Verdura

(Duke of) Fulco (1898-1978). Italian jeweler. He was Chanel‘s favorite. Palermo-born, in 1927, hoping to become a fashion designer and creator of jewelry, he moved to Paris and then, ten or so years later, he moved on to New York. There he worked as a designer for the jeweler Flato who put him in charge of the California subsidiary. In 1939 he founded his own company in New York, on Fifth Avenue. He designed the neo-Byzantine style bracelets worn on more than one occasion by Madame Chanel: his bizarre and surreal style enchanted her, with the freshness of his inventions and the unusual chromatic combinations. He loved to mix precious and semi-precious stones, gold and platinum, nature and history, fiction and reality. He was famous for his pearl chokers and his creations based on the theme of seashells. Today, production — overseen by the designer Maria Kelleher Williams, a faithful interpreter of the Verdura style — continues under the supervision of Ward Landrigan, who purchased the company in in 1984. The showrooms are at 745 Fifth Avenue in New York.