To understand the impact that the late Elsa Peretti had on Tiffany & Co is to understand the influence she wielded on the wider jewellery industry. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, jewellers were rejecting the conservationism of the previous decades, foregoing white-gloved glamour for liberating styles that celebrated bolder femininity.
Designers were experimenting with vibrant colours, unconventional materials like wood and enamel, and sculptural forms that defied expectations. Amid this revolution, Peretti would further challenge the status quo. After all, she had never been one to follow the rules. She became estranged from her wealthy Italian family early on and moved to New York in 1968.
With her lanky frame and short hair, she defied the conventional model aesthetic of that period: “When I came here, what they liked was the blonde girl. With big blue eyes and very young. I was very tall, very dark, very skinny.… I was everything too very,” she once told a magazine.
It was this unique presence that caught the eye of Roy Halston. Becoming one of his Halstonettes, a select group of influential models, provided Peretti with invaluable exposure and connections within the fashion world, ultimately leading her to Tiffany & Co. In between Studio 54 parties and walking the runways, she started designing jewellery for a select group of designers. Her leather necklace with a two-inch bud vase in sterling silver on the runway of Giorgio di Sant’ Angelo caught the attention of New York’s most fashionable set, cementing her reputation as a jewellery designer.
Her bold and unconventional choice to champion silver in her designs challenged the prevailing norms of the era and forever elevated the status of this precious metal. During that period, Halston introduced her to Tiffany & Co, where she would go on to design some of the house’s most iconic pieces, which remain bestsellers to date. In fact, her designs accounted for as much as 10 per cent of Tiffany & Co’s business in 2012.
For her first meeting with Tiffany & Co’s then-CEO Walter Hoving, she brought with her the Bone cuff. Hoving, a man with a keen eye for emerging talent, must have been struck by Peretti’s audacity. Here was a designer who transformed the ordinary—a bean, an apple, the curve of a bone—into objects of enduring beauty. This resonated with the changing times, as women sought jewellery that reflected their evolving roles and a desire for self-expression. Peretti’s designs, with their focus on form and wearability, marked a significant departure from the elaborate, often impractical high jewellery typically associated with legacy brands like Tiffany & Co.
Today, the Bone cuff remains a bestseller at the house. In an interview with Time magazine in 2013, she explained the inspiration behind the cuff, “My love for bones has nothing macabre about it. As a child, I kept on visiting the cemetery of a 17th-century Capuchin church with my nanny. All the rooms were decorated with human bones. My mother had to send me back, time and again, with a stolen bone in my little purse. Things that are forbidden remain with you forever. Later on, I was free to collect bones, so at my leisure I designed a world of beautiful shapes, which have remained with me ever since.”
The organic, ergonomic form of the bone cuff was first crafted entirely by hand using single pieces of sterling silver. But this was untenable as the cuff became too heavy. Peretti worked closely with her silversmith, Senor Abad, to join two silver pieces to make it hollow and more wearable.
To celebrate Peretti’s 50-year relationship with Tiffany & Co, the brand has honoured her legacy with a capsule collection and new pieces to her existing collections. The Bone Cuff comes elevated with pave diamonds, rubies and cabochon stones. This also marks the first time the Bone is available in a ring form. Then, there is the Split Bone ring that features a little rupture in the middle of the cuff, adding to its organic nature.
Other Peretti signatures have been reinterpreted as well, including the Open Heart, Bean and Diamonds by the Yard designs. Beyond her work as a designer and model, Peretti was also committed to paying it forward. The philanthropist bought a couple of dilapidated buildings in the Catalonian village of Sant Martí Vell, where she would spend pockets of time, rebuilding and reinvigorating the area. It would become an artistic retreat, with workshops, guest quarters and residencies. In 2000, she set up the philanthropic Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation, which focuses on conservation, education, human rights, health, and arts.
As Stefano Palumbo, the general director and a board member of the philanthropic Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation told W Magazine, “She is a protagonist of history. She belongs not to the history of fashion or design but to the history of art.”
PHOTOGRAPHY JAYA KHIDIR
ART DIRECTION MARISA XIN
PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANTS NOWO KASTURI
This story originally appeared in the Dec/Jan 2025 issue of GRAZIA Singapore.
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