Great Falls Metalworks :: About Great Falls Metalworks

In 1968, a young artist and her machinist husband began creating jewelry in the kitchen of their Paterson, N.J. home. The couple’s passion for graceful design and beautiful materials—as well as earth friendly and socially conscious manufacturing—created the Great Falls Metalworks, one of the few remaining U.S.-based jewelry design and production studios. Today, forty years after selling its first piece (a hammered metal bracelet), Great Falls continues its American artisan traditions under daughter and designer Flora Brothers.

Great Falls crafts both fine and fashion jewelry using unusual, high-quality stones and metals. Bestsellers include high-fashion sterling silver earrings, rings, and necklaces; inlaid cufflinks and studs; pins for every occasion; and a remarkable one-of-a-kind collection. Every piece is handmade by artisans in the company’s headquarters, a 19th-century former silk mill once powered by the Passaic River’s Great Falls (and one of the many mills that gave Paterson its nickname of “Silk City”).

Much of Great Falls jewelry features unusual stones sourced from fair trade mines around the world, and then cut at the company’s own lapidary facility. Each stone is chosen, cut and set by hand to highlight its natural uniqueness and beauty. Clients may choose from colorful agates, apatite, tourmaline, peridot, Peruvian Opal, Australian opal, prehnite, iolite, natural turquoise,
fossilized woods and many more.

Since the 1970s, Great Falls has been a leader in environmentally friendly jewelry making. Founders Jan Palombo and Michael Brothers were early followers of a small movement of European jewelers practicing what is now known as green manufacturing. As such, Great Falls has never used chemicals, and recycles all raw materials. In addition, Michael Brothers invented the industry’s first micro dust collector (made from an old refrigerator) and an under-sink baffle to filter sludge and reclaim metals. Today, both these processes are industry standards. Great Falls is also certified by the U.S. government to sponsor refugee artists, and since the 1970s has brought more than 35 families from around the world to the U.S. Many of these artists still work with Great Falls today.

Jewelry crafted by Great Falls can be found in leading national and international retailers and catalogs as well as hundreds of boutiques and gift shops. The company also designs custom pieces for museums and art galleries—including the Smithsonian, the National Gallery, the Cooper Hewitt, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and more.