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Disney x RockLove Jewelry is back with a 3rd collaboration just in time for the Nightmare Before Christmas 25th Anniversary! The collection celebrates the iconic Tim Burton film with necklaces and rings that commemorate Jack & Sally, Zero the dog, and, of course, Lock, Shock and Barrel! The Collection launched October 1st at RockLove.com!

Eric Snell of ComicAttack.net caught up with Designer Allison Cimino in the Rock Love booth at NYCC 2018 to discuss her craft, her collaboration with Disney and the launch of the Nightmare Before Christmas collection.

ComicAttack: Before we start i’d love to get some background on you and your brand, RockLove Jewelry.

Allison Cimino: Well I started making my own jewelry about 12 years ago because I have a metal allergy and I was getting fed up buying cute jewelry that was giving me allergic reactions or turning me green. So I started casting my own metal and I went overseas to Florence to do a jewelers apprenticeship. I actually don’t have any kind of business degree and my training is a lot more on the technical like a french jeweler/craftsman.

On the craftsman side but suddenly im in the limelight like the personality and figurehead of the company which has been exciting but a little challenging for somebody that’s kind of an introvert. I kinda hide like a little jewelry Gollum, hoarding “The Precious” and i haven’t seen the light of day. So I’ve been doing jewelry in private and as it’s grown I’ve been learning the balance between my enthusiasm for meeting my fellow geek fans, which has been great, and then also going back and just trying to get my work done. Im a workaholic and I just like to put on my Netflix marathons and just make jewelry into the wee hours of the night.

I actually started with authors and musicians and bands that I like. It was this collaboration where I make merch for [them] and they sell it, maybe donate it to charity, maybe for studio time, maybe a book tour and it would benefit the artist and I would be collaborating with them to create the merchandise for them and their fans.  That grew into video games, Star Trek, CBS had been very fostering early on as well.

CA: So how did you get hooked up with Disney to work on their pieces?  This is your 3rd collaboration with them if i’m correct.

AC: Actually it’s been one large collaboration with Disney.  It’s the Disney X RockLove brand so it’s this halo lockup of RockLove style.  So that way it’s not just one property like just Ursula or Little Mermaid but expands pretty much all the properties and we’ve got a lot of pieces that are coming out in the future.  I’ve been working on Disney for about 2 years to get to point of this release.  There are about 65 pieces here in this launch.  I started small and then bigger and after building with CBS, and Sony and then Marvel, demonstrating to Marvel that I was reliable, did quality work and treated the customers with respect then Disney came and was interested in what my interpretations would be.  There are so many people that want a little edgier, premium material, adult jewelry so [Disney] took a chance on me to be that creator and translate their characters for the adult market.

CA: The new collection came out October 1st, the month of Halloween but I have to ask. Is this a jumping off point for something bigger for Nightmare Before Christmas, or did you go to Disney and say “I love Nightmare Before Christmas I want to do something with that?”

AC: Actually no, This is the 25th anniversary of Nightmare. Starting two years ago I started designing these pieces and of course they asked me “What are you a fan of.” And I was like “Are you kidding? All of it!” I can quote all of Disney lyrics and music.

CA: So you’ve got love for Disney period.

AC: I like to say I have the eyes of a Disney Princess and the eyebrows of a villainess. The love is definitely there but Nightmare I’ve been a fan of since it came out in 1993. So for this 25th Anniversary they said we love your designs but hold off until the anniversary. So the collection is twofold, there’s the beloved characters like Zero, Zombie Duck, Sally, Locke, Shock and Barrel and there’s a celebration of the love between Jack and Sally. So there are a lot of engravings that say things like “True Love Never Dies” and “Simply Meant to Be” and that spiral hill in the graveyard against the moon. That image that we have as our bedroom blankets and on my clock in my childhood bedroom.

CA: I noticed that a lot of your pieces are incredibly intricate.  Tell me about your favorite?  What piece did you put extra love into?

AC: I pretend that I love all my children equally but I do have a favorite, actually I have a few of them. There are the pieces I wear personally which are the tentacle collar and the tentacle stud earrings. I’m partial to big sterling silver just for statement size and I did a tentacle collection maybe about 8 years ago. So this is a circle back to my own personal style. So I get to do the tentacle collection for RockLove as an unlicensed thing and here I get to do a 2.0 as a license and with my love for Ursula.

The shell locket is another personal favorite because that was another stroke of genius moment. Sometimes when I have that impostor syndrome and i’m like “What am I doing? I should have a 9 – 5!” then I have a moment where i’m like “OK. Maybe I am good at this.” and that was the shell locket with the pieces that articulate and come out. Locke Shock and Barrel masks open, the Zombie Duck’s wheels actually roll.

CA: I like that the pieces aren’t, for lack of a better word, too girly.

AC: I definitely strive for gender neutral. One of the things about jewelry is that it’s not divided by gender. Any one can wear anything. I use a lot of 20-24 inch chains. I usually have to start with 6-9 size rings but as soon as a ring is well received I expand so that anyone can wear the sizes. So jewelry being a piece that goes on your body and not seem creepy like say wearing the same shirt everyday this becomes a more permanent fixture on your body and I want it to be something you can wear and not feel like “Oh that’s for a girl, it’s not for me.”

CA: With all these wonderful pieces under your belt is there a Disney property that you haven’t worked on that you’re waiting for the them to say GO?

AC: I definitely have Maleficent in my back pocket. She is all us goth girls favorite character. She is our queen!

CA: She’s the original animated diva!

AC: Definitely, she’s got it all. The manicure, the eyebrows, the red lip, the sass, the confidence, the cloak. She’s powerful, she’s resentful. She’s just human. She’s got some damage and some issues but in a way that’s more relatable than a perfect princess.

Eric Snell
eric@comicattack.net
Twitter: esnelldesign
Images provided by RockLove and Eric Snell