The New York Times and The Inter­na­tional Her­ald Tri­bune are sep­a­rately fea­tur­ing sto­ries by Suzy Menkes about couture-level, or neo-couture level design­ers, who are work­ing the mid­dle ground: Jil Sander, for Uniglo and Olivier Theyskins, for The­ory. The lat­ter was a new announce­ment. The ded­i­ca­tion of design­ers, both of which have worked at the high­est level of the fash­ion chain, to their craft is not only palat­able but now pos­si­ble for every­one else. and this is a truly great thing. I, for one, wear Sander’s Uniqlo won­der­fully cut pieces and absolutely love them. They are my go-to’s for prac­ti­cally any event, or meet­ing — I even audi­tioned for a Chee­rios com­mer­cial in one (no, I didn’t get it, and yes…I’m exper­i­ment­ing with my career at present. Not sure what direc­tion to take so I’m try­ing ALL of them for size to see what fits best right now. Hon­estly, if not now…when??). Even my 21-year-old son has a cou­ple of great things from her mens col­lec­tion hang­ing in his closet; we shop together when he’s home from school. For any­one doing the math just about now: I had our our three hand­some sons early in life and now I reap the rewards of hav­ing young adult chil­dren and being able to shop in the same stores as they do (well, kinda-sorta).

Ok, back to my main point…why can’t jew­elry do the same as Uniqlo and The­ory? Tar­get has tried, with vary­ing degrees of suc­cess, to bring high-level jew­elry design­ers to a mass mar­ket plat­form but, to our more than occa­sional dis­ap­point­ment, it hasn’t always worked. Why? Some might respond and say that the intrin­sic mate­ri­als are just too expen­sive, and to that I would prof­fer a polite lit­tle cough…and then stick my tongue out. Gold, yes, is expen­sive, how­ever sil­ver is a great, afford­able option, and one that arti­san jew­el­ers are embrac­ing with gusto. What about other met­als like bronze, or even cop­per? These take on a fab­u­lous, warm patina and work with black like a bread and but­ter. No, the cost of mate­ri­als can be worked out, with the price points remain­ing fair and rea­son­able, and pro­vided that blind avarice isn’t fac­tored into the equation.

What then? Crafts­man­ship? This is where they may have an argu­ment. There isn’t really a way to make high qual­ity, fast fash­ion for jew­elry from mass mar­ket man­u­fac­tur­ing. The con­trols just aren’t there for qual­ity details, such as hand fin­ish­ing the way Lib­erty did for their period Art Nou­veau lines. Some cos­tume jew­elry design­ers are able to do this, but the cost of these pieces is still quite high and the pro­duc­tion is usu­ally lim­ited. Yet, there is some­thing to be said for mak­ing jew­elry in smaller quan­ti­ties. If done very (very) well, it affords a desir­abil­ity that per­haps that would have been miss­ing if avail­able to every­one. Not a demo­c­ra­tic con­cept, I know, how­ever the pos­si­bil­ity of mak­ing an afford­able, bet­ter piece of jew­elry, one that may become col­lectible in time, is some­thing the indus­try hasn’t addressed, and actu­ally hasn’t explored fully, as far as I can see. This is also true of more exclu­sive col­lec­tions and Madi­son Avenue jew­el­ers and not just endemic to the mid­dle or even less expen­sive mar­kets. Qual­ity should be every­thing in jew­elry. After all, as  far as neces­si­ties go, its com­pletely optional, isn’t it? In most places in the world, cloth­ing is required, but jew­elry is a per­sonal state­ment, and more impor­tantly, not com­pul­sory for any occa­sion — save a coro­na­tion. How would you rec­og­nize the monarch otherwise?

Since Father’s Day is close at hand, I am feel­ing sen­ti­men­tal. My Dad, who was one of the sweet­est, smartest, most gen­tle souls you’d ever met, is in the late stages of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease. I’ve been search­ing for a way to re-connect to him, and given the sit­u­a­tion, that means being a lit­tle bit cre­ative since the usual routes are no longer possible.

