Product Details
Hardcover
272 pages
Harry N. Abrams
Published 2003
From Publishers Weekly
A century's worth of jewels are photographed on such enchanting models as Sofia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor and Brooke Shields in this sparkling display of 20th-century American glamour. The design director of Tiffany & Co., Loring has authored several previous works featuring the company's jewels. In this latest volume, he traces the evolution of Tiffany's signature style through its illustrious jewelry designers. The lineup ranges from Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose 1930s jewelry had Art Deco flair, to the more modern looks of Elsa Peretti and Paloma Picasso. (One especially impressive image shows the jeweled buttons that Tiffany artisan Jean Schlumberger crafted for the famed surrealist fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli; the buttons were so beautifully constructed that their purpose was completely obscured.) The book's occasionally grainy photographs feature the work of Richard Avedon, Herb Ritts, Horst and even Man Ray. But the most arresting photo comes from John Rawlings, whose image of a bejeweled model holding a placard with the words "Christmas 1940" appeared on the cover of Vogue. Its luxury is poignantly unconscious of the drab war years ahead. Most readers will find the important details about each photo ill-placed at the back of the book; back-and-forth flipping is necessary to determine where a photo was first published, who its fashion designer was, etc. Still, "The American Look," a breezy essay on the history of fashion by the recently deceased Eleanor Lambert, is in itself almost worth the price of admission. In it, the tremendously influential fashion maven reflects upon jewelry's transformation from a point of wealth to a point of style. Tiffany's jewels have always been among America's foremost objects of desire, and Loring's retrospective reveals why they have dominated fashion on the runway and beyond.
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About the Author
John Loring, design director of Tiffany & Co. since 1979, is the author of Abrams' Tiffany Jewels, Tiffany's 20th Century, Magnificent Tiffany Silver, and ten other books on Tiffany style and entertaining. He lives in New York City. Eleanor Lambert, a legendary fashion publicist beginning in the 1930s, helped achieve recognition for such fashion designers as Gilbert Adrian, Claire McCardell, Norman Norell, Bill Blass, Oscar de la Renta, Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Cardin, and Valentino. James... read more
Book Description
Two enormously popular subjects-dazzling jewelry by Tiffany's designers and fabulous fashion photography-combine in the newest book by Tiffany design director John Loring, author of many resplendent volumes about American style seen from the vantage point of the preeminent purveyor of fine jewelry and other luxury goods.
Fashion experts credit Coco Chanel and her "little black dress" of 1924 with bringing fashion into modern times. But it took great fashion photography by notables from Steichen to Hiro, and jewelry as the ultimate fashion accessory, to propel fashion on its way to becoming the star-studded industry it is today. Tiffany in Fashion is a veritable visual feast-with 250 glamorous images tracing the simultaneous growth of fashion photography and fine jewelry, from Richard Avedon's society fashion portrait for Harper's Bazaar of Elizabeth Taylor's bare back bedecked in exquisite Tiffany cultured pearls, to Scavullo's photograph of Paloma Picasso wearing her amply scaled gold earrings and bracelet, polygonal amethyst ring, and chrysophase bracelet. Eleanor Lambert, the "godmother of American fashion," and dean of American fashion designers James Galanos add their personal reminiscences to John Loring's engaging and informative text. |
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