Amanda Hagerman Jewelry

The showroom at 3259 Prospect Street NW operates as both a retail atelier and a design studio, which is an arrangement that reflects what Amanda Hagerman does. Hagerman is a trained designer and goldsmith who uses the lost-wax casting method to produce handcrafted 18K gold jewelry. The lost-wax process is one of the oldest metalsmithing techniques available, with a documented history stretching back thousands of years. It involves creating a wax model of the intended piece, encasing it in a mold, melting the wax away, and pouring molten metal into the resulting cavity. What emerges is a cast piece that carries the exact form of the original wax model, which means the technique rewards precision and design specificity rather than the approximate tolerances of machine production.

Hagerman’s aesthetic blends classical references with a restrained modern sensibility. The pieces do not announce themselves with scale or obvious ornament. They are designed to read as intentional objects, worth examining at close range, in a way that wearable jewelry should operate. The 18K gold standard, which she applies consistently, is a choice about material quality that affects both the look of the finished piece and its longevity. Most mass-produced jewelry operates at lower gold alloy standards; 18K represents a meaningful upgrade in both value and wear characteristics.

The custom design service is a significant part of what the Prospect Street showroom offers. Clients who come in for custom work are engaging with Hagerman directly on a brief, moving through concept to finished piece in a process that can span several weeks. Engagement rings, anniversary pieces, and family heirlooms commissioned as new pieces are the categories that most frequently bring clients to the custom design process. The showroom has done pop-ups at M.M. LaFleur’s Georgetown location on Wisconsin Avenue, which has introduced the jewelry to a customer base that might not otherwise discover a Prospect Street atelier.

The Prospect Street block runs between Wisconsin Avenue and 33rd Street, in a quiet stretch of upper Georgetown that houses a mix of boutiques, galleries, and residential buildings. The jewelry association of the area, while not as concentrated as a traditional jewelry district, benefits from the foot traffic that moves between the Wisconsin Avenue boutiques and the Georgetown University neighborhood.

Visits are by appointment, which is the appropriate model for a fine jewelry showroom where time with the designer is part of what the client is purchasing. Contact information and appointment requests are available at amandahagermanjewelry.com. For clients interested in custom work specifically, bringing reference images and a clear brief to the initial appointment makes the process more efficient and produces better results. The Prospect Street location is appointment-based, which gives the atelier format its appropriate structure. A showroom where the work is small-scale, handmade, and priced to reflect the material and labor involved is better served by scheduled visits than by walk-in traffic. The website allows appointment requests and carries an overview of current collection pieces for those who want to preview the range before arriving in person.