I’ve been think­ing about the locket he gave me one year  – I have since for­got­ten the occa­sion. I have it some­where in my stash of col­lectibles, well pre­served and of course, wait­ing for me to have it sol­dered onto my charm bracelet; a mem­ory for­ever linked to the pre­cious moments of my life. He knew I always wanted one and on a sunny after­noon, he left a beau­ti­fully wrapped pack­age on my bed. Upon arriv­ing home from school, I knew what was con­tained within the con­fines of that white card­board box. The style was very typ­i­cal of my Dad’s fine taste: a small, round gold locket with a Flo­ren­tine fin­ish except where a tiny heart and a flower shone brightly against the tex­tured sur­face. Look­ing back now, I’d have to say it was Vic­to­rian inspired — he knew his teenage daugh­ter so well. Lock­ets have been pop­u­lar since the Medieval period and there are superb exam­ples of the Renais­sance jew­els from the reign of Queen Eliz­a­beth I. Those naughty Geor­gians put the locket into mis­chie­vous mode by hav­ing painters cap­ture only the eye of one’s object of desire, leav­ing every­one guess­ing (wink-wink) as to the iden­tity of sit­ter of that tiny hand-painted por­trait. Vic­to­ri­ans heaped upon the locket the bound­less sym­bol­ism of love’s labors — flow­ers and gems spoke an unspo­ken lan­guage — leav­ing the depth of the mes­sage known only to the wearer.

When it comes to the locket my Dad gave me, well, the mean­ing of that gift will always remain safe within my mem­ory. His thought­ful­ness alone was enough to keep us close…and more than words could ever convey.

Gold is beau­ti­ful, yes, and you can even eat small foil-like bits of it on (very expen­sive) desserts. But can it make you beau­ti­ful? An arti­cle in The New York Times reflects on whether or not gold’s lus­tre is acces­si­ble to those who would pay the price…

Image from Sex and the City 2: here Car­rie is wear­ing the “Ran­dom” neck­lace by Solange Azagury-Partridge, 18K black­ened white gold, dia­mond, emer­ald, sap­phire, ruby and fire opal

With inspi­ra­tion at low ebb this week, not even Cannes put a smile on my face, the red car­pet was ele­gant yet so stilted and over­wrought. On a lighter note though, I was invited to an after-party for the SATC 2 pre­miere next week. Sounds like fun. Can’t wait to check out all the glit­ter­atti — and by that I mean the jewels!

And let’s be hon­est: what would a Sex and the City movie be with­out the fash­ion, and the bling? In one scene, Car­rie wears what looks like a tiara that I once bumped into at Fred Leighton — I could swear I’ve seen it before. When it comes to remem­ber­ing jew­elry, my mind is like a steel trap.

What can I say? It’s a gift.

There’s another shot of Car­rie (played emi­nently by Sarah Jes­sica Parker) wear­ing a white Hal­ston and the “Ran­dom neck­lace” by  Solange Azagury-Partridge. The images below tell the whole story: there’s just no sex with­out the spark-le! Absolutely adore the images of Cyn­thia Nixon and Kim Cat­trall — total per­fec­tion in the choice of ear­rings and the beau­ti­ful and tal­ented women wear­ing them.  I’m still search­ing for a great pic of Kris­ten Davis wear­ing some­thing gorgeous…

Sex and the City 2, Miranda

Sex and the City 2, Samantha

For those of you who could not tune in yes­ter­day, here are a few notes from my seg­ment on jew­elry care for Martha Stew­art Radio’s Morn­ing Living:

Dia­monds and Col­ored Gem­stone Jewelry:

On the Mohs scale of min­eral hard­ness, dia­monds receive the high­est score — a 10 — mak­ing them them the tough­est gem­stone on the earth. That being said, a dia­mond can be chipped and/or scratched, if it is hit hard enough, or at an angle that com­pro­mises some­thing in the diamond’s struc­ture. After all, a dia­mond has to be cleaved in order for the cut­ter to achieve its final shape, right? In 1908, when Joseph Ass­cher first smacked the famous Cul­li­nan dia­mond, after study­ing its struc­ture for an entire year, the blade broke. The dia­mond remained com­pletely intact. One week later, when he hit it a sec­ond time with new, stronger tools, it sep­a­rated just as planned. Mr. Ass­cher fell into a dead faint.

