TEFAF New York spotlights vintage and contemporary birthstone jewelry

The pieces that stop the room

Birthstones are at their best when they feel personal, not preset, and TEFAF New York makes that case with jewels that have both visual force and collector-grade pedigree. The clearest example is a Bulgari sautoir built around lapis, turquoise, diamonds and a detachable sapphire starburst pendant, a composition that gives one stone multiple lives through modular design. Nearby, rings centered on emerald and diamond pairings turn the classic birthstone into something sharper and more current, especially when the stones are handled with enough restraint to let their color do the work.

That combination of rarity and flexibility is what makes these pieces worth attention now. A detachable pendant adds use value as well as drama, while emerald and diamond settings carry the weight of a jewelry language collectors already know how to read. At this level, birthstone jewelry is not about sentiment alone. It is about whether a stone is strong enough, the mounting is intelligent enough, and the design has enough identity to survive long after the season has passed.

Why TEFAF still matters to jewelry buyers

TEFAF New York runs May 15 to 19, 2026, with an invitation-only collectors’ preview on Thursday, May 14, at the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan. The fair brings together 88 exhibitors from 15 countries across four continents, including 9 new exhibitors and 78 returning dealers, with 4 dealers back after an absence. That scale matters because jewelry here is not an isolated category. It is placed inside a broader field of art, design and antiquities that TEFAF says spans 7,000 years of objects.

The setting is part of the argument. TEFAF New York is the only art fair allowed to activate the Park Avenue Armory’s 16 historic period rooms, and those rooms make vintage and contemporary jewels feel less like inventory and more like evidence. Artsy notes that the New York edition began in 2016 and leans more contemporary and modern than TEFAF Maastricht, which helps explain why sculptural jewelry and modern design sit so naturally beside older masterpieces.

The dealers signal the value equation

The jewelry program is not built on spectacle alone. FD Gallery has organized its presentation around a central Cartier case, a Van Cleef & Arpels case, and a third case devoted to contemporary designers Hemmerle and Viren Bhagat, with names such as JAR, Wallace Chan, Bulgari, Boivin and Suzanne Belperron also in the mix. That lineup tells you exactly how collectors are meant to think about the fair: through authorship, house history and design lineage rather than simple sparkle.

Didier Ltd. takes a different but equally instructive route. The gallery specializes in jewels created by modern artists and acquired from the secondary market, which is exactly where provenance starts to matter most. Secondary-market sourcing can sharpen a jewel’s story when the maker is identifiable and the object carries the right condition, period specificity and documentation. When the maker is a modern artist rather than a generic production house, scarcity becomes part of the design itself.

What makes a birthstone jewel investment-worthy

At TEFAF, the strongest birthstone pieces share three qualities: they are readable at a glance, they are anchored by material seriousness and they have a design that does not depend on trend. Sapphire works beautifully when it is given contrast, as in the Bulgari sautoir’s mix of lapis, turquoise and diamonds, because the stone’s color can hold its own against a more complicated composition. Emerald works best when the mounting respects the gem’s depth and intensity rather than trying to drown it in ornament.

A good collector’s eye should look for:

• clear maker attribution, especially in houses with a long design record
• gemstones that are central to the design, not merely decorative accents
• settings that feel structurally sound and elegant enough to wear often
• detachable or modular elements that extend a jewel’s life across occasions
• period design cues that place the piece in a recognizable aesthetic moment

That list is what separates a pretty jewel from a lasting one. A sapphire pendant that can be detached from a sautoir has practical versatility, while an emerald ring set with disciplined diamonds has the kind of legibility collectors return to. In both cases, the value is not only in the stone. It is in the way the stone has been framed.

Why certain names carry extra weight

TEFAF’s roster also leans on makers whose reputations are supported by serious institutional attention. Hemmerle’s jewelry is held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, which gives the brand a level of credibility that goes well beyond the market floor. When a house is collected by museums, the conversation shifts from luxury to design history.

Ana Khouri sits in that same conversation, but from a more contemporary angle. TEFAF notes that she studied fine arts with a specialization in sculpture before turning to jewelry in 2002, then opened her New York salon in 2013. Her work lives at the intersection of sculpture and high jewelry, and TEFAF has invited her to participate in New York from 2022 through 2026. That continuity suggests more than a trend cycle. It points to a style language that collectors can recognize and follow.

The broader signal for collectors

The fair’s own trajectory supports the appetite around this category. TEFAF New York reported more than a 10% increase in attendance in 2024 compared with the year before, and opening-day coverage in 2025 described a lively crowd and strong sales. That kind of momentum matters because it suggests collectors are still willing to chase exceptional objects, especially when the fair offers both vintage authority and contemporary invention in the same rooms.

Leanne Jagtiani has described the 2026 lineup as a mix of longstanding participants and newcomers representing the best across disciplines, and that is exactly why the jewelry feels compelling now. The strongest birthstone pieces at TEFAF do not ask to be admired as category examples. They ask to be kept, worn and inherited. In a market crowded with disposable luxury, that is the rarest kind of value.