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SUMMARY:paul-flato - Date de vente : 09/12/2025
DESCRIPTION:Nom du lots : Paul Flato\n\nDesigned as intertwined rose leaf b
 ranches set with round\, single-cut and baguette diamonds\, internal circu
 mference approximately 6½ inches\, circa 1937.\n\nElizabeth Irvine Bray\,
  Paul Flato Jeweler to the Stars\, Woodbridge\, Suffolk\, 2010 p. 69 for a
 n image of this bracelet photographed alongside a May 1937 Paul Flato adve
 rtisement in Harper’s Bazaar.\n\nPaul Flato\n\nPaul Flato was one of the
  biggest names in American jewelry in the mid-20th century\; yet\, until f
 airly recently\, appreciation for his work’s distinctive style and exube
 rance was maintained by a small circle of knowledgeable collectors.\n\nBor
 n and raised in southeast Texas to a prosperous family of German immigrant
 s\, Flato developed an interest in jewelry from a young age. Elizabeth Irv
 ine Bray\, whose 2010 book Paul Flato: Jeweler to the Stars has helped ret
 urn his work to the spotlight\, writes that “his earliest encounter with
  jewelry both terrified and thrilled him.” While hiking in some nearby 
 woods\, he and his friends came upon a Gypsy encampment. There\, Flato wat
 ched with rapt attention as a man fashioned a necklace out of silver wire\
 , an act of creation that was forever burned into his memory.\n\nHe moved 
 to New York in 1920 to pursue a business degree at Columbia University but
  left early to apprentice with a Fifth Avenue jeweler.  Soon he was selli
 ng his own jewelry\, specializing in diamonds and natural pearls. His rise
  in reputation was nothing short of meteoric and he gained the respect of 
 prominent players including Harry Winston\, himself an up-and-coming jewel
 er\, who later worked with Flato on a necklace for the legendary Jonker I 
 diamond. (The Jonker VI is offered as lot 160 in this sale.)\n\nA gregario
 us and charming young man with a great sense of humor\, Flato was a natura
 l salesman. He opened an elegant salon at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 5
 7th Street\, the location itself a sign of his growing success. He mixed a
 mongst high society\, hosting and attending events\, collecting clients al
 ong the way. While much of his business was word-of-mouth\, he provided j
 ewels to Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar\, making his name synonymous with hig
 h glamour.  He developed a fiercely loyal clientele which allowed his bus
 iness to remain remarkably unaffected by the stock market crash of 1929. I
 n fact\, it was against the backdrop of the Great Depression that he creat
 ed some of his most spectacular designs.\n\nFlato’s dramatic designs fou
 nd a particularly appreciative audience among the Who’s Who of Hollywood
  and\, in 1938\, he opened a salon on LA’s Sunset Boulevard. His timing 
 was perfect. It was the Golden Age of Hollywood\, and the studios expected
  their stars to radiate glamour both on-screen and off.  Flato’s lavish
  statement jewels were easily picked up by the cameras\, serving to enhanc
 e the escapist fantasies of moviegoers and readers of the Hollywood press.
  His contributions to the movie industry were so significant that he was c
 redited for jewelry design in no less than six films including Holiday sta
 rring Katharine Hepburn\, Blood and Sand with Rita Hayworth and Two-Faced 
 Woman with Greta Garbo.\n\nUnfortunately\, this celebrity status came at a
  price. In 1941\, his Sunset Boulevard store was robbed by four armed men
  who made off with nearly $50\,000 in jewels. The financial toll would hav
 e been far worse had he not just lent his most valuable pieces to Columbia
  Studios for The Lady is Willing. Flato did his best to put a light-heart
 ed spin on the theft\, commissioning a drawing of a gunman with the captio
 n “Everybody Wants Jewels by Flato” for an ad in the Hollywood Reporte
 r.\n\nThough everyone did seem to be clamoring for jewels by Flato\, he\, 
 like many jewelers and fashion designers today\, received many requests to
  borrow—not buy—his jewels\, and when his clients did make a purchase\
 , they were often late to pay.  He received a decisive blow\, both person
 ally and professionally\, when a 17-carat emerald-cut diamond that had bee
 n entrusted to him by Fabrikant Jewelers vanished from his safe.  Suspect
 ing Flato may have played a part in its disappearance\, other members of t
 he trade asked for their jewels left on memo to be returned immediately. 
