating marketing content (Beth writes “everything related to Foundrae”), training staff, and interacting with customers.

Championing freedom of expression
Rob is curious about the “What we’re reading” page on Foundrae’s website and the company’s support for PEN America, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting freedom of expression through literature. How does this dovetail with visual mediums like fashion and jewelry? “It speaks to my heart,” says Beth. “It relates to Foundrae directly [because] the idea of personal expression is so critical” to the brand.

PEN America’s mission has personal significance for Beth because of her heritage. Her ancestors were signers of the Flushing Remonstrance, a 17th-century document granting freedom of religion in colonial America. She says she also has ancestors who signed the Declaration of Independence, which incorporated similar language.

“I personally feel that part of my obligation to my ancestry is about really taking that baton and keeping it going in terms of making sure that we always protect the rights of the individual,” she says.

PEN also appeals to Beth as an avid reader. The only book she’s failed to finish is Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. A copy of it sits on a shelf in her store on Lispenard Street, and if you open it, you’ll discover it’s been hollowed out and now holds a bottle of tequila.

A thank-you note
Beth closes the podcast by expressing gratitude. “I absolutely love what I get to do every day,” she says. “It is such a privilege.”

Any views expressed in this podcast do not reflect the opinion of JCK, its management, or its advertisers.