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| Claudette Colbert wearing T& H-M signature ruby, diamond and platinum necklace, shown with costume designer Travis Banton on the set of the 1935 film “The Gilded Lily.” |
In the economic hard times leading up to World War II, when
many New York jewelry firms were failing, the American company Trabert &
Hoeffer, Inc. not only survived but thrived. Established in 1926 by Randolph
Trabert and William Howard Hoeffer, it quickly found a foothold in the New York
high-society scene. When Trabert died in 1930, Hoeffer steered the firm to even
greater success. A merger with Paris jeweler Mauboussin in 1936 created a
strong brand known for innovative and sophisticated jewelry.
“A study of their work is important to understanding
American high style in the 1930s and ’40s,” says Yvonne Markowitz, the Rita J.
Kaplan and Susan B. Kaplan curator of jewelry at the Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston. Markowitz is working on an upcoming book* about the Trabert &
Hoeffer, Inc.-Mauboussin (T&H-M) union, to be published under the auspices
of the museum, which has acquired a partial archive of drawings and photographs
of the jewels made by the firm.
Very early on, notes Markowitz, Hoeffer had his eyes on
Paris. “He understood that Paris was setting the style.” The jewelry designs
the firm created “very closely followed Paris fashion.” Seeing Cartier and
other French firms gain ground in New York City, Mauboussin Paris opened its
own store there in 1926. “They were fairly successful,” says Markowitz, but
then the stock market crashed. “They decided that if they were to succeed in
America, they needed to follow new money,” something Trabert & Hoeffer was
already doing, forging relationships in the burgeoning Hollywood cinema scene.
It seemed a natural fit for the two companies to unite.
Pierre Mauboussin and Hoeffer entered into a collaboration
in 1936. Trabert & Hoeffer got the Paris name and connection and Mauboussin
got the means to establish its reputation in the U.S. in a tough retail
climate. “Although it wasn’t a legal entity and no one knows how or if money
changed hands,” says Markowitz, the partnership lasted for 17 years.
In the early 1930s, Hoeffer already had made inroads into
the Hollywood set. It was the beginning of the golden age of cinema and many of
the film production houses were renting jewelry to be used in the films.
Hoeffer saw that as an opportunity. The firm received wonderful exposure in an
on-screen credit line as the sole supplier of the jewelry used in many
successful films. Moreover, it put the firm on the radar of the silver screen’s
leading ladies, who not only wore their own jewelry in their movies but around
town. It was a practice that he continued to build on after the merger.
Paulette Goddard and Marlene Dietrich, says Markowitz, were big T&H-M
customers.
The firm’s camera-loving creations from the 1930s through
the ’40s were big and bold three-dimensional designs that were very “in your
face,” says Markowitz. One of the firm’s signature pieces was a necklace with
incredible star rubies set in platinum and diamond mounts that was showcased by
Claudette Colbert in the 1935 film “The Gilded Lily.” Explains Markowitz,
“Created by Hoeffer and his designers in 1934, these very long ‘multiuse’ necklaces were designed so
that extraordinary gemstones — star sapphires and rubies of 40, 50 and 60
carats — were placed at points where the necklace could be taken apart and worn
as separate bracelets, clips, pendants and earrings.”
There was an incredible fashion fad in the late 1930s-early
1940s for star rubies and sapphires, continues Markowitz, “and a lot of that I
think has to do with T&H-M and Hoeffer.” The firm produced and heavily
promoted rings with fabulous faceted stones accented with diamonds in platinum
settings. “Hoeffer liked to make bold colored stones the centerpiece but there
are also,” says Markowitz, “a lot of diamonds in the pieces.” T&H-M built a
reputation as being an important retailer of significant gem-laden jewelry.
This passion for high-quality gemstones was part of the
firm’s raison d’être from the beginning. Among the distinguished stones it
acquired: the Star of Bombay, a 181.82-carat star sapphire from Sri Lanka
(Ceylon), the Star of Burma, an 83-carat cabochon-cut star ruby and the
25-carat emerald-cut diamond Hoeffer named the Star of Kimberly. The Star of
Bombay was made into a ring Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. gave his wife Mary Pickford,
who bequeathed the stone to the Smithsonian. Ever mindful of marketing
opportunities, Hoeffer exhibited the magnificent gems in his stores to attract
the public. And along with lending jewels to Hollywood films, he also placed
them in ads with luxury automobiles like Cadillac, where the jewelry firm also
received a credit line.
In another shrewd move, Markowitz notes, “Hoeffer bought the
total output of the Muzo emerald mines in 1945 and became an important dealer
in emeralds.” Even the lesser stones were put to use and slices of natural
crystals or “emerald rough” were mounted into a variety of smaller items from
pendants to bracelet charms and cufflinks and sold as patented “lucky rough
emerald jewelry.”
Realizing that many of his clients could no longer afford
custom-designed jewelry, Hoeffer created a more affordable but still
personalized line. Called “Reflection —Your Personality in a Jewel,” it
creatively combined machine-made and hand-finished components. Clients could
choose from a variety of precast design elements to design a customized piece
of jewelry, explains Markowitz. “It cut down on a lot of the design and fabrication
time — a whole suite of jewelry could be made in two weeks.” The Reflection
collection was “enormously popular and was heavily advertised in leading
fashion magazines,” says Markowitz. “People were encouraged to ‘reflectionize’
their old jewelry” — remounting the stones in new settings.
The Reflection series used a lot of colored gems — amethyst,
aquamarines, citrines — the kind of stones associated with Moderne or Retro
style pieces, “which were easier to obtain at that time,” Markowitz notes. “For
the same reason, with platinum allocated for war use, the Reflection series was
almost always done in gold — both 18-karat and 14-karat, which also helped
lower the cost point.”
The Reflection jewels are the pieces mostly seen at auction,
Markowitz says, noting that “they come onto the market pretty frequently.
Prices depend upon the materials. The necklace that Claudette Colbert wore in
‘The Gilded Lily’ was valued at the time by Hoeffer at $1 million.” Jewelry
using the more “important” stones doesn’t come onto the market that often
because over the years, the gems were removed to be reused or multiuse pieces
were broken up into their various components.
In 1953, Mauboussin concluded its collaboration with Trabert
& Hoeffer and by the mid-fifties, Hoeffer himself lost interest in the
jewelry trade and became a real estate developer in New Jersey. “The firm
continued on,” concludes Markowitz, “with a number of shops in Miami, Chicago,
and New York City, but the stores, while retaining the name, are basically
independent retailers, no longer on the cutting edge of influencing design and
style as they were in the late thirties and early forties. T&H-M was a
brilliant flash for a very brief period of time but it left a mark.”
*Glamour by Design: The Jewels of Trabert &
Hoeffer-Mauboussin, by Yvonne Markowitz, Elizabeth Irvine Bray, Elizabeth Ram
and Frederic Sharf will be published by MFA Publications, the publishing
imprint of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Article from the Rapaport Magazine - October 2012. To subscribe click here.