A First for Everything: The Grand Jewels of JAR come to the Met
JAR White Lilac brooch 2001 Diamonds, garnets, aluminum, silver and gold Private Collection And Lilac brooch 2002 Violet, sapphires, garnets, aluminum, silver and gold Private Collection
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my move to the Upper East Side—where I now reside directly across from the entrance to Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In a blog about my experience at the atelier and workshop of David Webb, I also wrote about being separated from the close community of Greenwich Village yet having the sheer rush that comes with being closer to the shops and studios of some of my favorite renowned jewelry houses Living in this tony land of Cartier Love bracelet clad wrists, retro Van Cleef and Arpels’ invisibly set baubles and Chanel’s modern shooting stars definitely does bespeak the passion for luxury of the women who are bedazzled in jewels to drop their children at elementary school.
It takes me exactly four minutes to walk the half a block to get to The MET, so you could imagine my delight when I discovered that, in a first of many firsts, my “neighborhood” museum is featuring a retrospective of the eponymous JAR in Jewelry By JAR. The will be the first exhibition of JAR in America (the only other major exhibition of Rosenthal’s work was held in 2002 at Somerset House in London). And it will be the first time that the MET will feature the pieces of a contemporary and still living and working jeweler. It will also, most likely, be the first time I don’t have to high tail it to make it to a press preview on time.
JAR Geranium brooch 2007 Diamonds, aluminum, silver, gold Private Collection
I have been to many of the famous ateliers of Place Vendome but have never had the excitement of pressing the bronze camellia doorbell to enter the secret and hidden shop of JAR, which Bronx born and Harvard educated Joel Rosenthal opened in 1978 with his partner Pierre Jeannet and where Rosenthal’s opulent and fantastical, sometimes whimsical and always meticulously crafted jewels are presented and captivate and possess even the most discriminating of collectors.
Collection JAR Butterfly Brooch 1994 Sapphires, fire opals, rubies, amethyst, green garnets, black diamonds, silver and gold Private Collection
The exhibition will feature a selection of over 300 works of Rosenthal’s finest pieces—from jewels in classical flower forms and organic shapes to witty objets d’art, which depict the vivid landscape of his imagination, the fearless beauty of pave settings and painterly color combinations and the articulated shapes in his work. These qualities have not just created a following among celebrities but has launched Rosenthal’s own star as one of the most acclaimed jewelers over the past 35 years, placing him among the ranks of history’s greatest jewelers.
Jewels by JAR is organized by Jane Adlin, Associate Curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue, to be published by the Metropolitan Museum and distributed by Yale University Press.
The exhibition will be featured on the Metropolitan Museum’s website at www.metmuseum.org.
JAR Zebra Brooch 1987 Banded agate, diamonds, silver, and gold Collection of Ann Getty
Bjeweled in Buccellati and…Venice
Buccellati Pizzo Venezia Ring
My memoir “My Charmed Life”, in which jewelry acts as time posts for my most significant moments and memories, ends on a chapter entitled “The Buccellati Ring”. My passion for the hand fabricated and hand engraved pieces that are so intricately detailed they appear to be spun into golden intricate lace, damask and brocades runs deep. This is particularly true about the wide Eternelles variety of bands since I first saw one designed by Mario Bucellati in an auction when I started in the jewelry business nearly 20 years ago. As a collector of all types of rings from ancient and antique through modern, this was the only ring I wanted to be married in. I longed for this romantic band. I waited. I met an Italian guy from Milan, whom I dated for seven years, who had me try on various rings, each one more enchanting and breathtaking than the next. And, then after I tried on about 10 styles, he took me to another shop and committed to buying me an antique Rolex watch. Eventually I committed to purchasing a Buccellati ring for myself to celebrate life.
So, it was perfect, while wearing my Buccellati Pizzo Venezia style ring at the About J show in Venice to have the pleasure of seeing master jeweler Gianmaria Buccellati again (I had interviewed him for a magazine nine years before) against the backdrop of the romantic city,where ancient traditions and the melding of Gothic and Byzantine architecture inspire awe, amazement and the taking of many photos. I was so glad to be there when he received the “Lifetime Achievement Award”, the first edition of a special recognition as part of the Andrea Palladio International Jewellery Awards, with whom VICENZAORO award celebrates the excellence of jewelry.
