Begin­ning May 1^st, there will be another counter to ogle while ambling the bejew­eled lane of lux­ury at Bergdorf Good­man in New York. With their flag­ship on Madi­son Avenue, Fred Leighton will now also inhabit a sub­stan­tial cor­ner of the Fifth Avenue fash­ion Mecca. It’s a log­i­cal and rather over­due move since Leighton’s jew­elry has high­lighted many a red car­pet moment. The fash­ion con­nec­tion has always been there. The fact that other vin­tage jew­elry houses such as Kentshire, Siegel­son, Smith­wick Dil­lon, Tony Duquette, et al, who have been there for years, share their indi­vid­ual points of view within glanc­ing dis­tance of one another is a credit to both the flu­id­ity of these spe­cial­ists and the store’s cos­mopoli­tan style. Each house speaks its own view­point and for those who enjoy one-stop shop­ping (albeit this would be the utter­most expres­sion of this expe­ri­ence), the choices encour­age a mean­ing­ful dia­logue between cloth­ing and jew­elry. This is an idea I whole­heart­edly endorse be it high-end retail or Target.

On another note, I want to share a book sug­ges­tion with you. The Jew­eled Menagerie by Suzanne Ten­nen­baum and Janet Zap­ata has just been released in paper­back and it is a worth­while visit to the jew­eled world of ani­mals, insects and any­thing else that lives and breathes among us. The artis­tic skills of the gem carver, gem set­ter and gold­smith are beau­ti­fully expressed here and the illus­tra­tions impart a sense of what may be accom­plished in jew­elry when vision and sen­si­tiv­ity are the pri­mary motivators.