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Harry Winston Sets Up Jewelry Design Scholarship at FIT

TrendsOct 13, 2017

Harry Winston Sets Up Jewelry Design Scholarship at FIT

Honoring the brand’s late designer, Maurice Galli, who was also a professor at the school, the scholarship will support one jewelry design major every year.

New York--Harry Winston wants to help the next generation of jewelry designers.

The legendary jeweler has established an endowed scholarship at the Fashion Institute of Technology to support one student majoring in jewelry design ever year.

The scholarship honors the late Maurice Galli, who was a jewelry designer at Harry Winston from 1967 to 1979 and returned as a senior designer in 2002.

In 2010, to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of the brand’s donation of the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian, Galli designed a new setting for the stone called “Embracing Hope.”

Galli also was an adjunct professor of jewelry design at FIT from 1986 until his death in 2016, where he found a place to share his knowledge with up-and-coming designers and was widely admired by students and colleagues alike, the school said.

“Maurice was generous with his time, attention and spirit, and both students and colleagues were the better for having worked with him,” said Wendy Yothers, chair of FIT’s Jewelry Design department. “This scholarship will not only help the next generation of jewelry designers reach their academic and professional goals but will honor and keep alive Maurice’s legacy.”

Mia Malmad has been named the first recipient of the scholarship.

The second-year student in FIT’s Jewelry Design program has interned with Broadway costume designer Julie Saltman, assisting with the design and creation of pieces for shows, and with fashion stylist Sophie Colle.

Her jewelry designs were sourced for a Harley-Davidson advertisement.

Malmad also takes part in the Joffrey Ballet School’s young dancer program, where she has studied and performed for 13 years.

Brecken Branstratoris the senior editor, gemstones at National Jeweler, covering sourcing, pricing and other developments in the colored stone sector.

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