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 […]

The Song of Songs is from the Old Tes­ta­ment, and has uni­ver­sal mean­ing: it’s about love. More about the Song of Songs here I just couldn’t get to a post this week, sorry. All of our boys are home, and in addi­tion to that, it’s our 26^th wed­ding anniver­sary today, our youngest’s birth­day is on […]

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 […]

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 […]

With the red car­pet rolling out tonight for the Acad­emy Awards, I’m not quite sure what to antic­i­pate in terms of jew­elry. Thus far, it’s been a sea­son of under­stated, taste­ful lux­ury. Which is lovely if you are doing din­ner the­ater and drinks, but for this evening’s Oscar pre­sen­ta­tion, I’m hop­ing we see some star-quality […]

Suzanne Belper­ron by Sylive Raulet and Olivier Baroin is a much wel­comed book about one of the most elu­sive yet cel­e­brated jew­elry design­ers in cul­tural his­tory. Madame Belper­ron, a female amidst a pha­lanx of highly-touted male jew­elry mak­ers, began work­ing for Ger­maine Boivin, and in 1932, was hired by Bernard Herz, a well-known gem­stone and […]

No one could have offered a Down­ton Abbey moment bet­ter than Ralph Lau­ren. Yet another ref­er­ence to the Duchess of Wind­sor: see the image below of the model with her dark hair teth­ered to the head and gob­stop­per gems around her neck. She is quickly becom­ing a car­i­ca­ture of wealth and priv­i­lege rather than an […]

Jew­elry for this New York Fash­ion Week was there, and not. Oscar de la Renta cre­ated a bodice ornament/necklace and took the theme to the tex­tile of his clothes — and to great effect. The jewel was either blown up to life-sized pro­por­tions or shrunken down and trans­lated into a small, foulard-type print. There was […]

The Paris cou­ture shows for spring, that is to say Armani Prive, Chanel, and Jean Paul Gaultier, made an argu­ment for boldly col­ored jew­elry, ways to acces­sorize an allur­ing neck­line, and the appeal of prim­i­tive Mod­ernism. When design­ers choose not com­plete their looks with jew­elry or any­thing else, I some­times won­der how secure they are […]