Every other gem­stone falls beneath this rat­ing and while most gem­stones, includ­ing dia­monds, may be gen­tly washed with a very mild deter­gent and water mix­ture, some are too soft or brit­tle, and need a lit­tle extra care by a trusted pro­fes­sional. Emer­alds are a soft stone and oil-treated, this has been a com­mon prac­tice for cen­turies. Wash­ing emer­alds will remove this oil. Gen­er­ally speak­ing, I don’t rec­om­mend using ultra­sonic clean­ers, hot water, or steam to clean gem­stones your­self. Take your jew­elry to a trusted pro­fes­sional to have them cleaned. Keep col­ored gem­stone jew­elry away from chem­i­cals, and hair prod­ucts as these can ruin their pol­ish. Sud­den tem­per­a­ture fluc­tu­a­tions are tax­ing on gem­stones. Ttry to store your gem-intense pieces in a place with an even climate.

–Dia­monds may be cleaned by hand using an old tooth­brush and a mild mix­ture of deter­gent (non-detergent soap is even bet­ter) and water. Never scrub or use force when clean­ing a dia­mond in its set­ting — this may loosen the gem­stone.  In gen­eral I do not rec­om­mend an ultra­sonic cleaner for gemstone-set jew­elry because if any of the stones are loose, they could be shaken from their mountings.

–Dia­monds will scratch other dia­monds as well as col­ored gem­stones. Remem­ber: con­di­tion, con­di­tion, con­di­tion!! Keep­ing your jew­elry in sep­a­rate bags and boxes is the eas­i­est and most assured way of main­tain­ing your pieces. Always store your jew­elry in it orig­i­nal box or cloth bag, if you have it. If you don’t, a plas­tic snack bag, which you can buy at the super­mar­ket, or 2×3 or 3×5 poly­eth­yl­ene bags from an office sup­ply store are nearly per­fect. Ear­rings should always be stored this way: a sep­a­rate bag for one which you will then slip into another bag together with its match­ing ear­ring. Make sure the first bag is zipped so that the ear­ring doesn’t fall out and scratch the other one. And another thing — please don’t wear your gem­stone jew­elry to the gym, or gar­den­ing, or any­where where your hands are being used in way that requires get­ting very dirty or using heavy equipment.

Gold Jew­elry:

Gold-intense jew­elry, pieces that are not set with gem­stones, may be cleaned in an ultra­sonic machine — just put one or two pieces in the machine at a time and not on top of one another. Gold jew­elry may also be cleaned by hand with a soft cloth, and a mild-detergent and water mix. I don’t like to use tooth­brushes on highly pol­ished gold jew­elry because it may be scratched, depend­ing on the karatage. 14K is pretty sturdy, but 18K and 22K are softer and may be abraded more eas­ily. Keep gold jew­elry away from chem­i­cals like chlo­rine, clean­ing flu­ids, and hair prod­ucts as these sub­stances can mar the lus­ter of the metal.

Plat­inum and Palladium:

Plat­inum is scratched eas­ily so use a soft cloth or sponge and mild deter­gent and water mix to clean it. When you ding plat­inum, you don’t lose metal, it gets dis­placed so that scratches and dings may some­times be buffed out by a pro­fes­sional. Store your platinum/palladium (part of the plat­inum group together with osmium, rhodium, irid­ium) separately.

