Alexis Bittar, a jewelry designer, has been feeling proud since May, when two of his mockumentary soap operas won Webbys, the internet’s equivalent of the Oscars.
The awards may not have been a surprise to his more than 475,000 social media followers. Many of them have followed “Bittarverse,” the ongoing saga of an abrasive Manhattan socialite and her long-suffering assistant — always decked out in his jewelry, of course — since its debut in December 2023.
Michael Kors said in an online interview that he “laughs out loud” at their antics, which is why he participated in a storyline earlier this year. And other well-known names like Susan Sarandon, Iman and Law Roach have also made cameos.
Indeed, Mr. Bittar, 57, is in the vanguard of designers selling their jewelry in new ways on social media.
That is, at least in part, because social media’s 5.66 billion users are increasingly purchasing directly from platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, according to National University in San Diego.
Mr. Bittar said he created the series “to disrupt and create a new model that I had not seen before.”
And the docudrama format, he added, means “that way I can style it, but also basically continue social messaging that is true to who I am.”
He writes and directs the 60- to 90-second videos, working with freelance editors to edit them. A member of his e-commerce marketing team posts them on the key platforms: to his 366,000 followers on Instagram, 111,100 followers on TikTok and 3,060 subscribers on YouTube (as of June). He is now approaching production companies to turn “Bittarverse” into a television series in 2027.
(Mr. Bittar co-directed his other Webby-winning show, “The Sexecutions of Amanda Gates” with Chris Klimovski, a filmmaker, but he ended it in April as it confused people to see multiple narratives from one brand on social media.)
‘As Seen In’
As for the jewelry featured in the series, Mr. Bittar chooses what goes with the characters’ outfits with some suggestions from the stars. He said new collection pieces appear on cast members “usually a month before we launch, like a teaser to get people shopping.”
Yet the jewelry is never mentioned in the series, he added. But close-ups of the pieces (and the actors wearing them) are posted in an Instagram Story with the tag “As Seen In,” so viewers can shop through the platform.
The strategy seems to be working as, Mr. Bittar said, his sales increased 24 percent from 2024 to 2025. (He declined to disclose actual sales figures.)
For example, sales of the Solanales Crystal Pebble Collar Necklace grew 320 percent in one month after Hazel (the ill-treated assistant, played by Julie Powell) wore it while romancing another character in an April storyline.
During filming, Ms. Powell said, she shows off the jewelry in subtle ways: “If I move my hand, bangles clink,” which is something the audience can hear.
“Or when I’m wearing my head scarf, if I pull it to one side, it leaves this side open and exposed to the camera and whatever earring I might be wearing,” she said.
Other designers have noticed Mr. Bittar’s efforts.
The posts are “very different to what other people are doing,” said Deborah Latouche, the founder and creative director of the London fashion label Sabirah, who explained that she has been following the series from its start.
“It’s more narrative based and less transactional, and not just about that product,” she said. “It’s a little bit tongue-in-cheek, quite funny, not quite politically correct in some places and that just makes it exciting in terms of something to actually watch on Instagram.”
After she watches an episode, Ms. Latouche said she browses Mr. Bittar’s website “to see what they’ve got.”
Boosting Business
The success of Julia Chafé’s online videos actually prompted her to begin a jewelry company in 2024.
Ms. Chafé, 27, said more than 100 of her followers had asked where they could buy the self-designed rainbow sapphire choker she wore in posts. The business “was meant to be a limited drop of chokers,” she wrote in a later WhatsApp message. But, “from there, my audience kept requesting more.”
She now outsources production of her designs to ateliers in New York and Bangkok. And at the suggestion of some of her 919,000 followers on Instagram, 264,900 followers on TikTok and 124,000 YouTube subscribers, all as of June, Ms. Chafé recently began using her own name for the business, in addition to the Jewelswithjules handle she had used on social media platforms since 2021.
After all, as she said in Instagram and TikTok posts, Jewelswithjules “sounds a little juvenile and silly for what I’m selling,” which includes an 18-karat gold rainbow sapphire choker (priced at $14,200) and 18-karat yellow gold, turquoise ear climbers with blue, purple and pink sapphires (retailing for $5,950).
Ms. Chafé continues to write and edit her videos, and posts the same three — “one business, one celebrity and one lifestyle post,” she said — on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube at the same time each day. And the jewelry sales, she said, have been strong.
Consider the sapphire rainbow band rings she unveiled in March, which included a rainbow sapphire eternity band (retailing for $3,450). On March 25 and 26, the first two days of sales, Ms. Chafé said she sold 14 rings worth a total of more than $65,000.
Varied Content
Lorenz Bäumer, a jeweler in Paris, wears or displays much of what he sells in his posts, but he also takes viewers on tours of his boutique, sketches designs onscreen and gives tips such as how royals shop for jewelry (“They send their assistants,” he said on Instagram).
According to Mr. Bäumer, he can get two or three sales a month from his social media followers, with first-time customers from places like Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Mongolia visiting his shop in Paris.
Mostly the TikTokers and Instagrammers, he said, buy entry-level pieces such as his 18-karat gold Battement de Coeur (Heartbeat) bracelet with a cord (from 490 euros, or priced at $575 for customers in the United States). “But I’ve had people buy 7,000 euro pieces, too,” he said.
Mr. Bäumer, a former jewelry designer for Chanel and Louis Vuitton who opened his boutique in 2013, is experienced in old school advertising.
Now “jewelry comes alive in the videos, which it does not on the paper,” he said. “You can really get the impression and the feeling of the sparkle of the jewels,” he said.
And, he added, “it’s a lot less expensive” than traditional advertising.
