This story is part of INSTORE’s lead story, “Radical Reinvention”, featured in the December 2025 edition.
Rebecca Rau Jewels and M.S. Rau Jewelry Gallery
AFTER REBECCA RAU, FOURTH-GENERATION antiques dealer at M.S. Rau in New Orleans, took some time off in 2023 for soul searching, she realized that design work had been the most exciting and fulfilling part of her job in recent years. Rau had managed the expansion and detailed renovation of the M.S. Rau Jewelry Gallery, for example, in 2021.
Being on the jewelry sourcing team, she occasionally designed settings for loose gemstones. She’d also worked for a year at M.S. Rau as the gallery designer and merchandiser. She had tested the concept of turning antiquities into jewelry a couple of times, just for fun.
As a result of that realization, Rau relocated from New Orleans to New York City and began designing her own jewelry.
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Prior to that, she had worked full time as vice president of acquisitions for M.S. Rau, her family’s company known for its world-class art collection, rare antiques and spectacular jewelry.
After earning her master’s degree from Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London, Rau traveled Europe and Asia, acquiring rare jewels and objets d’art for M.S. Rau while cultivating her curatorial expertise. She continues to source acquisitions for M.S. Rau, but her primary focus has shifted.
“New York certainly isn’t the most relaxing environment to pursue new ventures, but its pulse is palpable, and I love being at the center of our industry and exposed to so many people of influence rather than watching them from afar,” she says.
Rebecca Rau’s collection of one-of-a-kind pieces, Then & Now, fuses antiquities with gemstones.
A collection of one-of-a-kind pieces, “Then & Now,” fuses antiquities with gemstones, creating modern amulets that celebrate millennia of craftsmanship. The result is both refined and playful. She also has designed a more traditional collection featuring showstopping gems. “It’s been rewarding to exercise my design abilities in both conventional and unconventional ways,” she says.
An October preview at M.S. Rau in New Orleans was followed in early November by a launch during New York City’s Jewelry Week.
There have been challenges along the way. She has felt vulnerable pursuing something that’s aesthetically experimental in an environment driven by the demands of profit. “Not to mention the fact that the wholesale and production side of the business can be a bit machismo,” she says. “It takes a bit of brazenness to gain respect as a woman in this very traditional world! In spite of this, it’s a challenge I enjoy taking on.”
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Rau says that the most humbling aspect of her career shift has been pursuing it solo, taking on every needed administrative and clerical task. “It’s important to me to start lean and build the brand and business carefully and intentionally,” she says. She’s grateful for her connections in the business who have offered advice and introduced her to jewelers.
Although her jewelry designs reflect her career reinvention, the pieces themselves have been reinvented. Each one demonstrates how the craftsmanship of another age can inform a modern artist and become something new. “It’s a nod to innovative metalsmithing techniques that extend further back into history than most people appreciate,” she says.
