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Alex Moss is the best jeweler in the game right now.
Since he founded his namesake business in 2020, Moss has racked up a who’s who of clients from Drake to Tyler, the Creator with his creative approach to custom jewelry that’s included everything from diamond-encrusted action figures to iced-out grenade clocks.
Moss works on anywhere from 15 to 30 one-of-one customs at any given time along with an expansive line of in-house designs that are stocked at retailers like Maxfield LA and The Webster. While most of the pieces he makes for celebrities stay in the possession of the client, some of them make it back into Moss’ hands for repairs.
“I like to tell my clients that jewelry is like cars. They’re really fine-tuned, expensive luxury items, but they need maintenance,” says Moss. “Imagine someone like Don Toliver jumping up and down on stage. It is given that the piece is going to lose some stones or get a little scratch. So, they’ll just send it in for repair and I’ll shoot it back out to them.”
Moss doesn’t come from a long lineage of jewelers like many others in the industry, but he always wanted to make it, to succeed. As an 11-year-old growing up in Toronto, he created jewelry designs on Photoshop and wore his own paper printouts. He moved to New York City to formally study fashion at Parsons in 2016, an academic background which has helped set his work apart in a crowded and competitive industry.
One of his earliest IRL creations was for his clothing brand at the time, Bandit. The logo featured two crossed AK-47s. It’s a chain that he still cherishes to this day.
“I look at jewelry as more of a fashion piece. I’m not looking at it as, ‘How can I make this as icy as possible?’” says Moss. “I’m not worried about competition because I’m bringing in a new product that doesn’t exist.”
We got to visit Moss’ office and uncover some of his best hidden gems, from finished pieces to wax samples. Below, get a look inside some standouts in his vault and the stories behind them.
Alex Says: [This] references Lincoln Loud, the cartoon character, but this is the Almighty So version. The special thing about this piece is that the eyes spin. The reference for that was 50 Cent’s G-Unit spinner. That piece is crazy. This has a custom spiked infinity chain with cotton candy bezels throughout the whole link that is special to Chief Keef. Only he’s got this.
We finished this in February 2024, but it’s back in our studio because Chief Keef wanted to change the eyes. We added bigger stones to the pupils.
Chief Keef is a really creative, fun, and outgoing person. He’s just got to like you. Once he looks at you like a friend, you’re going to see the real Chief Keef. He’s one of [my] favorite people to work with creatively because we’ve come up with the most absurd ideas. If there was a fly on the wall in the room when we cooked up, your mind would be blown.
This was the fifth or sixth grill I made for Ken. This is a piece of history. He wore these on the cover of A Great Chaos and the cover became iconic. These were also on display at the “Ice Cold” exhibit.
Ken is one of my closest friends. I like to call him my twin. Ken is a real day zero. Ken and I started at the exact same time pretty much. It’s amazing to see both of us flourishing at the same time. Some of the coolest jewelry I’ve made is with Ken.
This is a sample of the Mental Warfare bracelet that we made for Drake. We don’t typically make a lot of silver samples, but you’ve never seen a bracelet with letters as a cuff before. If it’s a new product that we’re creating, I’ll prototype a sample in silver or some other material just to see how it fits and test the engineering. I want to make sure it’s perfect.
We made this for Drake in October 2023 during the For All The Dogs era. This was actually his birthday gift for himself. I remember I flew down to Miami and gave him the bracelet. He was very happy. He had an amazing party. Drake throws the best fucking parties.
This is one of the craziest projects we ever did. This is the 3D wax print. So, this is the model we had before we actually made the piece. This one is for the ’90s kids. A fully functioning action figure. The legs, knees, elbows, shoulders, and head move. The heads actually screw off. There’s a special hidden mechanism at the back of the neck that you have to unscrew with the screwdriver.
This piece took a really long time. It was supposed to come out right when his album came out, but it was just such a complex, complicated piece. Gold is a very soft metal and when it moves around all the time, it almost disintegrates. It’s going to get floppy if you don’t make it the right way. It took about eight months to complete this one.
This is not supposed to be a pendant, but Rocky’s crazy, so we put a bale at the top and turned it into one. It just came back from the Museum of Natural History’s “Ice Cold” exhibit. I’m very happy to have it back, but I have to give it back to Rocky soon.
Rocky and I have a lot of projects together. He’s one of my favorite people to work with because we have really good creative synergy. We come up with magic, some of the craziest ideas jewelry has ever seen.
This is one of the only collaborations we’ve ever done in our company history. It’s with this company called L’eppe. They’re the world’s oldest clock maker. We turned the clock into a grenade and we iced out the whole thing. The pin comes out of the grenade, you put it underneath, and you wind it up. It’s fucking nuts if you think about it.
We made two belt buckles for Carti. One said “YVL” and one said “Opium.” The final belt buckle is a unique camouflage that we came up [with] that had blue, pink, yellow, and white in it. On the mold, you can see the camo pattern, so when we’re setting the stones, we know where it’s going to be.
Carti is one of my oldest friends and oldest clients. We have been working for over 10 years together. When we put this out, it was really special to me because we referenced an old belt buckle that we did together almost eight years ago.
Making jewelry with the Opium guys is like a home base. I grew up with everyone. All our projects we make together are absolutely fucking bananas because we’re on the same brainwave. It’s always fun when I make jewelry with those guys. We’re not close to stopping at all. We’ve got some crazy shit coming out.
We don’t have a name for this piece yet, but it’s part of the upcoming Neo collection. We’re debuting a brand new ball bead link called Destroy. This is one of my favorite links that we came up with because it’s a ball bead link, but it’s reimagined in a way cooler way than the typical ball bead links that you see. It doesn’t just look like Mardi Gras beads.
This was pre-sold to Naz Reid, who might I add is one of the flyest NBA players in the league. To make this one-of-one for him, I added a pink lock on the chain.
This is another special set from our upcoming Neo collection releasing on May 5. It doesn’t even have a name yet. There’s 50 pointer stones throughout the crosses in the links. I also really love the style of this cross and the bezel stones, which create another cross within the cross.
When I’m designing new stuff, I put on music. Whatever vibe comes with it, I just freestyle. With this, I wanted to do something a little edgy, while still using the cross motifs. It has this sharp punk edge with a neo tribal vibe to it. I was listening to Alice in Chains when I made this one, which is one of my favorite bands.
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