Guest Profile

Alberto Parada

Alberto Parada was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1968. Shortly after his family moved to Uruguay in South America. Alberto's father is from Uruguay and his mother is a native of Paraguay, both of whom are of Italian, Spanish, and Portugese descent.

Alberto has spent the last 15 years in the jewelry business, where he developed an expert knowledge of fine jewelry, estate jewelry and custom design. In may of 1999 Alberto opened his first retail store called Parada Jewelry in Washington D.C.'s trendy Georgetown neighborhood, where he specialized in fine jewelry and designing one-of-a-kind pieces. This initial venture inspired his vision -- to develop and produce his own line of custom jewelry. Alberto's unique cultural background is the inspriatoion for his design concepts. Alberto's history and travels to South America have given him an insight into the beauty and quality of semi-precious stones as well as white and yellow gold. These materials are the foundation of the Parada Jewelry line. The essence of his line is the bold yet delicate combination of these materials. His latest joint venture, Smith Parada, an art and jewelry anthology located in the heart of Georgetown's Canal Square, has finally opened the doors to Alberto's dream of infusing South American inspired design with cutting edge molding and setting techniques.