Elsa Peretti

Elsa Peretti, OMRI OMM, 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 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.