Ster­ling Sil­ver (solid sil­ver) and Ver­meil (sil­ver with a gold wash or plate):

Ster­ling is 92.5 per­cent pure sil­ver and 7.5 per­cent alloy. Ver­meil is ster­ling with a gold wash which can be 14K or 18K. Sil­ver is tough and has been used for jew­elry for cen­turies, long before plat­inum. Com­monly, antique jew­elry is made using sil­ver as the mount­ing for dia­monds with gold employed for the bal­ance or back of the jewel to avoid tar­nish com­ing off on the wearer’s skin. Never clean antique jew­elry your­self, always have this done by a pro­fes­sional. Most antique jew­elry should not be cleaned to resem­ble new jew­elry, it should look worn and old. This is the quin­tes­sen­tial charm and priv­i­lege of wear­ing some­thing that has age.

Con­tem­po­rary sil­ver pieces may be cleaned with a mild deter­gent and water mix and a sponge. Use sil­ver pol­ish spar­ingly as it does remove a layer of sil­ver every time you pol­ish your sil­ver jew­elry. Only use a soft cloth to pol­ish sil­ver, tis­sue and paper towel may be too abra­sive. Store sil­ver jew­elry in a tarnish-resistant bag or wrapped in a soft, clean cloth. Always keep your jew­elry sep­a­rated as sil­ver does scratch. As with all pre­cious met­als, avoid com­ing into con­tact with chlo­rine and house­hold cleaners.

Ver­meil should not be pol­ished with sil­ver pol­ish as this can remove or wear down the gold wash/plate, instead, use a mild deter­gent and water mix. Treat ver­meil as you would your gold jew­elry, keep it in a sep­a­rate bag, away from other jew­elry as scratch­ing it can dam­age the gold wash/plate.

Pearls:

Pearls may be washed in a very mild deter­gent and water mix. Be sure to let them dry flat, not hang­ing, as that will stretch the knot­ting. Have your pearls re-strung every one to three years, depend­ing on how much you wear them. Never use an ultra­sonic machine, hot water, or steam to clean pearls, they are too soft and vulnerable.

Pearls should be the last thing you put on when dress­ing, and the first thing you take off in the evening. Be sure to wipe them off with a soft, clean, damp cloth after wear­ing them to remove skin oil, make up, or hair prod­uct residue. Per­fume and chem­i­cals are dam­ag­ing to pearls, so please take extra pre­cau­tions to not let your pearls come into con­tact with them. Always store pearls by them­selves as they scratch very, very eas­ily. It’s also best if you can store them flat rather than coiled, as there is less strain on the knotting.

Watches:

Watches should ALWAYS be cleaned by a trusted pro­fes­sional. Top jew­elry pro­fes­sion­als know all the good watch repair­ers and use them, as this is a dying art, so rely on only the absolute best refer­rals. You may wipe a watch down after wear­ing it using a soft, clean cloth. Ser­vice (clean) your watch every five years if only lightly used, say once a month. If you wear a watch every day, then it should be ser­viced every one or two years.

Man­ual watches (not bat­tery oper­ated) need to be wound once a day, prefer­ably at the same time every day. When wind­ing a watch, do this rel­a­tively slowly and steadily. Do not wind beyond the resis­tance you feel when the main­spring tight­ens. Always take a watch off to wind it, you can put uneven pres­sure on the wind­ing stem if you turn it while it is on your wrist.

Auto­matic watches some­times stop. Sim­ply put it back on your wrist and move your wrist back and forth slowly to get it going again. Then take it off and set the time.

Water resis­tance for watches varies. If it is resis­tant to 100 meters or less, the watch should only get splashed, never immersed in water. Hot water is a watch no-no as heat can dis­tort the seals in the watch and soap/detergent can dam­age the mech­a­nisms. Diver’s watches may be immersed in water but you should always rise it after being in the pool or ocean. Don’t leave your watch in direct sun­light, this can dam­age the dial. Also avoid mag­nets, stereo speak­ers or com­puter mon­i­tors as this can affect the mech­a­nism adversely.

