Kenneth Jay Lane

{{Short description|American costume jewelry designer (1932–2017)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Kenneth Jay Lane

| image = Kenneth J Lane in the living room of his apartment in the Library of the former Advertising Club.jpg

| caption = Kenneth Jay Lane in his apartment in New York City, 2003

| image_size = 200px

| birth_name =

| birth_date = April 22, 1932

| birth_place = Detroit, Michigan, US

| death_date = July 20, 2017

| death_place = New York City, US

| education = University of Michigan

| occupation = Jewelry designer

| known_for =

| children =

| spouse = Nicola Weymouth (divorced)

}}

Kenneth Jay Lane (April 22, 1932 – July 20, 2017) was an American costume jewelry designer.{{cite web|url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/kenneth-jay-lane-dead-american-costume-jewelry-designer-was-85-1022847 |title=Kenneth Jay Lane Dead: American Costume Jewelry Designer Was 85 | Pret-a-Reporter |website=Hollywoodreporter.com |date=20 July 2017 |accessdate=2017-07-23}}

Life

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Lane was the son of an automotive parts supplier.NB: Lane also claimed he had been born in 1930. See Hoby, 2011 He is of Jewish descent.{{Cite news|first=Maida |last=Portnoy |title= King of the Fabulous Fakes |newspaper=The Detroit Jewish News|date=March 26, 1988 |url= https://digital.bentley.umich.edu/djnews/djn.1988.03.26.001/54 |quote=Kenneth Jay Lane has come a long way from his middle-class Jewish background - to head his own costume jewelry company and shops.}} Lane attended the University of Michigan and the Rhode Island School of Design.{{cite web|last1=Markarian|first1=Janet|last2=Groshong|first2=Lisa|title=Lane, Kenneth Jay|url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3401400254.html|publisher=Encyclopaedia.com|accessdate=April 12, 2015|date=2002}}

Lane was a member of the New York art staff on Vogue, before going on to design footwear for Delman Shoes between 1956–58 and for the New York branch of Christian Dior from 1958–63, where he trained under Roger Vivier.

Lane was one of the subjects of Andy Warhol's Screen Tests (where, in a film taken in 1966, he represented "high fashion").{{cite book|last1=Angell|first1=Callie|title=Andy Warhol screen tests: the films of Andy Warhol: catalogue raisonné|date=2006|publisher=H.N. Abrams|page=295}}

From 1977 until his death his home in Manhattan was a duplex in the Stanford White mansion completed in 1892 and one of the few surviving mansions on Park Avenue. From 1923-77, it served as the home of the Advertising Club. At that time, it was converted into a cooperative apartment house. His living room is the former club library and features an original marble mantelpiece, original artwork and lamps designed by Robert Denning of Denning & Fourcade.Home Design 2002: Jewels in the Town by Bob Morris,[http://nymag.com/nymetro/urban/home/design/features/5860/index.html online], nymag.com, April 8, 2002; retrieved June 29, 2006.

Lane collected Orientalist paintings and there is a gallery named in his honor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in tribute to his philanthropy and bequests.{{cite web|url=http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2017/orientalist-paintings |title=Orientalist Paintings from the Collection of Kenneth Jay Lane | The Metropolitan Museum of Art |website=Metmuseum.org |accessdate=2017-07-23}}

Jewelry design

Lane started designing jewelry and launched his business in 1963 while producing bejeweled footwear for Dior and Arnold Scaasi. He first came to public attention after Jo Hughes, a fashion industry insider, showed some of his designs to Wallis, Duchess of Windsor, who bought several pieces and recommended him to her friends. As both costume jewelry and society reporting were popular at the time, press reports of this incident launched Lane's business. His talent at copying high end jewelry from a quick glimpse proved popular, his clients proudly wearing the faux pieces.

Jacqueline Kennedy was among those who commissioned fake jewels from Lane in order to enable her to wear them more freely while keeping the valuable originals in a safe.{{cite news|last1=Hoby|first1=Hermione|title=Kenneth Jay Lane: The fake's progress|url=http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/article/TMG8407366/Kenneth-Jay-Lane-The-fakes-progress.html|archive-url=https://archive.today/20150412131430/http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/article/TMG8407366/Kenneth-Jay-Lane-The-fakes-progress.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=April 12, 2015|accessdate=July 23, 2017|work=The Telegraph}} Kenneth Jay Lane’s illustrious clientele also included Princess Diana, Nancy Reagan, Princess Margaret, Greta Garbo, Babe Paley, Naty Abascal and Nan Kempner.{{Cite magazine |last=Reginato |first=James |date=2017-07-25 |title=Remembering Jeweler Kenny Jay Lane, the Real King of Fakes |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/07/remembering-jeweler-kenny-jay-lane |access-date=2024-12-25 |magazine=Vanity Fair |language=en-US}}

Writing for The New York Times at the time of Truman Capote's Black and White Ball in 1966, Marilyn Bender reported that the "most important men in a fashionable woman's life were her hairdresser, her make-up artist and Kenneth Jay Lane."{{cite book |last1=Davis |first1=Deborah |title=Party of the Century: The Fabulous Story of Truman Capote and His Black and White Ball |date=2010 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=9780470893579 |page=139 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TLk0K4LSjE0C&pg=PT139}} Lane's designs were hugely popular with a fashionable clientele that could have afforded authentic jewels; while stylists used them to complement the fashionable large hairstyles, short skirts and kaftans in fashion photographs.