- Me and Gianmaria Buccellati in Venice at the About J Jewelry show
Last year , I attended a celebration and preview at the multi-generational company Bucellati’s Manhattan based shop, a family of goldsmiths that date back to the mid-eighteenth century and was taken over by Mario Buccellati in 1919. According to Gianmaria Buccellati, in the interview I did with him in 2004, “My father Mario was fascinated by forgotten antique techniques that dated back to Greece and the Middle Ages, but much of his design aesthetic was influenced by the Italian renaissance and French Rococo periods,” Gianmaria explained. “He did not copy or imitate but instead began to put together many of these techniques to create an original signature style.”
Buccellati Eternelles Rings
Gianmaria passed it down to two more generations, his children and grandchildren. I was equally happy to be part of a family photograph with third and fourth generation Buccellati’s, Gianmaria’s grandchildren and Andrea’s his son’s children and wife, Maria at the NYC event.
Me with Gianmaria Buccellati, named after his grandfather, Lucrezia Buccellati and Maria their mother
As much as I had been taken by the design sensibility, I was equally excited to hear Maria’s feelings about jewelry and being part of this family’s heritage. “Jewelry is all about emotion, passion and love. It’s how a woman connects memories to a specific moment in time and that is what brings a jewel to life,” she explained. I share this sentiment and was eager to hear stories and particularly enjoyed listening about one long-time customer. “Since he has been married, he comes in and buys a unique one-of-a-kind piece each year for his wife.” And then it came to me—why I have always been drawn to the Buccellati style. It is not only the amazing pieces. The Buccellati style represents beauty, but also family, values, history, passion and deep meaning.
When I interviewed Gianmaria those years back and when I recently met him again, he was charming and down to earth and spoke with warmth, pride and the language of tradition. His jewels are not only made of gold and precious gems–they are a legacy that continues to live through quiet elegance and the stories still to be told.
DESIGNING SOCIETY
David Webb gold shell bag with emerald and diamond starfish
Seven months ago, when my closest friend was moving, I snapped up his rent stabilized 1700 square foot UES apartment. It is more than two times the size of my old space on a famous and quiet tree-lined block in the heart of Greenwich Village, where I lived, worked and redecorated four times for twenty some odd years. Although I am now nine blocks from a Staples, pay $6 for an iced tea, miss all West Side subway lines and need to cab to a 24 hour Korean grocery, my new tonier address provides more perks than square footage (read: dining room and second bedroom turned office space.) I live directly across from the entrance to Central Park and The Met, where I can now be on time for all 9AM press previews. More importantly, I live closer to some of my favorite and renowned jewelry houses: Fred Leighton, Stephen Russell and Buccellati where I can browse, try on and just peek into the windows whenever I need a fix. Dubbed a jewel-a-holic by a designer friend, I am by career a longtime jewelry editor, writer and purveyor of all things sparkly.
My new digs also offers a different idea of street style –which now means riding the elevator with women who sport Seaman Schepps, Verdura and vintage Cartier to grab a morning coffee. Each day, I can be transported to a fantastical world where culture, history and celebrity meet. Yesterday was one of those days. I had the treat of being invited to the David Webb atelier for a preview and discussion about the upcoming exhibition being unveiled at The Norton Museum of Art in Palm Beach (Jan 2014-April 2014) as well as a tour of the atelier. I was whisked up from the boutique on the ground floor to an elevator, which opened to showroom and behind the scenes workshop.
Since David Webb opened his first shop on East 57th street in 1950, two years after he launched his collection, all pieces were and continue to be produced on his premises.
I was first introduced to one of David Webb co-owners, Mark Emanuel, who along with Sima Ghadamian and Robert Sadian, acquired the company in 2010 and moved the business to its newest location at 942 Madison Avenue. He spoke enthusiastically about the expansion of the company, the archives with approximately 80,000 original molds and over 40,000 color pencil sketches. He took us around to meet the foreman and the jewelers, many who have been there at least since the 1970s, who still retain and display reverence for the technique and legacy of this eponymous house.
I had heard of the American visionary David Webb as a young girl from my mother, my own style guru who closely followed the fashion of the sixties and seventies. She owned one David Webb piece, a rock crystal cuff with a center gemstone, which is perhaps why the rock crystal bracelets are still one of my favorite pieces to this day and why trying one on in the workshop that had still yet to be set and finished, sent my heart a flutter.
