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Big fan of Winston gems Halle Berry
By Anna Pukas
Saturday January 14,2012
WHILE Harry Winston was a legend among jewellers, the man behind the brand was deeply private.
The only published photograph of him appeared with his obituary; in life he would only be photographed bent over a gem- stone with a jeweller’s loupe to his eye.
Harry owed his success and considerable fortune to a discerning eye and an extraordinary piece of good luck.
He was born in new york on March 1, 1896, to Ukrainian immigrant parents.
His father Jacob started a small jewellery business in Los angeles and as a boy Harry worked alongside him.
When he was 12 he spotted a ring with a dull green stone on a tray marked “take your pick – 25 cents” in a pawn- broker’s window. He bought the ring, which turned out to be an emerald, and sold it a few days later for $800.
Harry owed his success and considerable fortune to a discerning eye and an extraordinary piece of good luck
Harry Winston never looked back.
He opened his own shop, the Premiere Diamond Company at 535 Fifth avenue in Manhattan in 1920 and his strategy was to purchase private jewellery collections, remove the stones from the often old-fashionedsettings and remodel them into dazzling new pieces.
His first acquisition consisted mainly of Parisian pieces from Cartier, among others, which belonged to arabella, wife of the rail- way magnate Henry Huntington.
More great collections became available as the world succumbed to the Depression and Harry bought them.
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As Europe lurched towards war, Jewish people sent their diamonds to Harry for safe-keeping. those who survived the war were able to start new lives afterwards.
The first actress to borrow jewellery from Harry Winston was Jennifer Jones who won the academy award in 1943 for song of Bernadette.
A mutually beneficial association was born, marrying beautiful women with beautiful gemstones.
"If i could i would attach diamonds directly on to a woman’s skin,” he once said.
Harry bought the 31-carat blue- white McLean diamond and sold it in 1950 to the Duke of Windsor (formerly King Edward Viii).
The Duchess, theformer Mrs Wallis Simpson, owned it until her death in 1986.
In 1960 Harry bought the Napoleon Necklace consisting of 47 diamonds weighing 275 carats which Napoleon gave to his wife Empress Marie-Louise on the birth of their son in 1811.
The piece had passed through several royal handsbefore Harry acquired it and sold it on to the richest woman in America, the socialite and owner of General Foods Marjorie Merriweather Post.
Many of Harry’s mega-rich clients became his friends, including the Shah of Iran, the Windsors, the Onassises and the Maharajah of Baroda who would buy wholeconsignments of jewels at a time.
The Queen Mother was such a fan that she would invite Harry to tea when he was in London.
By the end of his career Harry had at some time owned most of the world’s most illustrious stones – but none had a more colourful history than the Hope Diamond,named after the banker Henry Hope who bought it in 1830.
Once owned by King Louis XIV of France and Queen Marie-Antoi- nette, the fabulous inch-long blue diamond was said to bring tragedy to whoever wore it and certainly some of its owners variously went mad, committed suicide or murderand suffered great loss.
Harry bought it in 1949 from the Colorado gold-mining heiress Evalyn Walsh McLean. Nine years later he donated it to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.
Harry married Edna Fleishman in 1933 and they had two sons, Ronald and Bruce. While Ronald was studious Bruce was a college dropout and playboy. “I have two sons,” Harry once told Lillian, his sister-in- law.
“One is a genius, one a moron.”
Harry wanted Ronald to take over but stipulated both sons should receive an equal income.
After Harry’s death in 1978 the brothers fell out so bitterly that the ensuing lawsuit lasted 10 years and, in the end, cost them the company. Since 2000 it has been owned by the Aber Diamond Corporation of Canada.
All that remains of the firm founded on a 12-year-old’s lucky find is his name. In that sense, Harry Winston – like the diamonds he loved – is for ever. |
