Signature in Silver : The Jewelry Designs of a ‘40s Media Darling Return to the Spotlight

Tonight, the late Millicent Rogers will have a moment, as they say in fashion circles. The famed style-setter, socialite and media star of the ‘30s and ‘40s, best known for the Taos, N.M., museum named after her, will be the center of attention in Santa Monica. Antique dealer Federico Jimenez is hosting a preview of silver jewelry reproduced from Rogers’ designs and newly available at his Montana Avenue shop.

In her time, Rogers (a Standard Oil heiress--her grandfather was a Rockefeller partner) was considered fashion’s dernier cri. Diana Vreeland, the late arbiter of style, once hailed her as “totally creative . . . she made her own fashion and 40 years later it is a look that is totally of today” and included her in the 1975 “American Women of Style” show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Her life never lacked glamour. In 1947, Rogers moved to the then-tiny village of Taos, which she discovered while traveling. She was on the rebound. “She had just busted up with Clark Gable, who she went with for three years,” recalled her youngest son, Paul Peralta-Ramos. Her hosts were Janet Gaynor and her husband, Adrian, the legendary MGM costume designer.

Even after she settled in Taos, Rogers continued to amaze and delight the fashion-conscious, trading in her designer wardrobe of Mainbocher and Charles James creations for peasant blouses and American Indian broomstick skirts. She gave up her Cartier and Schlumberger jewelry for Indian silver and turquoise. Finally, she designed her own Southwest-inspired pins, pendants, bracelets, necklaces and earrings.

Peralta-Ramos said his mother designed “lots of jewelry in L.A.” during the summer of 1946 when she rented Falcon Lair, originally Rudolph Valentino’s home. “She always carried jeweler’s tools and would work on designs on the train to California,” he added.

Eventually, more than 300 designs and pieces, most executed in gold, ended up in Taos’ Millicent Rogers Museum, founded after her death by Peralta-Ramos and now also the home of a major collection of American Indian and Latino art and artifacts.

For this first collection of reproductions, 29 designs were selected by Peralta-Ramos, museum director Patrick Houlihan and Federico Jimenez. The pieces, executed exclusively in silver at the Juan Jimenez workshop in Venice, Calif., are priced from $90 to $900.

“We selected the present collection to show a spectrum of her designs, which range from Peruvian and African influences to Greek medieval and Southwest Native American,” Houlihan said, adding that a second collection of 50 designs is in the works. Most of those pieces will be gold-plated, include semiprecious stones and be made in Taxco, Mexico.

“We are doing this on a limited budget,” Houlihan said of the relatively modest introduction. “Our hope is to have the collection available nationally within a year.”