Contemporary Concepts

Contemporary Concepts, doing business as Wire Gems, has operated at 218 Brevard Avenue in Historic Cocoa Village since 1984, making it the longest established shop among the retailers researched for this batch of the village’s business directory. The shop specializes in handcrafted wirewrapped jewelry, including bracelets, earrings, ear climbers, rings, ankle bracelets, pendants, necklaces, and ear cuffs, built from precious metals and semi precious gemstones, with custom settings encouraged for customers who want a piece designed around a specific stone or idea.

The business is run by artisan Janne Chambers Etz, described on the shop’s own site as an award winning artisan, and its tagline, crafting beautiful heirloom jewelry since 1984, points to a shop built around pieces meant to last and be passed down rather than seasonal costume jewelry. Wire wrapping is a distinct jewelry making technique from casting or stamping, built by hand around each stone, which places Contemporary Concepts closer to a working studio than a typical retail jewelry counter, similar in spirit to the beaded jewelry and stringing repair work done at another Brevard Avenue shop nearby.

A business with four decades of continuous operation in the same small downtown is genuinely unusual, and it predates most of the current revitalization era of Historic Cocoa Village, having opened its doors well before the district’s more recent wave of boutiques and specialty shops. That longevity places Contemporary Concepts alongside the handful of truly long running Cocoa Village institutions, in the same general company as the 1885 founded S.F. Travis Company hardware store a few blocks away, even if on a different scale.

The shop is registered as pet friendly with the Historic Cocoa Village Main Street organization, and customers can reach Contemporary Concepts at 321-632-9505 or by email at wiregems@bellsouth.net, with its full jewelry catalog and artisan background available at wiregems.biz. Its four decade history in the same Brevard Avenue storefront, combined with its listing in the city’s official Historic Cocoa Village Main Street directory, makes it one of the more established independent jewelers for anyone in Brevard County looking for handcrafted, custom wirewrapped pieces.

A shop that has operated continuously since 1984 has effectively grown up alongside the modern revitalization of Historic Cocoa Village itself, watching the district evolve around it as newer boutiques, gift shops, and specialty retailers moved onto the same street over the following decades. For customers who value heirloom quality construction over mass produced settings, that decades long track record under a single named artisan carries a kind of credibility that a newly opened shop cannot yet offer.