If only it could be mine.
Photo of part of the David Webb workshop
Emanuel took two other visitors and myself on a tour of the factory, where I met a jeweler named Ray who spoke proudly of being with the company since 1965 and pointed to photos of himself and some of the rest of the staff when he was 20 years younger. I took my camera out and began snapping away—
Jewelry finisher Ray who worked in the David Webb workshop for 48 yrs
Jeweler working on multi piece bib necklace
The 18K gold pieces that were cast and then hand-hammered were laid out to be connected into a bib style necklace akin to body armor. “Do you see yourself wearing this?” Emanuel asked. I answered that it might be slightly more of an overstatement than statement for my small chest, but I then immediately saw a color drawing of a pair of ruby, diamond and emerald earrings and said, “Those. I would definitely wear those.” Turns out they were an original sketch of a pair of earrings Jackie Kennedy owned and that were being recreated for the new collection. I then went on to covet a carved emerald and gold necklace that was being pieced together. “This is very similar to the one The Duchess of Windsor owned,” Emanuel explained. “We are changing the shape of the center stone and some of the other details,” he continued, as I positioned the pieces, the sketch and the jeweler for a quick photo before having to move on to the next part of the experience.
Original sketch of Jackie Kennedy’s earrings for which a jeweler is working on a new pair for the collection
An carved emerald and gold necklace being designed in the style similar to one The Duchess of Windsor owned
I thought about how I had previously traced David Webb’s work: the pieces worn by silver screen actresses of the early to mid sixties in sweeping, weepy melodramas such as Susan Hayward in “Backstreet”, Lana Turner in “Portrait in Black” and later on in “Madame X” and Doris Day in “Midnight Lace”. He captured the essence of the characters these actresses played in film and then went on to help define the look of two decades in American cultural history and win the hearts of renown women of those decades including Jackie Kennedy, The Duchess of Windsor, Diana Vreeland, Elizabeth Taylor, Nan Kemper, Gloria Vanderbilt and a veritable roster of who’s who of social and style fame.
Before even speaking with the curator of the exhibition and the director of the museum, I was drawn to the notion that Webb—whose style was bold, powerful and colorful and whose technique sometimes included 18 steps in production—represented the spirit and mood of today’s customer. He pioneered the way for jewelers who fulfill the desire for one-of-a-kind pieces that are as much art as they are jewelry and that meld imagination with heart, soul and intriguing motifs and materials. He worked in enamel, coral, jade, carved crystal, gold, a vivid palette of gemstones and pearls. David Webb would be as groundbreaking today as he was throughout his prime.
After my tour I did meet with the curator of the exhibition aptly named David Webb: Society Jewels, David Albrecht and Hope Alswang, the director of The Norton Museum of Art in Palm Beach.
David Webb pieces on display in the showroom
Albrecht explained that there would be 80 pieces from the Webb archives and private collectors and that the exhibit would showcase a comprehensive look at the style and designs. It will include archival sketches, Vogue layouts featuring Lauren Hutton and Marisa Berenson shot by Irving Penn wearing Webb’s jewelry as well as photos of his broad range of celebrity clients. “We have mounted this show to display the breadth and context of Webb’s work.” He explained.
While listening to Albrecht speak about the jewelry, I was able to see some of the pieces that would be on view up close and personal, hold them, try them on and not want to part with them. “You get a sense of how Webb captured the cultural revolution of the later sixties and seventies as well as creating official gifts for The White House.” Albrecht explains, “I see 1968 as his turning point, when all his major influences came into play—his travels and mixing elements of distant lands, his play of earlier Cartier animals of the twenties and Chanel costume jewelry which he re imagined in the most exquisite of materials, his passion for exoticism and recapturing the Art Deco movement for which he had a true affinity, always with his distinctive wit and humor and his own very unique and bold aesthetic. This why so many of the important women of that time period adopted him as their jeweler.”
Hope Alswang adds to these thoughts. “David Webb could look at the hippie styles of the sixties and the disco styles of the seventies and translate this ‘street style’ into high-end luxury. He chose to do it in a freewheeling, playful, stylized but not ladylike way that says I want to be seen! This isn’t jewelry that is part of a women’s outfit—it is what your outfit should be built around. It sets the stage for the powerful women to become clients and friends.”
