Tiffany in Fashion
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.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.