Cos­tume Jewelry:

Cos­tume jew­elry must be treated care­fully as over-cleaning can absolutely ruin it. Never immerse cos­tume pieces in water, espe­cially if the crys­tal stones have a metal­lic back­ing or foil­ing. The mois­ture can get under­neath this back­ing and dull the stone per­ma­nently. If the stones are not foiled, they can be gen­tly washed with a Q-tip but first bring the piece to a pro­fes­sional to deter­mine exactly the kind of clean­ing you may do your­self. Never rub the fin­ish of piece of cos­tume jew­elry as you can remove any gild­ing or gold/silver plate. A soft, clean, DRY, dust-free cloth is always safe to wipe down your cos­tume jew­elry but please do this gen­tly! Repairs must be done by a pro­fes­sional and one that spe­cial­izes in cos­tume jew­elry. Never use an ultra­sonic machine, hot water or steam to clean vin­tage cos­tume jew­elry. Stor­ing cos­tume jew­elry in the plas­tic bags I men­tioned ear­lier is fine, just keep each piece sep­a­rated as the mate­ri­als used to make cos­tume jew­elry are less expen­sive and more vul­ner­a­ble to rub­bing or abrasion.

here.

That I was hop­ing to be pub­lished this week? Well it looks as though that will hap­pen some­time next week. What I can tell you is that I wrote a piece for T Style’s The Moment (The New York Times) and there a two ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS images that they went to great lengths to acquire (I’ll leave the sub­jects a sur­prise). I’ll also be on air Wednes­day morn­ing at 7 am ET (it’s early…I know) on Martha Stew­art Radio’s Morn­ing Liv­ing (Sir­ius 112/ XM 157). Please tune in!

I want to wish every­one a happy Mother’s Day! Stumped for  a gift this year? Brooches: Time­less Adorn­ment (a shame­less plug but hey…), a great piece of sil­ver jew­elry (please see my post on budget-friendly met­als), a pair of close-fitting ear­rings (be sure to refer to my post about the pair on Jen­nifer Lopez) that she can wear with any­thing and every­thing, ban­gles or cuff bracelets (a much touted fash­ion trend this sea­son) or one of my per­sonal favorites: a vin­tage locket (new ones are nice only if they are made very well and may be engraved, an extra that is worth the splurge).

Have a won­der­ful weekend!

…where were the jew­els? Were they not a part of the eman­ci­pa­tion of the fairer sex in this coun­try? Of course they were, how­ever Amer­i­can Woman: Fash­ion­ing a National Iden­tity (The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Museum of Art, May 5 — August 15, 2010) is about ladies loos­en­ing up (their but­tons, babe), let­ting go (of the corset and con­straints, lit­er­ally), demand­ing equal­ity (the vote), and get­ting on the power train (finan­cially speak­ing). All of this seen in the seams and sequins of the years between 1890 and 1940. To be sure, jew­elry had a vital role in the free­ing of women from cen­turies of Euro­pean con­ven­tion, and at the very begin­ning of the show, where the man­nequins are dressed for a party in a set­ting that repli­cated Mrs. Astor’s ball­room in New­port, they sport neck­laces and bracelets that, from my perch, appeared to be period paste (opa­line, col­ored, as well as white paste, to be exact). Not quite sure if the period was cor­rect — I’d like to think so, how­ever, opa­line paste was pop­u­lar fairly early in the nine­teenth cen­tury and cer­tainly ear­lier than the 1890s. It is true that women did wear impres­sive fam­ily heir­looms to such events but by this time, many of them were updated or redesigned to reflect cur­rent tastes. Aside from the long strands of pearls on the flap­pers, this was the only rep­re­sen­ta­tion of jew­elry in the show. With all the won­der­ful col­lec­tions of antique paste across the coun­try, it would have been quite con­vinc­ing to use these pieces through­out Amer­i­can Woman to cre­ate an even more com­plete portrayal.

I do have more to say about Amer­i­can women, jew­elry, and free­dom and will post the link to my post (pub­lished else­where) when it becomes available.

