The death on March 18 of Elsa Peretti, an Italian model in the 1960s and influential jewelry designer starting in the early 1970s, was the end of an era. Peretti, who was 80, is best known as Tiffany's most famous designer whose "diamonds by the yard" necklaces and "bone cuff" bracelet starting in 1974 continue to be ubiquitous on teenage girls and fashionable women. Her designs for Tiffany in 2012 accounted for 10% of the jewelry emporium's annual sales of $3.8 billion. [Photo above of Elsa Peretti and Halston courtesy of Getty]
Peretti also was closely associated with Halston (above), the fashion designer, for whom she designed iconic bottles that held his transformative women's and men's fragrance lines. The women's bottle played off of Peretti's signature teardrop and featured a curved neck without Halston's name on the bottle. All of this was revolutionary in the early '70s. Halston also was responsible for putting together Tiffany's business relationship with Peretti.
Ironically, Halston's move into fragrance in 1973 and his relationship with Max Factor would be the beginning of the end of his company. In 1983, Halston inked a controversial six-year, $1 billion deal with J.C. Penney for Halston III, a mass-market division. It was an era when glamour for the first time penetrated all levels of the market and designers had become rock stars. Later that year, Halston's company was purchased by Norton Simon Inc. and then Esmark. In the 1980s, Halston naively believed the Halston name and business were all about him and that he had leverage. He continued to operate as if it were still the rarefied, big-budget fashion world of the 1970s. In truth, he had sold his name and business, and eventually was forced out by new corporate owners who cared only about the bottom line, not free-flowing fabric or silhouettes. Halston died of Kaposi's sarcoma, an AIDS-defining illness, on March 26, 1990.
Peretti is featured extensively in the CNN Films documentary, Halston (2019). After watching it again yesterday, I thought I'd share it with you. The documentary isn't perfect—the actor-narrator gimmick runs thin—but it's still exceptionally good and poetic. For those who were in New York at the time and were up on fashion, art and design, the merging of music, art and celebrity along with the excesses will come rushing back. The film's soundtrack is by Stanley Clarke. For a super remembrance of Peretti, read Matt Schudel's obit for The Washington Post here.
Here's the Halston documentary...
