the radar | jewelry
Metal Hedonists
Watch out, Chrome Hearts! After success abroad, the Hoorsenbuhs hombres take on L.A.
| By Alexis Johnson | Photography by Peden + Munk |
ALLOY, MATEYS! Clockwise from top right: Keith
(standing) and Parker at their Quonset hut atelier; an
18K rose gold and black diamond ring ($5,000); bangles
($700–$16,500); a sterling and diamond ring ($2,500),
shown in the tailpipe of a 1955 Triumph motorcycle.
74 | Angeleno | Dec 2008
Robert G. Keith and Kether Parker are officially
making a bid for the town’s rocknrolla regiments
as their upstart label, Hoorsenbuhs, makes a
high-profile debut this fall at Barneys in Beverly
Hills. The SaMo-based line—pronounced, err,
whores and booze, but named after a storied, mid17th-century Dutch merchant ship—creates
customizable, hand-cast rings and bangles that
have already found their way onto the hands
and wrists of Rihanna, Mary-Kate and Ashley
Olsen, David Beckham and Joaquin Phoenix
(none of whom, by the way, were gifted).
“We cater to a high-art crowd that knows
how to put our regalia together with what
they’ve already got going on,” says Keith, the
line’s creative director.
The dudely duo first met along Topanga
Canyon State Beach in the late 1980s. Keith,
a NorCal native turned stylist/photographer,
took some modeling test shots of just-out-ofhigh-school Malibu local Parker, and within a
month got the latter signed to an agency. Thus
commenced the latter’s decade-long Zoolander
period, during which he strutted his surfer bod
for Versace, Armani and Donna Karan and
posed for Mario Testino.
Fast forward to 2006. Keith—who had
begun designing Hoorsenbuhs two years earlier
and had quietly grown it into a referral-only
business—asked his longtime BFF to come
aboard as the brand’s mouthpiece, with an
eye, no doubt, toward leveraging Parker’s deep
fashion-world rolodex. They’ve since expanded
to ahead-of-the-curve boutiques in Paris, Monte
Carlo and Manhasset, and will mark their local
homecoming at Barneys with a trunk show on
December 20.
Still, the base of their biz remains private
clientele. “Our customers stop by the showroom
regularly,” says Parker. (The showroom, in this
case, is housed in a 1940s Quonset hut.) “They
get their rings cleaned and tell stories. Rob’s
their guy—just like in the old days, when you
went down the street to the family jeweler.”
The Hoorsenbuhs aesthetic is chunky, but
architectural, with an emphasis on pure gold
and a trendily blingy penchant for pairing
rose gold with black diamonds. For that notquite-so-nouveau-riche look, they treat whitegold bands and buckles with rhodium, which
blackens the crevices.
Next up: A diamond merchant’s loop, for
personal stone surveillance whilst shopping.
It’ll come in a logo-embossed leather pouch,
strung on a gold chain, meant to be worn
across the body, according to Keith, like “a ’70s
disco purse.” Really? “People are into things
that emanate subtle power.” A