The press pre­view was some­thing of a behind-the-scenes view of the Met antic­i­pat­ing the gala that was to fol­low in the evening. There was paint­ing of walls, drops cloths on floors, and men and women dash­ing about fre­net­i­cally. After view­ing the exhi­bi­tion, which is an absolute must-see for every­one, I quite enjoyed lis­ten­ing to the open­ing remarks of Patrick Robin­son (GAP Exec­u­tive VP of Global Design) and Andrew Bolton (Cura­tor of Amer­i­can Woman). Vogue EIC Anna Win­tour was there too, and I got my first, in per­son, glimpse of her, just a few feet away from where I was seated. She is a force when she walks into a room. There is no deny­ing her pres­ence or her per­sua­sion in any fash­ion con­text. A good many of the edi­to­r­ial crew from Vogue was there too, and it was fun to watch their inter­ac­tion; they seem very much like any other group of office mates, which sur­prised me, I guess.

As for the show itself, Amer­i­can Woman explains quite clearly and very evoca­tively, how the soci­etal role of women evolved in the United States, and how this man­i­fested sar­to­ri­ally. This isn’t about smoke sig­nals that one’s hopes to read from a dis­tance. The clothes reflected women’s desires, dic­tates, and ulti­mately, their hard-won self-determination.

Flap­per Gallery: Lan­vin 1923, Anony­mous French dress 1925

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Orig­i­nal Chanel Cuffs by Fulco Ver­dura, copy­right David Behl, photo cour­tesy of Verdura

These are the orig­i­nal cuffs owned and worn by Coco Chanel that have been fea­tured in so many his­tor­i­cal pho­tographs. They were cre­ated by Fulco Ver­dura who first worked for Chanel as her tex­tile designer. Inspired by his inven­tive twists on tra­di­tion, she later asked him to re-design the ances­tral jew­elry that had been given to her by her wealthy and titled lovers. These sto­ried bracelets were the result.

Jos­eff of Hol­ly­wood cos­tume neck­lace, Kentshire Gal­leries NY

Every­one needs a bit of fan­tasy in their life. That’s where cos­tume jew­elry plays a big role in a wardrobe. If you can’t do the state­ment neck­lace for real, then just fake it! Among all my col­leagues, friends, and collector-acquaintances, there isn’t a closet that doesn’t con­tain a great faux neck­lace. I’ve had the priv­i­lege of stand­ing in front of not a few pretty well stocked armoires and stacks of draw­ers and the one state­ment that always erupts from the lips of my host is, “I wear this all the time and I get com­pli­ments right and left. They all assume its real thing!” There’s a sense of delight in swin­dling the knowl­edge of admir­ers that these women enjoy to almost an immod­est degree, and when jew­elry looks that good, I can­not say that I blame them. The neck­lace above from Kentshire Gal­leries in New York is a vin­tage cre­ation by Jos­eff of Hol­ly­wood, a very top tier col­lectible in the world of cos­tume jew­elry; among the the many pro­duc­tions for which the com­pany cus­tom made jew­elry were Gone With the Wind and Around the World in Eighty Days. The qual­ity of their work was the finest, and the designs pos­sessed the kind of drama that would not only hold up on the sil­ver screen but also make for quin­tes­sen­tially glam­orous moments for the stars that wore them.

But what if your bank account isn’t up to the task? No prob­lem. There is a vast array of choices in vin­tage cos­tume jew­elry, and all at acces­si­ble price points; there are still quite a few bar­gains to be had at tag/estate sales, flea mar­kets and antiques shows. And remem­ber, a sig­na­ture isn’t nec­es­sar­ily impor­tant, but your obser­va­tions are. Look the item over, make sure it fits well, is in good con­di­tion, and most impor­tantly (and there is no wig­gle room here) — you absolutely love it. We’re just approach­ing the warm weather sea­son when set­ting off on a gor­geous Sun­day morn­ing to do a lit­tle hunt and peck is so appeal­ing. Keep a look out, you never know what fab­u­lous faux might be wait­ing to be a sta­ple in your closet.