Albrecht adds, “Jackie Kennedy referred to him as “a modern day Cellini” and The Duchess of Windsor called him “Faberge reborn.”
I was almost sad to have to leave. I could have spent the rest of the day looking through jewelry, sketches and discussing each of these famous women’s purchases.
Upon leaving, I took a photo of the windows and entranceway, knowing now that I live only five blocks away, I can visit whenever I want a little fantasy and the magic of the rich history and to visit the rock crystal cuffs until I can make one my own–and ride my elevator with “the other” Madison Avenue ladies– in style.
David Webb entrance at 942 Madison Avenue
David Webb Shop Window
Snake Charmers
The Three Graces Victorian Double snake rings
Long before I knew the history of the betrothal rings Prince Albert gave to Queen Victoria, two serpent rings, entwined together to symbolize an eternal life together, snakes represented true love for me. At 10 years old, I’d walk through my backyard to meet a boy name Max on his swing set after school. I knew it was undying devotion, when, after traipsing through the tall grass I found a garden snake slithering around my leg.
Anyone who has read my blog or who knows me understands that I have a slightly neurotic fear of any creature that crawls, lands on me or slinks around, unless it is a delicate butterfly or ladybug or made from platinum, gold and/or gemstones. But Max captured my heart for three weeks out of my fifth grade existence until I found out he was more of a frog than a prince, when he kissed my best friend at recess.
Around fifteen years later in my mid-twenties, I owned anacondas and pythons. I wore them. They were fashioned in to handbags, shoes and even a very cool mini skirt, long before all the controversy over the sexy skin and about twenty years before I had to fill out forms at the Prada store in Milan to return to the States with a pair of snake ballet flats.
And, so I turned my attentions to serpent motifs in jewelry with their sensuous lines, intricate textures and meaning in various cultures. I fell in love with the jewels in each Cleopatra film and pieces that slithered around my neck, wrapped up my arm and coiled around my finger.
So. 2013 is going to be a favorite of mine in jewelry. The Year of the Snake in the Chinese Zodiac coincides with Victorian jewelry and all it’s sentimentality and symbolism, becoming the hot trend to watch.
My personal collection includes two Victorian snake rings—one with two snakes entwined which means a communion of love or the coming together of two life forces and another, which has alternating diamond and rubies in the eyes. I have a pendant that wraps around into a circular shape, which is said to mean eternal love. I have one bracelet and two pendants, which in different cultures represent meanings such as fertility (at my age, let us not get hung up on that one), rebirth, immortality, infinity, wisdom and transformations. They are accented by mine cut diamonds, turquoise, enameling and garnets.
I have also collected contemporary designer’s snakes such as Kathy Rose’s for RoseArk’s cuff in yellow gold, which is delicate and can be worn stacked with other bracelets. (She has since designed it in black rhodium plated white gold with diamonds) Arman Sarkisyan’s elongated snake ring in high karat gold with tsavorite garnets and a black diamond in the mouth as well as a less stylistic serpent ring from Vibes and an ultra cool snake encasing a sapphire crystal and diamond pendant from Mortiz Glik
But like Eve in the Garden, I can be tempted quite easily and have seen quite a few new offerings by designers on both sides of the Atlantic as well as some amazing antique jewelry at trade fairs and auctions.
Back in 2001, twelve years before during the last Year of The Snake, I was dating an Italian guy, Paolo, who lived in Rome at the time. After the show, we stopped, at a pawn shop on the outskirts of Trastevere and I found a snake ring that was ancient going for a price that was too good to resist. It had meaning and was Italian, like him. I told the shopkeeper I would think about it, took Paolo outside under the pretense of needing his advice. “So, I think the price is great. It’s in its original condition and I love the way it slides around my finger.” He kept nodding his head.
“Go for it then. I really don’t think you can go wrong,” he said
I walked back in and bought it for myself.
Holding me in his arms before he fell asleep, he admitted he didn’t know why he could not buy me the snake ring, except that it had connotations of more. “In the Italian tradition you don’t buy a woman a ring until you are ready to marry her.”
