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 was one name in their cat­a­log that piqued my curios­ity: Diane Love. At first, I thought I had not heard of her; when I did a lit­tle inves­ti­ga­tion, I real­ized that it was her cos­tume designs with which I was familiar.

Diane (pro­nounced Dee-Ann) Love was an Art History/Studio Art grad­u­ate from Barnard Col­lege in New York. Eth­nic and clas­si­cal motifs were among her favorites. Her early fine jew­elry was cre­ated solely for her own enjoy­ment. Attrac­tive and unusual, peo­ple began to ask where they could find sim­i­lar exam­ples of her bold and exotic orna­ments. She even­tu­ally devel­oped a col­lec­tion of more than one-hundred and fifty unique pieces which were sold very suc­cess­fully through Bergdorf Good­man. Each item was accom­pa­nied by a card that explained the art ref­er­ences and intri­cate details she had incor­po­rated into the design.

In 1970, a friend offered up an inno­v­a­tive idea that, today, is com­mon­place (think H&M and Tar­get): Why not cre­ate cos­tume jew­elry? And just as an aside, faux titan Erwin Pearl also began his career as a cre­ator of fine jew­els. So Diane knocked on the door of the Tri­fari Com­pany, known for its con­ser­v­a­tive but high qual­ity orna­ments. They offered taste­ful clas­sics, such as chains, pearls and but­ton ear­rings; these were the type of things Mamie Eisen­hower would and did wear to the Pres­i­den­tial Inau­gural Balls. Love’s cre­ations proved to be a rad­i­cal depar­ture from the staid fare that the com­pany had been producing.

Love set out to achieve authen­tic col­ors and tex­tures for her cos­tume designs; such accom­mo­da­tions on the part of Tri­fari had been unheard of. To their credit, the com­pany gave her their full sup­port. Four­teen karat gold plat­ing was replaced by eigh­teen because Love wanted the metal to have the warm, slightly green, appear­ance of high karat gold. The mate­ri­als that went into mak­ing cos­tume jew­elry were rel­a­tively inex­pen­sive and freed her imag­i­na­tion to repro­duce or adapt almost any jew­elry tech­nique or motif. How­ever, func­tion was impor­tant to her too. Neck­laces had to hang pre­cisely and ear­rings were made to fit left and right. All of these details were dic­tated by Love, who firmly believed in ease of com­fort and wear­a­bil­ity. Lastly, her pieces were pack­aged in vitrine-shaped, lucite boxes so that they could be viewed and enjoyed when not in use.

Diane Love was the first imported designer to work for the com­pany; every jewel came with a tag that said “Diane Love For Tri­fari”. She did sev­eral col­lec­tions for them, includ­ing watches.