JOANGOODMAN
Founder
and creative director of Pono Jewelry
by Anja Tranovich
Joan Goodman, founder of the Pono
jewelry line (http://www.pono4bobbitrim.com),
is standing in the middle of her Manhattan showroom
and won’t say anything until she cues the lights,
huge overhead monstrosities that take half a minute
to flicker on. When they do, hundreds of her horn and
shell accessories, spread out over three huge tables,
reflect deep shades of blue, scarlet, and brown, making
the room seem like a giant kaleidoscope. Joan has an
easy smile and the relaxed demeanor (and tan) of someone
who just got back from a beach vacation. The product
line in the showroom is Goodman’s passion on display,
which combines her beliefs in social equality and protecting
the environment. The two are represented in several
charity lines, which are the first things she wants
to talk about. She is as effusive and animated talking
politics as she is describing the bright heaping stacks
of resin and horn bangles. “The theme for Pono
is always pretty much the same,” she says. “It
is peace, justice, human rights, and equal rights. That’s
the foundation.”
Goodman takes a holistic approach to
creating and marketing her accessories. With an eye
toward the universal in fashion, the pieces in her jewelry
line are classic with touches of multiculturalism. Per
her passions, Pono is an environmentally sustainable
company with a compassionate bent. It centers on larger,
natural pieces with a smattering of fashion-forward
necklaces and bracelets. Goodman has always been attracted
to horn and it’s easy to see why. In her designs
horn cuffs stained in rich shades melt from translucent
to opaque and are elegant and timeless. Pono pieces
have shown up everywhere from the editorial pages of
Elle to the wrists of the ladies on The L-Word.
The word Pono is an ideal of goodness
in Hawaiian, meaning righteousness, moral quality, virtue,
and benefit, and it serves as a kind of muse for Goodman
and her accessories line. Pono is also the name of one
of Goodman’s best friends, who she met while living
on Hawaii’s North Shore, some 20 years ago. “She
is pure Hawaiian, the most magnificent human being.
She is the epitome of what Pono means in Hawaiian,”
says Goodman.
Goodman’s dream is to relive the
lifestyle she had in Hawaii, to “go to every beautiful
beach on the planet and learn about the culture and
the history and the flora.” Design themes from
the island still pop up in her jewelry line. A peach
horn bracelet in the upcoming spring line has intricate
engraving patterned after a vine used in Hawaiian weddings.
In the 1980’s Goodman came back
from Hawaii and settled in New York, where she worked
at her father’s button company, which she and her
sister eventually took over. The Pono and the button
company offices are staffed with childhood friends and
a handful of family members.
Goodman launched the jewelry line rather
abruptly. After working at the button company for two
decades she was fed up with corporate America and the
garment center. “One day I just called up a business
partner in Italy and said, ‘I don’t want to
do this anymore. I want to make horn bracelets,’”
she recalled.
He told her to come to Italy that weekend
knowing she had never made a piece of jewelry. She spent
the week with her business partner coming up with ideas
and creating samples in Bergamo, Italy, an area she
describes as beautiful, ancient, and simple.
When it came time to name the line,
“The name Pono just came out of my mouth,”
Goodman said. Her first season used wood as a base material
two years before wood bracelets became a must-have accessory.
When wood exploded in popularity, Pono got six pages
of editorial in Harpers Bazaar. Her pieces haven’t
stopped moving since. Now the line is sold Neiman Marcus,
Henri Bendel, Anthropologie, and in boutiques from L.A.
to Hong Kong.
Continued
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