The Complex Guide To Buying A Chain

Founded in 2000 by Boris Aranbayev, the talented jewelers behind Avianne and Co. have actually been in the industry for much longer. Currently dominating the custom jewelry game, their list of prestigious clients includes Cam'ron, 2 Chainz, T-Pain, Nicki Minaj, and Lil Wayne. They've been responsible for some of the greatest chains in hip-hop. Now operated by Boris' sons, Izzy and Joe, we got the run-down on why chains are hot, and what the average guy should look for before pulling the trigger.

Of course, we also got to talk to Joe about some of the awesome work he's done, and why chains cost so damn much. Get an insider's look behind-the-scenes at one of hip-hop's best jewelry stores, peep The Complex Guide To Buying A Chain.

Izzy and Joe Aranbayev (pictured to the right) are well-versed in the jewelry industry. There are some key words that we had to learn in order to speak the language. Before we dive head-first into the world of hip-hop chains, here are some basic terms to know.

Bail: the part of a pendant that connects it to a necklace

Brilliant Cut (or Round Cut): most common style of cutting for diamonds and gemstones. It was devised to give a maximum "brilliancy" or shine.

Encrusted: when something is overlaid with an ornamental crust of diamonds or gemstones.

GIA Clarity Grading Scale: The Gemological Institute of America is the world's foremost authority in diamond grading. Diamonds are priced according to how the GIA grades them, usually having to do with "inclusions," or surface irregularities, visible to the naked eye. I1-I3 "Included" diamonds are the lowest grade, followed by SI1-SI2 "Slightly Included" diamonds, then VS1-VS2 "Very Slightly Included" diamonds, VVS1-VVS2 "Very, Very Slightly Included" diamonds, and lastly, IF "Internally Flawless" diamonds. The higher the grade, the more expensive the diamond. Although, most high-priced jewelry tends to contain VS or VVS graded diamonds, while IF diamonds are pretty rare, especially in white.

Inlay: a decorative technique where part of the surface of a piece of jewelry is imbedded into a hollowed-out area until it becomes level with the surface of the piece.

Invisible Setting: a style where rows of princess cut diamonds or other stones are perfectly flush against each other in a metal frame or border without any metal separating them.

Pavé: derived from the French term for "pavement" or "cobblestone," this refers to a setting technique where small stones are set next to each other to create a "paved" effect. In a micropavé, the effect is similar, albeit on a smaller scale.

Princess Cut: Similar to the Brilliant Cut, but in a more square shape to increase the diamonds' "brilliancy" and accommodate invisible setting.

Setting: 1) the part of the jewelry where stones are set. 2) the process by which a stone is held by precious metal into a mounting.

Complex: We understand you helped Lil Wayne tone his jewelry game down, what's it like working with him and other celebrities on a regular basis?

Joe Aranbayev: Lil Wayne was a very flashy guy when he came into the industry. Not too long ago, he started toning down his jewelry, and basically became mainstream. Having said that, most people look up to that guy; most people look up to any entertainer. But at the end of the day, people follow each other. They look at what’s fashion, what’s hot, and they follow entertainers, ballplayers, and people like that.

When a customer walks in here and says: “I want the same chain as Lil Wayne,” I say: “Which style are you interested in? Something big? Something small?” Nowadays, since precious metals are so high in volume, you get more bang for your buck if you buy smaller pieces because now it’s expensive to buy gold.

We’d suggest a nice Franco chain like this, made of white gold or yellow gold, where you can make your money on it any day. Five years from now, you can sell this chain and still make your money back.

Complex: Why is it called a Franco chain?

Joe: Some Italian designer named Franco came out with this design, taken from the Miami Cuban Link, and why he came out with a four-sided chain — you can see it’s the same as the Cuban Link but has four corners — because most chains in a Cuban Link get tangled, this gentleman came out with the Franco link to avoid that problem. Some people also call this the “snake chain” because it doesn’t have any bendable parts to it.

At the end of the day, when a customer wants to buy gold or make his investment into any piece of jewelry, we recommend to buy a gold piece first. Why? Because the price of gold is going up every day! If I knew gold was going to jump to almost $1,800 per ounce, I would have made all my investments in gold! But as you can see, we do a lot of diamond work as well. A lot of people love diamonds too, so we gotta spread our eggs a little bit in order to serve all of our clients. Some clients want gold; some clients want diamonds; some want both.

