Legendary Jewellery Designer, Model & Philanthropist Elsa Peretti Has Died

Elsa Peretti, designer, former model and philanthropist has died aged 80. One of the most influential jewellery designers of the 20th century, she was associated for more than 50 years with Tiffany, and her designs for the luxury brand became synonymous with the emergence of the modern working woman that no one represented better than herself. “Tiffany & Co. is deeply saddened by the passing of Elsa Peretti, famed jewellery designer for the House and member of the Tiffany family since 1974,” reads an official statement from the luxury brand. “A woman who was larger-than-life has touched everyone at Tiffany & Co. The relationships she created defined her. Elsa was not only a designer but a way of life.”

Peretti was born in 1940 to a wealthy, conservative family in Italy and ever the rebel, left aged 21 to pursue a life of independence. She began modelling in Barcelona before moving to New York in 1968 to further her career. It was in Manhattan that she found her natural home. She quickly became part of its buzzy social scene at a time of great societal change when women were fighting to take control of their lives, their careers and their bodies.

She started designing jewellery in 1969, first for fashion designer Giorgio di Sant’ Angelo and then for her great friend and fellow designer, Halston, for whom she also modelled alongside Pat Cleveland and Anjelica Houston.

 Last year marked half a century since her creation of the Bone cuff, arguably her most famous and most influential design. In a bold departure from other fine jewellery of the time, the now iconic bracelet ditched the diamonds and the gold, and conveyed both strength and sensuality in its every organic curve of polished silver. It, and her other minimalist designs for Tiffany such as Diamonds by the Yard, the Open Heart and the Bean pendants, have a timelessness that means they are just as relevant today as they were when first created. No wonder that they became a core part of Tiffany’s business. What is more, these powerful designs were often in silver, making them an affordable luxury to a vast audience of women eager to express themselves and at the same time transforming the way they wore jewellery.

“The words ‘legend’, ‘artist’, ‘icon’ aren’t really big enough to describe her. You really can’t underestimate her influence on 20th-century design,” says Frank Everett, senior vice president of jewellery at Sotheby’s New York. As well as being prolific as a designer, Peretti became the point at which two worlds collided. “She was the bridge between jewellery and fashion. Her pieces made the outfit. A silver perfume bottle on a long chord, that was the statement. Who cared about the clothes?” he says.

Peretti’s independence of spirit was essential to her success in carving her own path in a man’s world. Her boundary-breaking creativity and colourful, sometimes contradictory, statements meant that that world was always trying to keep up with her. For her self though, her later years demanded a greater simplicity. She lived for many years in Sant Martí Vell near Barcelona, a house that she bought in ruins in 1968 and which, together with the surrounding village, she spent many years restoring.

In 2000, she established a charity in her father’s name, which is now called the Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation. It has a wide remit of supporting environmental, social welfare and arts initiatives, particularly in her beloved Catalonia. Her great humanity was summed up by Peretti herself in a 1991 film to celebrate her 50th birthday. “For me to be a good designer is the simplest thing in the world. But to be a good human being, that is going to be hard,” she said. “I’d like to try though.”