Her designs for Tiffany & Co. are included in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Museums of Fine Arts in Boston and Houston, and the British Museum in London.

Her Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation has been providing support to local communities in projects relating to environmental and biodiversity conservation, social inclusion and welfare, poverty relief, education, human rights, medical care and research, arts and culture since the year 2000, with over EUR 50 million donated to more than 900 projects worldwide.

Her laconic, deceptively simple, balanced and cool designs remain as up-to-date and voguish today as they were at the moment of their creation in the 1970s and 1980s.

She is Elsa Peretti: a fashion model, philanthropist and one of the most influential designers of the 20th century, who changed the face of jewelry with her legendary creations for Tiffany & Co. Over nearly half a century of their collaboration, she created more than 30 iconic designs for the American luxury jeweller, accounting for around 10 percent of Tiffany’s annual sales.

Elsa Peretti revolutionized jewelry by choosing organic, clean lines over pompous shapes heavy with big, dramatic stones and excessive extravagance. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, she said: “You need to be able to go out on the street with your jewelry. Women can’t go around wearing $1 million.” With this in mind, she elevated silver, forgotten and abandoned by fine jewelry, to a luxury material, making luxury jewelry more affordable and appropriate for daily adornment.

Her most famous creation, suitable both for a sweet, shy teenager and for a free-spirited, sensual adult woman, is the elegant, minimalist Open Heart Pendant, currently available at Tiffany & Co. in a variety of metals, in black jade, sky-blue turquoise or gentle pink rhodonite, gem-encrusted or plain, masterfully reshaped into rings, bracelets, even belt buckles.

The fabulous Bone Cuff by Elsa Peretti opened a whole new era in the world of jewelry. Deceptively simple, this ground-breaking piece stole the hearts of many celebrities of the 70s, and continues to do so today. Liza Minnelli, Catherine Deneuve, Naomi Watts, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sophia Loren and Angelina Jolie have all incorporated this trend-setting piece in their image at some point in their careers.

These minimalist, metallic cuffs, often worn on both hands and repeating the contours of the wearer’s wrist, were reimagined by Elsa Peretti after seeing monks’ bones during a childhood visit to an old church.

Alongside the Diamonds by the Yard Pendant Necklace, the kinetic, fabric-like Mesh Earrings, the clean and organic Bean and Bottle pendants, these jewelry designs confidently entered the annals of style and fashion and will remain the benchmark of elegance and pure, feminine beauty for centuries to come.

It is never easy to get a simple design right. Elsa was a master of rendering complicated beauty in simple, perfect and glorious form.

***

Elsa Peretti died in her sleep on March 18, 2021.

She once remarked: “People are forgotten so fast. I want to survive.”   And survive she will: in the history of jewelry design, Tiffany & Co, and in every piece inspired by her progressive, insightful ideas.

The time is ripe for magic to happen.

Before long, tiny, mischievous snowflakes will be falling on your warm face, dripping under the collar of your coat.

Look closer, as they slowly turn into magnificent, clear drops of spring rain, and transform into the fresh droplets of powerful summer showers, shimmering in the sun, playing with rainbows, cooling your sun-kissed skin.

The Pearl Rain fringe earrings in white, rhodium-plated gold, embellished with diamonds and pearls, designed by Tatiana Verstraeten – founder of the eponymous brand, which also happens to be the youngest jewelry brand on the legendary Place Vendôme – are exactly that: a mélange of all things delicate and feminine, deliciously fresh and irresistibly attractive.

Rhodium plating is known to increase the luster and light reflection of silver-hued metals; besides, it improves durability and makes them more scratch-resistant, making it a perfect match for this spectacular piece of jewelry. Long, delicate, almost invisible chains, supporting the tiny pearl drops, gently sway with your every move, caress your neck and radiate light like strings of rain caught in the sunlight.

Young, charming and talented, Tatiana uses, to her great advantage, the previous hands-on experience at Chanel, where she designed hats and costume jewelry – to make volume and movement the strong points behind her creations.

Intriguing and delightful, they catch the eye without overpowering the person wearing them.

These earrings are longing to be worn.

Forçat chains from traditional Creole jewelry. Mauli threads, crafted from used saris by artisans in Dhaka, India, which are said to protect the wearer. Hand-made Ghanaian beads, sourced from Krobo and Ashanti Ghana, which were once a form of national currency, now stemming from a know-how passed on from generation to generation. Golden chains handcrafted in Italy. French flair and emotionality.

Surely this is the very definition of “from all over the world”.

In her designs, Maria Lichtenberg has gathered colorful, meaningful and deep-rooted concepts, traditions and materials from many different countries and cultures, and transformed them into exquisite, fun and charming lockets.

Representing our purest and deepest feelings and desires, they come in a kaleidoscope of colors, emotions, materials and techniques. The uplifting mottos – Amour, Bonheur, Believe, Will Protect You Forever – are branded on the side of most of the jewels.

A traditional chain with a locket clasp that symbolizes emancipation and freedom in Creole culture was given to a teenage Marie by her mother – an artistic director at an advertising agency with Martiniquan roots, who also ran a small vintage jewelry boutique as a side business. “This style of Forçat necklace was crafted by slaves when they were freed,” explains Marie in her interview to Net-a-Porter.

Later, after years of working as a fashion editor for the ELLE France magazine, this spiritual connection with jewelry evoked the ideas behind what has now become the Marie Lichtenberg brand.

To make her designs come to life, Marie cooperates with jewelry experts, and sources materials and components from across the globe.

Amongst others, the techniques used in her creations include sophisticated hand-enameling; guilloche – a decorative technique where intricate and repetitive patterns are mechanically engraved into metal with a rose engine lathe machine; repoussé and chasing – metalworking techniques where the metal is shaped by hammering it to create a low relief design.

Déja vu: my mother gives me a long-desired candy. Hidden in a bright, golden wrapper, it promises the most delicious, sweet and phantasmagoric tastes available in our world.

This is what Marie Lichtenberg’s brand stands for: heritage, good vibes, personal connections, unforgettable memories and new, wonderful stories to be shared with the special people in our lives.

The only drawback of these irresistible, bohemian and talismanic charmers is that one is never enough.

They will leave you wanting more!

In these dark times how can we go to work and go about our daily routines when somewhere – not so far away – people just like you and me are losing everything they have: lives, health, homes, parents, children, friends, hopes, youth, love, freedom?

How can we, in our sophisticated, modern society, live with this?!

I remember, a decade ago, when I was just starting my career and trying to make sense of the fashion world, I admired Franca Sozzani (then editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia), who had a smart way of covering events happening around the globe: without polemic, but rather through incredible, expressive photoshoots.

I’ve promised myself that my art curation articles will never be subject to geopolitical context and opinions. However, today I’m finding it extremely difficult to stay neutral.

I continue working with a huge hole in my heart, praying for children who have lost their parents, for desperate mothers losing their young sons.

Time and time again I ask myself: isn’t it superficial to continue writing about material things such as art and jewelry when there is so much urgent pain? Today I had a tiny breakthrough:

There are no limits to ugliness, nor to beauty. There are no limits to pain, nor to happiness. There are no limits to how much people can destroy, nor to the beauty that they can create.

And there is also hope in the realization that there are still people around us who are able to create rather than to destroy.

Here is a piece of Nomis jewelry, born in Kyiv, Ukraine. A little piece from the fragile world of beauty, to represent the immense creativity and the beautiful people of Ukraine…