It took a movie to learn why the phrase “blood diamond” was so apt — but Design Glut’s Crude jewelry is a little more overt about what goes into the making of bling. Founded last May by two industrial design grads from Pratt, the tongue-in-cheek line began with solid gold and gold-plated rings, necklaces and bracelets prominently featuring barrels of oil. The jewelry is manufactured in monthly batches here in NYC, and each charm is engraved with the date of production and the price of oil on that day.

Says Fort Greene’s Liz Kinnmark, one half of Design Glut with Brooklyn native Kegan Fisher, “We wanted to do something about luxury, something conceptual, something that made a bit of a statement” — particularly about what we value today. “Oil seemed rock solid. It’s this invisible thing that underlies our entire economy.” (Kinnmark, btw, designed those adorable Egg Pants in our Sampler.)

The point isn’t to hit anyone over the head with a message about our flagrant fossil fuel use, but it is a coy inside joke that you wouldn’t expect from 14K gold. (One, says Kinnmark, the Russians get right away. Bloggers there and the Russian Robb Report have all responded enthusiastically to Crude, while we, the world’s largest consumer of oil, have been slower to the take.)

When oil reached $99 a barrel before Thanksgiving, the Design Glut team took advantage of the buzz, and created 100, limited edition brass necklaces (powder-coated a svelte black) to commemorate the historic day oil hit the triple digits. They took the names of people who wanted to reserve them, and last Wed., Jan. 2nd, when it traded at $100 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, engraved the date and price on each.

Oil has since gone down to $95 a barrel, but there are still a few Black Crude Necklaces left — selling at (what else?) $100 per, at designglut.com.
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