Halston Perfume Bottle

In an era of social upheaval, venerable Tiffany & Co. designer Elsa Peretti reimagined diamonds as jewelry that working women bought for themselves rather than receiving it from a suitor.

By the time the Italian-born Peretti (1940–2021) arrived in New York City, she’d already studied design in Rome, worked for a Milanese architect and taught Italian, French and skiing in Switzerland. She settled on interior design as her potential career path but then chose an altogether different route: modeling. Peretti modeled in Barcelona, Spain, and on the advice of Wilhelmina Cooper — a former model who’d by then founded Wilhelmina Modeling Agency — moved to Manhattan in 1968. When she relocated, Peretti was inspired to pick up jewelry design.

After modeling for designer Halston, the undisputed fashion king of Studio 54, Peretti became his close friend and collaborator, eventually creating jewelry and teardrop-shaped perfume bottles for him. By way of her association with Halston, Peretti took to the disco scene, flourishing in a social circle that included artist Andy Warhol and fashion designer Giorgio di Sant’Angelo.

It wasn’t long before models on di Sant’Angelo’s runway were donning two-inch sterling-silver vases, complete with a rose stem, suspended on leather thongs around their necks. The accessory was Peretti’s inaugural piece of jewelry — she designed it in 1969 after finding a flower vase at a flea market. It was hardly the only time that Peretti found motifs in nature and in organic forms. In the years that followed, her Bean pendant necklace, Starfish earrings and other sensuous accessories would draw on human emotion as well as the natural world around her. Each evocative and wholly versatile design is universally adored decades later, and each was made for a storied American jewelry house with which Peretti would be associated for nearly 50 years.

It was Halston who introduced Peretti to Tiffany & Co. She had her own boutique at Bloomingdale’s by 1972, and her partnership with the firm, which signed the venturesome and unorthodox designer to an exclusive contract in 1974, would cement her place in the lofty annals of jewelry legend. Peretti’s simple but sophisticated designs — the Teardrop collection, her minimalist Diamonds by the Yard necklace and Open Heart ring, to name a few — elevated sterling silver, previously considered unsuitable for fine jewelry, and created an enthusiastic young audience for Tiffany’s offerings. In 1977, Peretti’s designs earned the jewelry house more than $6 million. (In some years, her work has accounted for 10 percent of the company’s sales.)

In 2012, Peretti signed a 20-year, $47.3 million contract with Tiffany & Co., but she passed away in 2021, at age 80. Today, her designs are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the British Museum.

Find an exquisite collection of Elsa Peretti jewelry today on 1stDibs.

Over time, many different styles of vintage, new and antique bottles have found second lives as coveted decorative objects in pristine display cases all over the world. Originally, these bottles may have been decanters and flasks for spirits and liqueurs, medicine and perfume bottles or functional vases for fresh floral arrangements.

We know that glass can be a radical art form. So your vintage art glass or Art Deco pieces will stand on their own to be admired by all alongside your other treasured collectibles in your living room or dining room. But maybe you’re thinking about decorating elsewhere in your home with the other types of glass bottles that you’ve picked up over the years.

There are many corners of your space that can be brightened by an arrangement of bottles of various sizes, shapes and colors. Spruce up your kitchen, bedroom, craft room or art studio by lining the window sill with an array of glass bottles. In this case, you’ll want to use glass bottles instead of ceramic or metal, as transparent material in the sunlight — particularly colored bottles — will introduce energy and pops of color to adjacent walls and surfaces.

Grouping short, tall, thin and wide bottles — some with flowers, some without — on a tabletop, buffet or desk in your home office can bring a much-needed dynamic as a centerpiece or merely dress up a workspace.

On 1stDibs, find a collection of vintage, new and antique glass bottles that includes mid-century modern bottles, Murano glass and more.