Francesca Amfitheatrof’s swan song for Tiffany Blue Book collection
Francesca Amfitheatrof, who is leaving her post as design director at Tiffany & Co. at the end of this month, has two more collections on tap. One is her third Blue Book collection, and the other is a fashion jewelry collection, the first since the launch of T in 2014, slated to debut Feb. 7.
The press preview for Blue Book precedes a private selling event in April. Tiffany flies about 200 top clients from around the world for a long weekend of festivities; wining and dining as well as entertainment and galas and private appointments aimed at the lucky few that get first dibs on the pieces. Amfitheatrof broke ground as the first female design director for the fabled house when she arrived in 2013, driving the design of Tiffany forward. Her first Blue Book collection in 2015, “The Art of the Sea,” drew upon the house’s oft-referenced nature theme for high jewelry. She followed up with “The Art of Transformation” in 2016 with a collection that channeled the sea as it became the land.
For her last collection in the trilogy, “The Art of the Wild,” she took to land via the rainforest. The company brought top-tier customers to its Fifth Avenue flagship and unveiled the collection in a room fittingly bedecked in enough tropical foliage to fill an indoor rainforest. She took her design team to Kauai to explore the tropical region for inspiration in mid-2015. The result is a 100-plus piece collection organized in five distinct groups inspired by the team’s discovery there.
Perhaps her boldest design to date, “Whispers of the Rainforest” is based upon a grass skirt and palm fronds. The centerpiece of the collection is a 60-carat, 200-diamond baguette collar with 350 18-karat gold “fronds” of various shapes sizes and finishes that flare out resembling an African tribal neck piece. According to a spokesman, the necklace makes a sound similar to an Amazon rain stick as the wearer walks. Equally stunning are pieces from “The Fall” that mimic a waterfall cascading off the collar of a necklace, cuff or earring, with streams of baguette and round-cut diamonds topped off with teardrop shaped gems on the tips.
“Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” was named after a flower in the rainforest that changes three colors over the course of three days, and features of a suite of rubellites, pink sapphires and diamonds to represent the changing hues. “Leaves” references tropical plants — like a ring with 26.65-carat fancy vivid yellow diamond in a setting of palm fronds of white diamonds in yellow gold, or “Feathered Cloak,” a bird theme best executed in a series of tropical bird brooches and a multicolor stone cuff made from articulated “feathers” that rustle when shaken. Prices start at $75,000 and run up to about $4.3 million.
The collection also features several fine jewelry watches. Three styles — a butterfly, dragonfly and a peacock — are made from pink and blue sapphires with diamonds. More “creatures” to come.
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