After six years, Paolo was never… ready… and I finally let go of our relationship. But I still have hopes for a life entwined with a man of rare quality with whom I can share transformations, an intricate connection and eternal love.
Until I find him, I will continue to purchase my own snake jewelry, although I will never allow one to wrap around my leg again.
Here are some great serpent motifs, archival, antique and new for you to check out…
Renee Lewis snake pendant
Blue enamel and diamond snake bracelet photo courtesy of Christie’s
Ileana Makri turquoise and ruby snake earrings
Sotheby’sPlatinum-Topped-Gold-and-Diamond-Serpent-Brooch-Circa-1910
Boucheron serpent ring
Kathy Rose for Roseark 18K black rhodium and diamond cuff
Carvin French Snake Necklace
Adin Victorian snake brooch
Borgioni snake bracelet
HOPE IN A JEWEL OR JAR, OR BOTH
Vibes pearl earrings
Today, I’ve tried on the glow of gold, the magic of tourmaline and the luster of pearls. Usually, I clasp precious metals and gemstones around my neck, slide them on my fingers or dangle them from my ears (especially the-dangle them from my ears—bit)– to add a little sparkle around my face (as per my grandmother’s directions). However today, I am wearing these jewels, crushed and mixed into serums and potions that promote such attributes as rejuvenating the circulation of the skin, creating a youthful, iridescence and/or acting as a natural exfoliate.
I am both jewelry and beauty product junkie, so I am sold. Plus I had a birthday last week. My skin needs a little pick me up. Okay, perhaps– a lot of help– and what better gift to oneself than a pair of earrings that detracts from the crow’s feet expanding from the corners of my eyes. I am sitting by the computer, after indulging in a beauty regime (okay—it just became a regime today) of washing with OM Aroma’s Elixir de Perle Organic Cleansing Cream, which is a concoction for sensitive skin and as the literature reads: “pearl micro-particles restore skin’s luminosity and clarity by sweeping away impurities. This non-drying cleanser stimulates circulation and revitalizes skin for youthful radiance.”
Next I try Dr. Brandt’s Time Arrest Crème de Lux for “aging, mature skin” which mine has definitely become. There are tourmaline crystals mixed in with the other ingredients that I have been told will add a “dewy, fresh, healthy and energized finish.” Got to love that description. But, somehow, I still look the same. Ah yes, I realize it doesn’t work on the first try. But my Vibes lustrous pearl earrings with little flowers—feminine and fun—do… as does my Jemma Wynne watermelon tourmaline necklace all outlined in the glow of gold. They make me smile, which always lights up the face
I will give the beauty products a chance. But this season, I saw quite a few dazzling pieces in all of forms of pearls, multi-colored tourmaline jewels at the AGTA awards as well as throughout the designer showrooms and studios.
Jemma Wynne Pendant
But with the staggering prices of gold, I am wondering if I have to purchase my18K in little bits of crushed powder mixed in with a host of other ingredients rather than wear a solid medallion representing some form of good luck around my neck. Nah. I think I will go for that glimmer of hope in a jewel rather than a jar. Or, at this point in my life, maybe both. It couldn’t hurt.
OM Aroma Pearl Cleanser
Dr Brandt Time Arrest Creme de Lux with tourmaline crystals
A Jewel in The Crown
Chanel Diamond Tiara
Fred Leighton’s windows with magical tiaras
When I was six years-old and shopping in Bloomingdales with my mother to find “something pretty” after I had an appendectomy, I spotted what I knew would transport me from the girl with a scar on my stomach that rivaled the one on Frankenstein’s head to a beautiful princess. It was a glittery tiara-like headband that dripped with rhinestones from every angle. I just had to have it. To get me out of the store without a tantrum (and what I later found out my mom found to be an ostentatious piece) she explained, “I am so sorry but this is reserved for a duchess from a far away land and we will need to find you something else worthy of your beauty and grace.” She was good! So good, that the sales people were in awe. We found a smaller floral seed pearl version of a tiara, which was more suited to my pint size frame. And, since that time I always believed what my mother said as we walked out of the store—“honey, you truly have royal taste.”
So for me, and all other women who still have the princess living someone inside, this has been a big year. I might sit at the computer in sweatpants, but since I write about jewelry and regal gems, I get to see them up close and I am lucky enough to try them on, more often then most.
