In a new book, jeweller and creative mastermind HUTTON WILKINSON shares the pieces he and the legendary TONY DUQUETTE designed, one extraordinary gem at a time
Hutton Wilkinson loves adornment. So did Tony Duquette, his mentor for close to 40 years. Together, in a personal campaign against minimalism, they created interiors, sets and costumes, furniture, home accessories, and jewellery, all of it dedicated to unapologetic extravagance. Nothing for these two voluptuaries was ever too much. Their worldview was clear: Who would want to live in a pristine, uncluttered house? How dreary. Of what possible interest could a dining table be if it wasn’t inlaid with exotic woods from Indonesia? Crystal chandeliers? Bring them on. And why wear a plain, single-strand necklace when you could have 10 with multi-coloured eye-popping stones?
From an early age, Wilkinson, a native Angeleno with Bolivian roots, was fascinated by embellishments. At 17, he grabbed the chance to work as an unpaid apprentice for Duquette, known in California for his lavish style, eccentric life, and fanciful work combining precious stones such as rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and emeralds with unconventional, semi-precious ones, like Mexican fire opals, coral, and aquamarines.
Duquette was discovered by Elsie de Wolfe, the fabled interior decorator and style arbiter. She asked him to make her a tiara to wear to society columnist Elsa Maxwell’s famed Victory Party in 1944, which he did, a delicate wreath of leaves and green Lucite stars. “She told Tony, ‘It will be my contribution to the war effort,’” says Wilkinson. “Tony dined out on that statement for weeks.”
The Duchess of Windsor was also captivated by Duquette’s fantastical creations. Her husband, the duke, commissioned a necklace from the designer in 1951. “It was made of citrine, peridot, and pearls set in 18-karat-gold vines, leaves, and flowers. When he saw it for the first time, he said to Tony, ‘Don’t you think the stones are a bit yaller?’ That was how he pronounced yellow,” Wilkinson says. “The duke told Tony the duchess would wear only platinum after five o’clock; Tony said he was counting on her ‘to create a new fashion for women to wear yellow gold in the evening’. And she did.”
Duquette was impressed by his young apprentice, and Wilkinson was in his thrall. The two forged a friendship and then a business partnership that lasted until Duquette’s death, in 1999. Despite their considerable age difference, they lived and worked in each other’s back pockets, sharing ideas and confidences. Their wives—elizabeth ‘Beegle’ Duquette and Ruth Wilkinson—were their muses as well as the models for their creations.
The Duquettes lived the high life to the hilt. They had a 150-acre ranch above Malibu, called Sortilegium (medieval Latin for enchantment), which burnt to the ground in 1993. They also had a resplendent estate known as Dawnridge in Beverly Hills that was more like a phantasmagorical movie set than a residence (and, not coincidentally, resembled the sets of the 1955 MGM musical Kismet, for which Duquette designed the costumes). At Sortilegium and Dawnridge, the couple gave glamorous parties for their Hollywood friends, among them Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, Loretta Young, Jennifer Jones, and George Cukor. To attend a Duquette party was to dress up for the occasion, with black tie for the men and floor-length gowns for the women. Sometimes the invitation called for elaborate costumes. Guests were only too happy to oblige. Jeans? Jamais!
Duquette and Wilkinson brought such glamour and flights of fancy to their jewelled pieces for everyone from San Francisco couture collector Dodie Rosekrans to actress Raquel Welch, all of which are gathered in Jewelry by Tony Duquette and Hutton Wilkinson, which was published in November. Welch once borrowed a monumental citrine-andgreen-peridot Skyscraper necklace to show off her “fabulous neckline”, as she put it, at the Oscars in 2001. “The press reported that she was wearing millions of dollars’ worth of emeralds. Nobody bothered to tell them that emeralds are green, not yellow,” notes Wilkinson.
When Duquette died, he left Dawnridge and the business to Wilkinson. Not only has he carried on in the most over-the-top Duquette tradition, he is also carving out his own legacy. And his swoon-worthy jewellery is the physical embodiment of his bountiful imagination. Wilkinson has been pursuing what Duquette started: designing startling, one-of-a-kind pieces that would be as much at home in a museum or gallery as on a woman’s body. Today, pieces fetch between $10,000 and $250,000. “Many times, the gold and the workmanship are more valuable than the actual stones. Tony’s words still ring true and are always at the top of my mind,” says Wilkinson, who repeats the mantra: “Beauty, not luxury, is what I value”.