It’s a rainy, dreary day here in New York but I have a cou­ple of sub­jects with which to stir up some sun­shine. First, an update: Brooches:Timeless Adorn­ment will be released on May 6^th, not April 29^th as pre­vi­ous indi­cated. This deci­sion was a sur­prise even to me, and I am sorry if this causes […]

It would seem that all’s well that ends well in the land of famous jew­els and jew­el­ers. Gem dealer and owner of Fred Leighton, Ralph O. Esmer­ian has sold Empress Eugénie’s dia­mond bow brooch to the Lou­vre. The sale was facil­i­tated by François Curiel, Pres­i­dent of Christie’s Europe who made the fol­low­ing state­ment, “As a […]

Style.com’s Candy Pratts Price talks gen­er­ally about sig­nals, and brooches in par­tic­u­lar, on this month’s Can­dy­cast. She men­tions Madeleine Albright’s famous pins and their pro­jected mean­ing when she wore them. As I have said before, jew­elry is as much a form of self-expression as it is a state­ment of style. I think that the former […]

Accord­ing to Bloomberg.com
the auc­tion has been halted and Fred Leighton owner, Ralph Esmer­ian, will be per­mit­ted to sell this col­lec­tion of highly unique jew­els pri­vately. The gem dealer/jeweler asserts that the results of a pri­vate sale will yield more than Christie’s esti­mated auc­tion prices.
One ancil­lary yet debat­able ques­tion that arises out of this situation […]

News flash: Christies Rare Jew­els and Gem­stones auc­tion I wrote about a few days ago is now on hold. This is no small devel­op­ment. To read more about it, go to The New York Times.
In the mean­time, Sotheby’s spring sale this com­ing Thurs­day, April 17^th, is abloom with color and impor­tant dia­monds. There […]

Hard Candy is an apt title that describes both the singer and the bling Madonna sports on the cover of her new cd that drops into stores at the end of the month. Accord­ing to the record­ing artist, the moniker is meant to con­vey a “jux­ta­po­si­tion of tough and sweet”. Hence the knuck­le­duster and […]

Just as a reminder: I’m hold­ing a brief lec­ture and book sign­ing at Barnes and Noble in Man­has­set, Long Island, on Tues­day, May 6, 2008 at 7 pm. Since this will be just before Mother’s Day, it is an oppor­tu­nity to get a signed, first edi­tion copy of Brooches: Time­less Adorn­ment. I think it will […]

With all the focus on vibrantly hued cloth­ing, jew­elry, and acces­sories, what if…mon Dieu…you would like to wear a Tech­ni­color frock but not the jew­els to match? I adore color in almost every fash­ion cat­e­gory. Adorn­ment, of course, is a primed can­vas for gems, enam­els, met­als and the like; espe­cially when done well in the […]