This year was focused on ornate pieces with history. There was the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee this summer that turned into an exhibit at Buckingham Palace, which ran through Oct 7, 2012 and presented a range of enchanting pieces from England’s monarchy. There were the galas, award presentations and fall 2012 ready-to-wear and Couture shows, which had actresses and models crowned in tiaras and draped in gemstone laden jewels.
Last Tuesday, October 9, 2012, there was the launch of Chanel’s latest fine jewelry collection and a celebration of the 80th Anniversary of the first one Chanel designed in 1932, “Bijoux de Diamants”. Today, there is even a tiara in the new collection, which will be on display with the other jewelry in a special space MoMA has created, replete with it’s own planetarium.
Speaking of Chanel and lavish jewels, Next month, Tolstoy’s sweeping epic novel will hit the silver screen and bring us back to late 19th century high society Russia. Adapted by Joe Wright, with costumes designed by Jacqueline Durran, Chanel Joaillerie has provided the opulent jewels for Keira Knightley (in the leading role) including a pearl sautoir and a diamond necklace with a camellia motif..
Luckily for women who want these regal statement looks at various price points, there are many designers taking their cue from the cultural influences which have shaped this past year: Penny Preville, with her Mogul India inspired and Imperial Russian influenced collections, Faberge’s new collection of egg-shaped pendants, Jacob & Co. larger than life pieces, Yewn and Wendy Yue’s fantasy one-of-a-kind baubles, featured at Fragments, Emily Keifer and Karen Karch’s tiara rings, as well as one that I made for my collection Bethany B jewelry. There is also a host of “fashion jewelry” that will turn you into a ‘duchess from a faraway land’ at a more accessible price point, including the collaboration between Durran, Focus Films and Banana Republic which recently launched its Anna Karenina collection exclusively at Banana Republic North America retail locations and online.
So for all of you women, who still covet tiaras and would love to be dripping in gems, may you always be in touch with your childhood and the young princess inside of you…and may you always have the opportunity to show your own “royal taste.”
Kiera Knightley in Chanel/Anna Karenina
- Faberge Egg Pendants
Bethany B diamond Tiara Ring
Karen Karch sapphire and diamond Tiara Ring
Penny Preville Diamond and Sapphire Earrings
Kiera Knightley in Chanel/Anna Karenina
Jacob & Co. Ruby and Diamond Earrings
Revisiting Gatsby Again
Still from The Great Gatsby
M. Khordipour
Back in March, I wrote this post on one of my favorite novels, “The Great Gatsby” and the Tiffany & Co. jewelry and Prada costumes in the remake of the film. Since then “Gatsby-style” jewelry has been written up and shown in consumer magazines, reported on in different media outlets and is being shown at various price levels. I also found out that the film’s release date is being pushed from the originally scheduled Christmas time to the summer. While i have been looking forward to seeing the Baz Luhrmann remake with it’s Tiffany jewels, this gives us all time to stock up on our jazz-age jewelry. So whether you want faux long strands and strands of pearls or the real thing, long deco-inspired earrings and an armful of diamond bracelets–it’s all out there for you to try on and mix into to your own style of thoroughly modern jewels. Please see my original post for the first blog, entire story and previous at https://bjeweled.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/revisiting-gatsby/
Bernard Nacht Under the Crown
Love, Loss and Nora Ephron
One week before my first book came out on July 3rd, one of my main role models, Nora Ephron passed away. It was a bittersweet moment when I finally saw my memoir on the shelves in Barnes & Noble to think that one of the greatest influences on my writing was gone. I had even referred to her three times in the book. I read her essays in magazines and in her collections. I read her novel, “Heartburn” and then saw the film for which she wrote the screenplay. I saw all of her films–the ones she wrote and the ones she wrote and directed. Many of them I have watched numerous times, and like a lot of my peers, I have quoted her– lines from her essays and from her movies.
I saw her plays and I listened to the woman herself when she did readings and appearances in New York City. At the last one I attended for “I Remember Nothing,” when she was signing my copy, she asked if we had met before and said that something about me seemed familiar. We had never met; but I smiled as I walked away. She did know me as she knew all women: our desires, our quirks, and our struggles with our handbags, beauty maintenance, aging and men. I often said to my therapist–“I wish Nora Ephron wrote my life–If she did, I’d get the man, witty repartee and a great Manhattan apartment.