 The race to reclaim these goods revealed that he had pawned many of the je
 wels to cover operating costs. He was arrested and charged with theft and
  was later forced to sell the company’s assets. The depth of his misfort
 une could have possibly been softened had he not been so generous in exten
 ding credit to his well-to-do clients: Nelson Rockefeller\, Mrs. Alfred G.
  Vanderbilt\, Mrs. Frank Gould\, Lady Isabel Guinness and Brenda Frazier a
 ll appeared with outstanding amounts in his ledgers.\n\nTo escape his lega
 l woes\, he went to Central America in 1952\, but he was eventually found 
 by authorities and sent to Mexico to await extradition to the United State
 s. The process dragged on for five years and he eventually found himself i
 n the “Black Palace of Lecumberri\,” a prison in Mexico City. In 1961
 \, he was finally extradited to the United States and served time at Sing 
 Sing prison. Upon his release\, he returned to Mexico\, the country for w
 hich he had developed a good deal of affection and whose people he admired
  for their warmth and loyalty. Flato wrote in his memoir that “a loyal 
 friend is more precious than any of my jewels.”\n\nFlato possessed an op
 timism that persisted throughout the many peaks and valleys of his career\
 , and in 1970 he opened a new salon in Mexico City’s fashionable Zona Ro
 sa.  Like his previous ateliers\, the salon’s enticing window displays 
 lured clients into a beautifully appointed\, character-filled space. The j
 ewels produced during this period were a significant departure from his hi
 gh-glamour style of the 1930s and ‘40s\, but his trademark eccentricity 
 remained. He was a frequent visitor to the Anthropological Museum where h
 e drew inspiration from Mayan and Aztec artifacts\; he developed a pared-d
 own\, sometimes raw or “primitive” aesthetic. Some of the jewels conti
 nued his earlier exploration of surrealism\, such as a necklace made of br
 ass bells and a bracelet with longhorn bull terminals. Diamonds were used 
 sparingly\, and he played with different textures to emphasize the hand-wr
 ought nature of his jewels\, sometimes incorporating gemstones in their ro
 ugh\, unpolished form.\n\nFlato maintained he wasn’t a draughtsman\, but
  with no in-house designer in Mexico City\, he was the one who created ske
 tches for his clients’ consideration. One of the keys to Flato’s earl
 y success\, however\, was his ability to recognize talent\, especially in 
 those with fine pedigrees. He engaged a crop of highly imaginative design
 ers that ensured his creations remained fresh\, inventive and thoroughly e
 nticing. His chief designer\, Adolphe Klety\, excelled at creating more f
 ormal\, diamond-set jewels\, such as his starburst earclips and entwined r
 ose leaf bracelets (Iots 175 and 176).  Fulco di Verdura who\, after begi
 nning his career with Coco Chanel\, was introduced to Flato by Diana Vreel
 and. Verdura\, like Flato\, was embraced by New York society but held addi
 tional appeal as the 5th Duke of Verdura. George Headley\, who married in
 to the Whitney-Vanderbilt family\, was pivotal to Flato’s appeal with th
 e Hollywood set. Serving as designer\, muse and client\, Standard Oil hei
 ress Millicent Rogers conceived the “puffy hearts” that Flato fashione
 d into brooches and earclips. Similarly\, Josephine Forrestal\, wife of Ja
 mes V. Forrestal (Secretary of the Navy under FDR) and a former fashion ed
 itor at Vogue\, was not a full-time designer but a contributor of ideas an
 d designs. His eye for exceptional talent is further evidenced by his corr
 espondence with Suzanne Belperron during WWII\, entreating her to come to 
 New York to lend her genius to his already inspired designs.\n\nThe jewels
  offered as lots 171-177 highlight Paul Flato’s independence from the Eu
 ropean houses that so greatly influenced American design\, particularly in
  the early to-mid 20th century. The extraordinary range of his work—fro
 m the whimsical to the sensational—suggests that Flato’s desire to del
 ight his audience may have outweighed any concern for financial stability.
  We are privileged to present one of the most significant groupings of Pa
 ul Flato jewels ever to appear at market and to herald his contributions t
 o American jewelry design to the current generation of collectors.
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