It is my pleasure to welcome Debra Healy on BrandWatch. Debra Healy is a published writer in the field of jewelry history ("American Jewelry", "Tiffany", "Hollywood Jewels"). She is a jewelry historian, designer, and design analyst. She trained as a fine jeweler, and is an enamel expert. She restored many important enamel pieces by, Faberge, Cartier, 18th Century snuff boxes, 19th and 20th century jewels, vanity cases, and clocks. She has worked for museums, auction houses, dealers, and important collectors. For a decade she worked with a prominent collector of jewelry and precious objects in New York. She assisted with sales to private clients, corporations, and loans to major museums.
Over the coming weeks she will take us for a walk around the Place Vendôme in Paris. She will introduce us to the major evolutions major French jewelry brands have undertaken recently - showing us their consistencies and inconsistencies. We will thus discover Cartier, Mellerio dits Meller, Boucheron, Van Cleef & Arpels, Mauboussin, and Chaumet. Our first stop today will give us a global perspective on the Place Vendôme itself.
Elizabeth Taylor was so pleased with the restoration that when my team and I were working on our second book, Hollywood Jewels, Abrams, New York, 1992. Elizabeth Taylor personally sent her fabulous Krupp diamond ring, and her Spanish crown jewel pearl necklace, La Peregrina, to us in New York to photograph for our book. At that time her jewels were transported from L.A. to New York by Cartier as a favor to her.