Bejeweled: Great Designers, Celebrity Style (Hardcover)

by Penny Proddow (Author), Marion Fasel (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The jewelers to the stars are featured in Penny Proddow and Marion Fasel's Bejeweled: Great Designers, Celebrity Style. Peggy Guggenheim in mobile-like Calder earrings; Marlene Dietrich in emeralds and diamonds by Trabert & Hoeffer-Mauboussin; the Duchess of Windsor in Belperron's chalcedony, sapphire and diamond "suite"; Cher in Bulgari's Star Spangled Banner collection; Courtney Love in diamonds by Hafner; and numerous other glitterati and their gems appear in this study in high-profile, top-dollar frivolity. Some of the pieces by Fouquet, Lalique, Flato and a few others are true landmarks. Fashionistas and the Hollywood set will enjoy this tour of some 20th-century streets actually paved with gold.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Proddow and Fasal, old hands at producing attractive books, plunge into an admiring history of twentieth-century jewelry designers, beginning with the big five (including Tiffany and Cartier). Considering that their tome is riddled with celebrity names, doings, and photographs, they nonetheless provide a good synopsis of different groups; the minimalists, such as Elsa Peretti, concentrate on sensual and spare lines, while other jewelers, such as Paloma Picasso and David Yurman, sport highly distinctive, easy-to-identify looks. Good color and black-and-white photographs of jewelry and people accompany each well-written biographical snapshot. This is designer jewelry 101 for the novice buyer or collector. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams; First Edition edition (September 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810906163
• ISBN-13: 978-0810906167
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 10.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,077,478 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Slightly misleading title, but excellent book, January 26, 2003

By	Catherine S. Vodrey (East Liverpool, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Penny Proddow and Marion Fasel have again produced a superb and detailed overview of jewelry--this time concentrating on jewelry designers themselves. "Bejeweled" is chock-full of gorgeous photographs and fascinating nuggets of information about specific jewelry designers. I was astonished to read that many of them couldn't even draw a straight line--they considered themselves first and foremost, for the most part, idea people and left it to underlings to actually draw the jewelry.

It's fascinating to see how these ideas evolved. Salvador Dali, interested in making hard materials seem soft and vice versa, produced some splendid jewelry which examined these paradoxes. Harry Winston produced his first "holly wreath" diamond necklace after noticing that a Christmas wreath on a door combined beautifully circular, marquise, and pear shapes. Art Deco designers like Fouquet and Sandoz were determined to incorporate materials not typically used in jewelry, and in their pursuit created astonishing pieces which used frosted crystal, wood, rubber and other unusual materials with cool assurance.

The only problem is that the promise of the subtitle ("Great Designers, Celebrity Style") really doesn't deliver--aside from a handful of photos of Marlene Dietrich, Elizabeth Taylor, and Gwyneth Paltrow, we see practically nothing of the jewelry worn by celebrities. Still, if your interest lies mainly in the designers, this is the book you want.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful book on a beautiful topic, November 9, 2001

By A Customer

If you like jewelry and history and appreciate lovely photographs, you'll love this book. It's filled with beautiful pictures of jewelry by famous designers -- often worn by celebrities. Clearly a lot of research went into the book, and many of the stories surrounding the designers are fascinating.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Left me wanting more, April 14, 2003

By	BeachReader (Delaware) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

I picked this book up on a whim, intriged, I must confess, by the gorgeous cover.

Inside I found more beautiful photos and interesting text. The celebrity names and jewels did not really interest me nearly as much as the stories about the jewelry designers who were featured.

As another reviewer said, the book had some fascinating pieces of information about jewelry design and designers. I especially liked reading about the Art Deco "artists", as that is a style I have always admired, whether it be furnishings, art, or jewelry.

As lovely as this book is, it left me yearning for more detailed information, which I shall try to find elsewhere.....But it sure was pretty to look at!