The front row of the press pre­view today was a who’s who of fash­ion journalism’s elite and included Anna Win­tour and exhi­bi­tion sub­ject, Miuc­cia Prada, they sat a mere three rows in front of me, Sally Singer, Hamish Bowles and Susy Menkes (in pur­ple from head to toe) two rows ahead, and every­one else was […]

This past Fri­day I had a quiet, unin­ter­rupted view of the offer­ings from the upcom­ing Huguette Clark and Mrs. Lily Safra auc­tions. Chrisitie’s New York will be sell­ing the jew­els of Ms. Clark’s estate on April 17^th. The auc­tion pre­views were set up quite beau­ti­fully, as well as thought­fully; each auction’s prop­erty has it’s own […]

Today it was announced by Van Cleef & Arpels that a dia­mond, plat­inum, and white gold diadème (french spelling) will have a role in the greatly antic­i­pated film, MIRROR MIRROR. Cre­ated in 1976, this remark­ably lovely jewel boasts one 144 dia­monds total­ing 77.34 carats. The head piece was on dis­play at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design […]

Paris. Fash­ion Week. Fall 2012. Jew­elry on the run­way. Fist pump. Paris Fash­ion Week is like no other — sorry New York, I love you too — the run­ways started us off with crazy notions like Limi Feu’s pearls swing­ing at lev­els lower…way, way, lower…than any­one would even think pos­si­ble. Then you have Dries Van […]

Milan was dark, sexy, earthy, mod­ern, and illu­mi­nat­ing. Armani showed Bauhaus col­ors and spare, mod­ern trin­kets to match. Dolce & Gab­bana looked to the baroque reli­gious tra­di­tions of Sicily. Both beau­ti­ful shows fea­tur­ing jew­elry that under­scored respec­tive themes, rather than adorned for adornment’s sake. The mes­sage was in the details. See you in Paris…

I can’t believe JEWELHISTORY.COM is almost five years old! March 1^st marks this mile­stone. This blog began as a labor of love, a way to talk about jew­elry that didn’t exist on the net — or any­where else. I’ve seen my thoughts reprinted and bor­rowed through­out the years and all I can say is a […]

This week’s episode was The Wiz­ard of Oz. The show began with Ken­neth Cole’s noir direc­tive for Hol­i­day 2011 — clearly a nod to the per­sonal style of Wicked Witch of East. It was black, black, and more black: black dresses (didn’t we already have the LBD chal­lenge…?), black pants, black faux fur, and black […]

I’m rep­re­sented by Ran­dom House Speak­ers Bureau, the web­site of which has just relaunched with a gor­geous new look. If you would like to book a lec­ture for the com­ing year, please con­tact Kim Thorn­ton at kthornton@randomhouse.com. My new RHSB web page may be accessed here

What makes the retelling of a leg­end most? In this case it would be Dame Eliz­a­beth Taylor’s jew­elry (although her cou­ture does run along­side). The more than five hun­dred jew­els left in her wake — and not of her death, these pieces have noth­ing to do with the slough­ing off of one’s mor­tal coil — […]

**12.01.11 — Please fol­low me today on Twit­ter: @Jewelhistory It’s Eliz­a­beth Tay­lor eve, the day before the New York press pre­view of Christie’s exhi­bi­tion of the jew­elry, cloth­ing, and dec­o­ra­tive items that belong to the actor-icon-activist (a por­tion of the pro­ceeds from the exhi­bi­tion admis­sions and pub­li­ca­tions related to the sales will be donated to […]