TEFAF New York spotlights five jewelry specialists for collectors

TEFAF New York put five jewelry specialists in a tight, high-stakes frame this year, turning the Park Avenue Armory into a concentrated stop for collectors looking beyond carat weight and into lineage, material intelligence, and scarcity. The fair ran May 15-19, with an invitation-only collectors’ preview on Thursday, May 14, and its jewelry roster included Didier Ltd., FD Gallery, Forms, Hemmerle and Ana Khouri.

That smaller jewelry count mattered. TEFAF New York’s 2025 edition had six jewelry firms, so the 2026 lineup felt more selective, not broader. The fair itself remained immense, with 88 exhibitors from across the globe representing 15 countries across four continents, and TEFAF said visitors would encounter 7,000 years of exceptional artworks across modern and contemporary art, jewelry, antiquities and design. The setting also stayed unusually expansive: TEFAF said it activated all 16 historic period rooms at the Park Avenue Armory, the only art fair there to do so.

For collectors buying jewelry as a gift with staying power, Hemmerle was the obvious heirloom case study. TEFAF describes the Munich house, founded in 1893, as a fourth-generation family-run jeweler known for innovative material combinations and craftsmanship. That combination of pedigree and experimentation is exactly what separates a serious art jewel from a merely expensive one. Hemmerle pieces tend to signal connoisseurship through construction and surface, not just scale, which makes them especially compelling for milestone gifts meant to be worn and eventually passed down.

Ana Khouri offered a different kind of rarity. TEFAF said she had been invited to participate in TEFAF New York from 2022 through 2026, a sign of sustained demand and institutional confidence in her work. Her one-of-a-kind high jewelry is shown exclusively at her New York salon, while her numbered limited-edition designs are exhibited globally at The Row. For buyers, that split matters: the salon pieces offer true singularity, while the numbered editions give a more attainable entry point into a recognizable design language without losing the cachet of an artist-jeweler.

Didier Ltd., FD Gallery and Forms rounded out the section with the kind of specialized perspective collectors seek when they want vintage and contemporary pieces with provenance and judgment behind them. In a market crowded with luxury objects, TEFAF New York’s advantage is access: a narrow group of jewelry specialists, a broad international fair, and a room-by-room setting that makes the case for art jewelry as a collectible gift rather than a decorative afterthought.