Nora Ephron could write happily-ever -after more deftly, cleverly and with more heart and the way I wanted to experience it.
There are scenes and lines from “When Harry Met Sally” that I can quote from the top of my head and not all are the classic ones: I love when Meg Ryan’s “Sally” tells Billy Crystal’s “Harry”I am not your consolation prize” and when she finds out her ex gets married, she breaks down after saying she had been okay about the break up, and in a heartwrenching moment, says “all the time I have been saying that he didn’t want to get married but the truth is he didn’t want to marry me.” I still get chills as I write that line. But my favorite scene is when Harry tells Sally. “I love that you get cold when it's seventy one degrees out, I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich, I love that you get a little crinkle above you nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts," Because I do all of the things he is talking about and I am still waiting for some one to love me despite and because of all of it.
An actor/comedian friend of mine once said, “I can understand your attachment to “When Harry met Sally” but “Sleepless in Seattle”. C’mon. “C’mon what? Brilliant to use one of the most romantic movies of all time “An Affair to Remember to play off of. Looking for signs and fantasizing about winding up with a man that live across the country or– for me, personally– in a different continent is, well, another film to which I could completely relate.
I loved her Roman à clef, “Heartburn” about her marriage to Carl Bernstein for it’s comically tragic opening and for all the finely tuned details of her wit and wisdom.
My mom turned me on to ” A Few Words About Breasts ” Ephron’s essay about her small breasts when I was twelve to get me to stop hunching over to hide mine almost C-cups. I read the collection “Wallflower at The Orgy” much later in life, when it was in it’s second or third printing and laughed my way through Ephron’s “Cosmopolitan” magazine makeover. I was equally thrilled and went out bought eight copies for eight friends and female family members including my then 93 year-old grandmother, who laughed with me, when I read the passages out loud to her (and I am condensing here) “Every so often I read a book about age and whoever’s written it says it’s great to be old…I can’t stand people who say things like that. Don’t they have necks?…Don’t they feel bad about having to buy chokers?” In this collection she also delves into the deep recesses of handbags and she is talking to every woman when she riffs about how eventually you begin to carry around everything you own and can’t find a thing. I felt as if I really did get to know Nora Ephron, the woman in “I Remember Nothing,” especially when she talks about her mom. Her mother had told her, “Everything is copy” and what she made out of the copy, the material of her life was pitch perfect. Her adaptation for the stage of Ilene Beckerman’s book “Love, Loss and What I Wore” attracted some of the best stage and screen actresses in the business and was a huge hit. She knew about women’s dreams, heartaches, insecurities, relationships with mothers and family and clothes. She knew how to make the smallest detail universal.
In “My Charmed Life: Rocky Romances, Precious Family Connections and Searching For A Band Of Gold, I link together my own story of loves, loss and life lessons through the sentimental jewelry attached to each of my most important events. And I talk about Ephron in three chapters.
When I speak of my new dilemma after a break-up of a long term relationship about wearing my antique pieces without looking dated and finding a suitable man my own age to date me, I wrote, ” I obviously missed obsessing over a body part. Unlike Nora Ephron, I had up until that moment, not “felt bad about my neck.” About my gluts, my abs, my eyes, and my forehead, yes, but my in my lighting at home, my neck was still graceful and swan-like and then I saw it had turned into chicken skin before properly baked. This has been my favorite area to be-jewel with pendants and necklaces, layered, long, short, vintage and new….
In another chapter when a man wants to share a taxi with me and then asks me on a date after I’d just walked into a plate glass door and my nose was triple the size it usually was, I wrote, ” Up until this particular moment, I never had a chance meeting that wound up in a potential date. I was immediately taken by the suspension of disbelief that usually only happens in a Nora Ephron film with Louis Armstrong playing in the background.
And in my reference to an on again off again relationship that spanned 12 years, and started as a one night stand I wrote, ” This wasn’t in a “When Harry Met Sally” friends-but we-are-really-meant for-each-other way. It was more like a three-different- relationships -with-one-guy plot line, evoking feelings in me that ranged from confusing to conflicting to comforting.”
Whenever I need a little comfort or to be understood, I will reread one of her essays or put on one of her films and will remember what a incredible guiding force she was for me and for all women in writing, film and life.