Complex: So what kinds of chains are really popular right now?

Joe: If you remember the rope chains — which Run D.M.C. used to rock out to — rope chains are still very popular. Cuban links are popular. What’s become more of a trend in the past 7 or 8 years are the Franco links. Why? It’s flexible, a piece can flow very easily on it without getting caught. See how small that bail is [on the Trukfit piece]? It’s a perfect fit for that chain. Why do you think we have a huge bail on other pendants? So it doesn’t get tangled. The Franco link takes away that issue. Franco links have been our main sellers in the past 7 or 8 years.

But again, history always repeats itself. Like cars, some of the older styles come back to date, they mix the old with the new. It’s the same with jewelry. The Cuban link will never go out of style. A lot of people don’t really care that it tangles, they just wanna feel that weight.

Complex: How much should someone look to spend on his first necklace?

Joe: Most people come in and they have a budget of about $3,000 or $4,000. For that price, you’ll get about 80-100 grams of gold. We buy by weight, and sell by weight, we make a few dollars on the gram for ourselves, and we also earn the client’s business. I usually turn the client onto a gold chain first, and then if he wants, we can encrust it.

If the client wants a diamond link instead of two chains, I tell them they can have “two-in-one.” Take this Miami Cuban link necklace, for example. You have one side encrusted so you can be flashy with it, and leave the other side plain so you can be not as flashy.

Joe: This uses the diamond-encrusted Miami Cuban link necklace we previously mentioned. With this set-up, you’re looking at basically $20,000-$22,000 with the Jesus piece. It’s got VS-quality diamonds, and all this is basically handmade.

Complex: How should someone choose what kind of pendant he wants on his chain?

Joe: Usually when a client comes in here, they already have what they want in their head. We just gotta get it out of their head. For example, two weeks ago I had a client named Angel. He wanted wings. We designed an “A” for him with wings on it, and a halo around the “A,” and we put a star in the middle of it — he’s a DJ that calls himself “A-STAR.” He wanted to kill two birds with one stone, so we said “Why don’t you put wings on the A, and put a star in the middle of the A?”

He loved the idea. We gave him a layout of how it would look, and he loved it. To do all that, you have to have a designer’s mind. I’ve been dealing in this industry for so many years, and you have to have an eye for it. Like a clothing designer has an eye for clothing, and a car designer has an eye for cars. Well, I’ve been in this industry ever since I was born.

Complex: What about custom chains? What’s the design process for that like?

Joe: A lot of customers they walk in here wanting certain pieces. Like we did this piece for Toney Douglas, he plays for the New York Knicks. This is the TD Bank logo. He comes in, tells us his idea, bada-bing, bada-boom, we take it out of his head, put it on paper, give him a Photoshopped version to show him how it’s gonna look, and then we give it to our in-house model maker. He carves it out of wax, I show this to the client, he approves the wax model, and we make it into a finished item.

There’s usually an extra fee because it’s not a generic piece that’s mass-produced, and it’s the only one in the world.

Complex: How long does it make to make a custom piece?

Joe: Because we facilitate our own jewelers, diamond setters, and model makers, it takes, from start to finish, about 7-10 business days. That’s because we’ve been in the wholesale business for over 35 years. Most jewelers nationwide send their orders to us as well, and we give them about a month’s time, because it usually takes that long, but since we have all our staff here, it takes 7-10 days.

Joe: I’m not as flashy a person, I definitely wear jewelry, and I love jewelry. Now that I’m older I’ve definitely toned it down, but I wear dog tags. They're fairly light, but at the end of the day, they mean something to me; they’ve got the names of my children. A lot of people that come in here for custom orders, they make stuff that means something to them.

Complex: Would you suggest dog tags as pendant for guys that don’t want to be flashy but want to make that investment?

Joe: For sure! Just last week, a client walked in and saw mine, and he placed an order. I’m basically the inspiration for some of these guys to buy pieces of jewelry.

Complex: Do you think that there's a chain that would just be too heavy?

Joe: Never too heavy. Last week, we sold a chain that was 600 grams, Miami Cuban links. That was a $30,000 sale, the guy plays poker — he’s on TV playing poker.

Complex: What’s the most ridiculous pendant you’ve ever had to make?

