An American design icon Tony Duquette, was a native of Los Angeles, California and an internationally acclaimed artist and designer, whose personal motto was “more is more,” died in 1999. But his over-the-top naturalistic style endures in the new limited-edition Tony Duquette for Coach Collection.
Duquette’s extraordinary house in Beverly Hills, “DAWNRIDGE”, continues as the headquarters for the design organization and will serve unchanged as an inspiration for the creative works to follow. Hutton Wilkinson continues to present collections of fine jewelry and home furnishings inspired by designs which he and Tony Duquette created together over their thirty years of artistic collaboration.
“Working with Coach has been a joy from day one. The organization is amazing and the designers are enthusiastic, imaginative and open to all kinds of design adventures,” said Wilkinson.
The 20-piece collection is priced from $48 to $498 and includes a multicolored Duchess bib necklace modeled after a piece he designed for the Duchess of Windsor, jeweled clutch bags, enamel cuffs, cabochon rings and ladybug stick pins, all inspired by Mr. Duquette’s designs, or perhaps I should say beautiful, unique pieces of art. To assemble this collection, the Coach Design team toured Duquette’s Los Angeles home, pored over his books and old photographs, and reviewed hundreds of items from his personal archives.
Each hand-finished piece incorporates and embodies the whimsical, outlandish designs of the late Duquette’s with the quality you expect from a long-standing upscale American company like Coach. The jewelry pieces come in beautiful shapes of starts, flowers, hearts, spikes and the sun in wonderful bold sizes. The materials used vary considerably from combinations of Swarovski elements, cut glass, enamel, genuine lapis and malachite. The limited edition “The Jewels of Tony Duquette” collection is now available on Coach.com and will be in flagship stores February 1st.
“Tony always said that ‘beauty, not luxury, is what I value.’ He would have been thrilled to see these original designs created in his aesthetic at affordable prices,” Wilkinson said.
Mr.G / Luis Soto
Co – Fashion Editor