Bring on the Bling
Me in Jacob & Co. jewelry
As a senior editor for jewelry magazines and a stylist for personal clients, I try on many designer’s jewelry, when I am not sitting around my house on the computer (like now) in my sweatpants, hair in a disheveled pony tail and sans makeup and sadder still, sans anything that sparkles.
I’ve had a casual conversation with Stephen Webster while he nonchalantly slipped a bracelet around my wrist, which was ablaze in diamonds and had him laughing when I completely lost my train of thought. Todd Reed spilled out 100 carats of raw diamonds on a table, which I gingerly helped him get back into the plastic bag, when he realized he forgot the scooper to pick them up. I have accumulated stories and some amazing pieces over the years.
But a recent “editor’s day” at Jacob & Co last week was truly special. It transported me back to when I was younger and it was like playing dress up and fairy princess all over again. Oh the shimmer and shine of the twinkling gems. Editors got to pick out everything they liked, try it on and then have a ‘glamor photo’ taken with Sophie Elgort (a wonderful photographer in her own right and Arthur Elgort’s daughter)
I was offered professional makeup. Being sensitive to an array of beauty products and just a tad self-conscious about every new line and crease that appears overnight on my face, I don’t trust people with big thick powder wands. I don’t think this creates magic. I am steadfast in the belief that the more makeup you use the more you bring out the wrinkles you are trying to hide. Understanding of my neurotic fear of foundation, they matched a color lipstick to my lips and tried to hide the dark circles under my eyes. A quick look in the mirror and I was ready for the jewels. I now felt less like a Disney Princess and more like a red carpet celebrity choosing my pieces for the award I was about to receive. Anything is possible among diamonds, emeralds and sapphires, oh my.
Unfortunately coming from three other appointments on a rainy day I was in a uniform of a black sweater white shirt and black trousers. After holding a few gems up to my neck, I nixed the white shirt.
My personal style has always been turning trendy pieces classic or classic pieces trendy. I prefer delicate and feminine to bold, discreet to glitz, antique to modern and steer clear of any long or chandelier earrings that look like it might take down my lobes lower than they have already fallen in the past few years.
But while I was there, I figured, I’d get out of my comfort zone and at least try on pieces that I had not considered “me” before. Angela Arabo, Jacob’s wife helped me pile everything I wanted to try on into a tray.
I held up a huge diamond centerpiece necklace with more diamonds all around. I tried on a ring that was almost as big as my hand. I had on a complete detachable necklace and looked at cuffs that would climb up to my elbow. I was binging on bling.
In the end, I went for the more dressed up version of me: A long tassel pendant with an emerald cabochon in the center and diamond chain. A spider crawling up my finger with a baroque pearl and a major emerald cut bracelet around my wrist. I was set. And, now I was among the A-List divas that also play in Jacob & Co’s jewelry box, including Jennifer Lawrence, Julianne Hough, Milla Jovovich and Beyonce.
I am still coveting the diamond emerald cut bracelet for the day I can leave my sweatpants and my computer behind, or at least find a way to be able to afford it and have some place to go to wear it.
Jacob & Co. diamond statement necklace
Oversized Garden Jacob & Co. Garden Ring
Emerald cut diamond bracelet from Jacob & Co. that I am coveting
Jacob & Co. emerald and diamond necklace
I’m sure there is something I could add to this–but the sentiments remain the same with every year that goes by. But I would like to wish all the mothers out there a truly Happy Mother’s day for tomorrow–may your day be filled with the warm glow of you family around you.
I will never get used to Mother’s Day. It’s been eighteen years since my mom died suddenly at fifty-five from a brain aneurysm and I still want to throw something at the TV when commercials urge me to buy that special piece of jewelry or show me the joy a mother feels when she opens the perfect Hallmark card. Emails fill up my inbox, informing me every day for two weeks prior, what flowers ‘my mother’ would like to receive and when to order them to be delivered to her on time. I hit the delete button quickly just like I do when I get, what seems to be hundreds of press releases on “elegant, new, fresh Mother’s day ideas” or “must have gifts.”
I apologize to all the publicists out there and the companies they represent. I read your material at all other times throughout the year.
It’s comes…
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B-JEWELED 