Joe: Cam’ron’s “World” piece. That was the first mechanical piece of jewelry ever introduced in this industry. We had to figure out how we were gonna make the globe spin. We had to figure out where we were gonna put the motor. We had to figure out if we were going to use solar power, how would we do it? That in itself was a task.

We decided to make a motor with two AA batteries that fit into the piece, so that way he could have an on/off switch that when he turned on, the globe spins.

Complex: Was the switch also diamond-encrusted?

Joe: Everything was diamond-encrusted. In all my years in business, that was the largest piece we ever made. It took over 100 karats in diamonds, about 300 grams of gold, and we had to figure out where to put all the diamonds!

Complex: How much did that run him?

Joe: That cost him about $150,000… then. Just imagine how much it would cost now. Also, if you remember his traffic light piece, we did that for him. That was also a mechanical piece, it turns on, and it turns off.

But again, the client has to come in and give us some sort of inclination of what he wants. Cam’ron came in; he was Tony Montana at the moment. He was always talking about Tony Montana, so we told him “why don’t you do that ‘world’ piece with the hands holding it up?” You can google “Cam’ron’s World Piece” and it’ll pop up. Many people have featured that in articles.

Complex: Yeah, Ben Baller made that number 38 in our 50 Greatest Chains in Hip-Hop List.

Joe: It’s a memorable piece. Nobody will ever forget that piece.

Complex: What other celebrities have you guys done work for?

Joe: We did a lot of T-Pain’s jewelry. If you remember, he had a clown on his microphone holder, that was us. If you recall, Tity Boy from Playaz Circle — now 2 Chainz, on the Flight 360: The Takeoff album, I did a Boeing airplane for him, it was a big piece, it would stretch across my chest. That was about 40-50 karats, and 20 grams of gold. It cost him about $50,000-$60,000, but we did that piece about four years ago.

Yesterday we were on 106 and Park the whole day. We had Cam’ron on set, we had 2 Chainz on set, we had Baby on set, we had Nicki Minaj on set, we had SB on set. And all these people are our people: we do all their jewelry. Just because they’re on 106 and Park, we go up and support them, because they support us. Once they arrive in New York; they have friends here. We go out with them, we have a drink, sit down, laugh, and talk — do what we’re supposed to do, not as businessmen, as friends. We make interpersonal relationships with all these people, not for one-time business, but continuous business.

By nurturing these interpersonal relationships with their clients, Avianne and Co. has managed to churn out some impressive pieces over the years. Here are some of Joe's more memorable pieces...

Joe: Some of the craziest pieces we did this year were for SB, he did that diamond tester and that big igloo piece. We don’t boast about it or anything like that, but over time, people find out that it’s us. We try to stay under the radar.

Joe: The chain itself is very small, very light, so you might be looking at about $1,500 for it. This piece is all inlaid with canary and black diamonds on the truck and on the frame. Alone, it's going for $6,000, so for this whole set-up you're looking at $7,500.

Joe: If it doesn’t have our stamp back there, then it’s not official, because we signature all our pieces with an A with a diamond. That way you know you got good craftsmanship.

Joe: We go with what the flow is. Everybody’s on their snitching tip. We listen to music; we’re current with our music and our clients. So you know — Stop Snitchin’! It’s black diamonds encrusted with white and red diamonds. It’s basically a t-shirt. We came out with this idea based on the fact that a lot of people were wearing this shirt about three or four years ago. It’s a showpiece. This piece retails at $24,000, but it’s the idea in itself that sells.

Joe: This one was made for a football player; it’s a Nike Football glove. At the end of the day, we need pieces like this on deck because they’re showstoppers. What would you think if you walked into a rim shop and they don’t have any rims on display? You need to have some work laid out so people can see what kind of work you do.

These are 5-karat black diamonds; this is 200 karats in black diamonds in the necklace alone. The piece itself has 14 karats in black diamonds and 10 karats in white diamonds; you’re looking at 20-24 karat piece, a total of about $200,000.

Joe: This is his shoe design for Reebok. He wanted to wear it two ways: he wanted the laces to be a chain, for him to be less flashy. And whenever he wants to throw a gold or diamond link on there, he can put it through the bail in the back.

What I’m saying is what separates us from the competition is the creativity. It’s made of white gold, and these are all micropavé black and white diamonds, and the retail on this is about $10,000.