Hattie Carnegie Jewelry (1939-1979)
In 1909 Hattie Carnegie opened her first custom-designed clothing boutique in New York City. This shop lead to a chain of exclusive boutiques across the United States and eventually to a million dollars fashion empire.
Carnegie produced costume jewelry to compliment her clothing lines. Like Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli, Carnegie excelled in the ‘cocktail jewelry’ movement, where brooches and demi-parures of necklaces, bracelets and earrings brought flamboyant glamour to the outfits. Her favourite materials were enamel, faux pearls, rock crystal and glass beads employed in very unusual combinations.
In the 1950s Hattie’s brooches became iconic. Inspired by African art that influenced Paris fashion in the 1930s, the animal-shaped gilded metal brooches were made of lucite in bold colours like red-orange, emerald green, ivory and turquoise blue, trimmed with rhinestones and coloured beads.
Carnegie worked with renowned jewelry designers like Kenneth Jay Lane, Norman Norell and Nadine Effront.
Hattie Carnegie’s jewelry is collected worldwide and is displayed in Museum collections such as that of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