In 1966, he was awarded a special Coty Award for his jewelry design.{{cite book|last=McDowell|first=Colin|title=McDowell's Directory of Twentieth Century Fashion|publisher=Frederick Muller|year=1984|pages=299–301|isbn=0-584-11070-7}} He won the Neiman Marcus Fashion Award in 1968. Other awards received in the 1960s include the Tobé Coburn award (1966), the Harper's Bazaar International award (1967), the Maremodo di Capri-Tiberio d'Oro award (1967), and the Swarovski award (1969). In 1990 he won the Brides award.

In addition to his American establishment, Lane had boutiques in London and Paris. He created designs for Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Vreeland, and Audrey Hepburn, among many other high-profile clients. More recently in 2011, Britney Spears and Nicole Richie were seen wearing Lane jewelry. The Duchess of Windsor was rumoured to have been buried wearing one of his belts. Barbara Bush wore one of his three-strand faux pearl necklaces to her husband's inaugural ball.

In 1993, the year Lane commemorated the 30th anniversary of his founding, The New York Times compared him to Coco Chanel for having successfully made faux jewelry chic, noting that unlike Chanel's wealthy clientele, his rather more affordable designs were accessible to a far wider audience. He established a presence as a vendor of jewelry on the cable television home-shopping network QVC, his twice-a-month four-hour appearances in 1997 each taking $1.5 million. In 1998 the FIT Museum held a retrospective exhibition of Lane's jewelry from the 1960s to the late 1990s.

Kenneth Jay Lane's designs continue to attract modern celebrities. Notable figures such as Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, and Katy Perry have incorporated Lane's creations into their distinctive styles.{{Cite web |title=Kenneth Jay Lane: The King of Costume Jewelry |url=https://dsfantiquejewelry.com/blogs/journal/kenneth-jay-lane-the-king-of-costume-jewelry |access-date=2024-12-25 |website=DSF Antique Jewelry |language=en}} Other famous names, including Madonna, Sarah Jessica Parker, Cheryl Cole, Kyle Richards, Michelle Trachtenberg, and Mindy Kaling have also been spotted wearing Lane's jewelry. {{Cite web |title=Kenneth Jay Lane Jewelry: Bracelets, Earrings, Necklaces, Rings |url=https://www.regencies.com/collections/kenneth-jay-lane-jewelry |access-date=2024-12-25 |website=Regencies |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Kenneth Jay Lane Emerald Earrings worn by Herself (Kyle Richards) in The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (S09E19) |url=https://www.spotern.com/en/spot/tv/the-real-housewives-of-beverly-hills/208286/kenneth-jay-lane-emerald-earrings-worn-by-herself-kyle-richards-in-the-real-housewives-of-beverly-hills-s09e19 |access-date=2024-12-25 |website=Spotern |language=en}}

Death

Through Andy Warhol he met Nicola Weymouth,{{cite web|last1=Szeplaki|first1=Andrea|title=How I met Andy – Nicky Weymouth and the team of bohemians|url=http://dulwichonview.org.uk/2012/08/21/how-i-met-andy-nicky-weymouth-and-the-team-of-bohemians|website=dulwichonview.org.uk|publisher=Dulwich OnView|accessdate=April 12, 2015|date=August 21, 2012}} an English socialite who became his wife in 1974. They divorced in 1977.{{cite news|last1=Sheppard|first1=Eugenia|author-link1=Eugenia Sheppard|title=Designer's Artifact Collection on Sale|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/2194296/the_monroe_newsstar|accessdate=April 12, 2015|work=The Monroe Newstar|via=Newspapers.com|date=October 21, 1977}} Kenneth Lane died in 2017, aged 85. No known immediate family members survive.{{cite web|author=Enid Nemy |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/20/style/kenneth-jay-lane-dead-designer-of-fake-jewelry.html |title=Kenneth Jay Lane, Jewelry Designer Who Made a Fortune Faking It, Dies at 85 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=2016-10-31 |accessdate=2017-07-23}}

Legacy

Kenneth Jay Lane was a member of London's swinging set who achieved a small piece of cultural immortality as the subject of a portrait by Warhol.{{cn|date=September 2024}}

References

External links

{{fashiondesigner|id=kenneth-jay-lane}}
[http://www.kennethjaylane.com Personal website]
[https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16028coll1/id/36170 Kenneth Jay Lane collection of Roger Vivier designs, 1956-1961] from The Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library at the Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Category:1932 births

Category:2017 deaths

Category:American art collectors

Category:American socialites

Category:Shoe designers

Category:American jewelry designers

Category:Artists from Detroit

Category:Artists from New York City

Category:University of Michigan alumni

Category:20th-century American jewellers

Category:Rhode Island School of Design alumni

Category:People from the Upper East Side