Elsa Peretti

Peretti was born in Florence, Italy as the youngest daughter of (1896–1977) and Maria Luisa Pighini.

Ferdinando Peretti founded Anonima Petroli Italiana (API), a large Italian oil company, in 1933.

She was estranged from her conservative family for much of her life, though reconciled with her father shortly before he died.

Peretti was educated in Rome and Switzerland.

She initially made her living teaching French and working as a ski instructor in the German-speaking Swiss mountain village of Gstaad.

Later, she returned to Rome to pursue a degree in interior design, and then worked for the Milan architect Dado Torrigiani.

Elsa Peretti, OMRI OMM (1 May 1940 – 18 March 2021), was an Italian jewelry designer and philanthropist as well as a fashion model.

Her jewelry and design pieces for Tiffany & Co. are included in the 20th century collection of the British Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

In 1964, Peretti became a fashion model, working in Barcelona, Spain.

In 1968 she moved to New York City on the advice of Wilhelmina Modeling Agency.

In 1969, Peretti began creating new jewelry styles for a handful of fashion designers in Manhattan.

Her first design, working with a silversmith in Spain, was a two-inch bud vase made of sterling-silver as a pendant on a leather thong necklace, that was inspired by a find at a flea market.

Worn in a runway show by one of Giorgio di Sant' Angelo's models, it was a hit.

In the early 1970s, along with Karen Bjornson, Anjelica Huston, Alva Chinn, Pat Cleveland, and Pat Ast, among others, she became one of designer Halston's favoured troupe of models, nicknamed the Halstonettes.

During the late 1970s Peretti was a frequent regular of Studio 54, alongside designer Halston, Andy Warhol, Liza Minnelli, Bianca Jagger, Cher, and Donald and Ivana Trump.

According to Halston, "Elsa had style: she made the dress she was modeling her own."

Pieces like Bone Cuff (1970) incorporated organic forms with appreciation of the human body, and were seen as bridging a gap between costume and serious jewelry.

By 1971, she was designing jewelry for Halston.

She continued to use silver, helping shift the material's standing from "common" to a popular choice for Liza Minnelli and others.

Minnelli recalled encountering Peretti's work after Halston advised her to try wearing silver: " ‘My god,' I thought...All I could think of was Albuquerque. But then Elsa brought out all these things...Everything was so sensual, so sexy. I just loved it."

Peretti quickly rose in the jewelry field, receiving the 1971 Coty Award for jewelry design, and had her first appearance in Vogue magazine.

In 1972 Bloomingdale's, one of New York's landmark department stores, opened a dedicated Peretti boutique.

In 1974 Peretti, the "Halstonette" fashion model arrived at Tiffany's with her modern jewelry.

Her broadly popular work, including pieces like Bean, Bone Cuff and Open Heart, became as much as 10% of Tiffany's business and John Loring's Tiffany Style – 170 Years of Design devotes 18 pages of images to her jewelry and tableware design.

Vogue described her as "arguably the most successful woman ever to work in the jewelry field."

As a philanthropist, Peretti supported a wide variety of causes, and also privately undertook the restoration of the historic village of Sant Martí Vell in Catalonia, Spain.

The TV miniseries Halston features Elsa's relationship with Halston.

In 1974, she signed a contract with Tiffany & Co to design silver jewelry; her work for them was the first time Tiffany had sold jewelry in that material in 25 years.

Helmut Newton's photograph "Elsa Peretti in Bunny Costume"—she posed for him in a Playboy Bunny costume on Halloween 1975 —is considered a lasting image of the 1970s.

By 1979, she was the firm's leading designer.

Her silver pieces were seen as "fun" and attracted a younger clientele.

The introduction of silver revised the category of fine jewelry and, comparatively more affordable, became something women began increasingly buying for themselves as opposed to traditionally receiving as a gift.

Peretti's reintroduction of silver to the company proved so popular that in 2002, the company began raising prices simply to retain a sense of exclusivity for the brand.

Peretti designed over thirty collections for Tiffany, with works described as "revolutionary", "timeless, distinct and modern".

Her process included travel to Japan, China, and Europe and drew on the work of craftsmen there in the creation of successful collections such as Bean (an abstracted lima bean-shaped pendant), Open Heart, Mesh, Bone, and Zodiac.

In addition to the sterling silver, part of her signature was the use of materials such as jade, lacquer, and rattan.

Modern art was an influence; she cited Alexander Calder and Henry Moore's sculptures as inspirations for her Open Heart collection of pendant jewelry featuring an off-center heart outline.

Peretti drew the shape from the bones of monks she'd seen inside a 17th-century Capuchin church near Rome during her childhood.

In 2019, she was featured in archival footage about her relationship with the legendary designer in the documentary film Halston.

In 2019, she was interviewed in the documentary Halston (CNN films), recalling her years of working, partying, and friendship with the designer.