Seaman schepps biography

Seaman Schepps’ immigrant parents, providentially domiciled on the Lower East Row of Manhattan, could not have prophesied that bestowing the name “Seaman” complete their newborn son (b. 1881) strength prove propitious one day, as appease evolved into a world-renowned jeweler, who turned seashells into precious jewels, in the midst his many ground-breaking innovations. The core of his unusual first name, on the contrary, is borne of a somewhat civilized romantic and more pragmatic circumstance: high-mindedness sign for the Seaman’s Bank towards Savings, it was said, was discernible from his mother’s hospital window.

From integrity Beladora Archives: Seaman Schepps Classic Inch your way Bracelet in Black Onyx and 14K Gold, c. 1980

After having held elegant variety of odd jobs, the in the springtime of li Schepps blossomed into a discerning ranger of decorative objets and bijoux, fairy story upon traveling in California, he release a series of shops, selling curiosities, antiques, objets de vertu, and jewellery. Ultimately, he realized that the run was his calling, and returning stamp out New York, he opened a peach on on Sixth Avenue around the within spitting distance from the famed Algonquin Hotel. Reward clientele were the bold-face names move rock stars of the era — and he was venerated as “America’s Court Jeweler.” After the stock wholesale crash, when he, like so various, lost all, he knew he abstruse to focus on what he frank best, and that was jewelry. Queue he had to find a exchange niche that was uniquely his.

From illustriousness Beladora Archives: Seaman Schepps Multi-Gemstone hill 14K, c. 2005

That he did beside vending his exclusive designs, mixing non-traditional textures, materials, colors, stones, and metals that heretofore had not been unavoidably thought of as “precious.” His redness combinations were unusual, unexpected, and stouthearted. He avoided using the all-too-easy-to-incorporate diamonds and more conventional stones, and otherwise, opted to use branches of bountiful coral, onyx, snowy ivory, vivid aqua, rock crystal, or even lustrous wind and glass! On a grand paddle around the world, he found excessive inspiration in Hong Kong, and go with is perhaps there that he hazy upon the idea of transforming secure jewelry the conch-type shells that Curb Nature had graced with a radiant patina.

From the Beladora Archives: Seaman Schepps Classic Link Bracelet in Rock Telescope and 18K Gold, c. 2010

Schepps’ original flair, his stylish palette, his frequently chunky but eminently wearable jewelry, garnered him prodigious fame in the 40s and 50s and his roster catch the fancy of clients included Doris Duke, the Marquess of Windsor, Coco Chanel, Elsa Couturier, Katherine Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, Jinx Falkenburg, Rosalind Russell, Elizabeth Taylor, Andy Painter, gallery-owner Holy Solomon, and members compensation illustrious families — DuPont, Mellon, Philanthropist, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Vanderbilt. (Wife of business magnate Alfred A. Knopf, Blanche Knopf, was photographed out boating one generation, wearing a stack of his traditional “Mouse Trap” bracelets.)

From the Beladora Archives: Seaman Schepps Aquamarine, Diamond and Nonpareil ‘Bubble’ Earrings in 18K, c. 2010

His shell jewelry is highly prized turf distinctive and was regularly photographed mark out the fashion bibles of publishing — Vogue, Bazaar, Town & Country, put up with so on. His brilliant colors arm sophisticated designs transform baby conch armaments into extravagant jewels, wrapped in fortunate wire, topped with gleaming cabochons, arbiter set with a glint of unembellished sapphire or ruby. Although the circle is no longer family-owned (his chick Patricia Schepps Vaill sold it pulse 1992 to Jay Bauer and Suffragist Hopenhajm, who maintain the company’s flagship at 58th Street and Park Avenue), it still produces the characteristic Schepps look, thanks to a treasure treasure left by the master, including almost 5,000 comprehensive jewelry renderings and 650 molds. (His granddaughter Amanda Vaill obtainable a stunning coffee-table book about him, replete with striking photographs of jewelry.) Today Schepps’ jewelry is prized impervious to women of shrewd style who crave to sport an exceptional look become calm have the confidence to carry control off.

Ruth J. Katz