Vegetables, Chanel and Cuff Bracelets

"What inspires you?", "Everything."

Fulco Santostefano della Cerda was born in Palermo, in the beautiful Palazzo Niscemi, now the seat of the municipality. In his autobiography " Le estati felici", speaking of his childhood he recalls that he was so perfectly happy that he never had to think about the future.

There was a lush garden with exotic plants and animals including a camel (Moffo), later given as a gift to the director of a circus with whom Fulco's father had fallen madly in love, and a pair of mandrills, masquerade parties and the inevitable debts that are part of that declining aristocracy that was poorly adapted to the new times.

In 1929 Fulco closed his Palermo period with a big party, the "1799" Ball, with him dressed as Horatio Nelson and his 300 guests, including the Porter couple and Elsa Maxwell, burning the last of his remaining money but making him an essential name in the jet set.

Thanks to his friendship with Cole Porter and his wife who introduced him to Gabrielle Chanel, Fulco moved to Paris, they say to escape from creditors, and where he devoted himself to fabric design for Chanel.

Coco immediately realizes his potential and his passion, she will ask him to leave the fabrics to take care of the creation of her jewelry collection. Together with Mademoiselle he will create the famous "Maltese Cuff" or Amalfi Cuff, large enamel bracelets decorated with colored stones that mix the precious and the semi-precious without rules and in defiance of the Deco fashion of the time.

And although Chanel is rigorous in her dress, extremely linear and often in black, her jewels are Byzantine, colorful and exuberant, as befits the aesthetics of a Sicilian duke.

There will be many variations of those famous cuffs, but the originals, with their enamel worn away by so much love, can still be seen in the Verdura boutique on 5th Avenue in New York.

Verdura's working life was studded with successes and moves, famous drawings and adoring stars, collaborations with artists such as Dalì and consultancy for great film directors, including Hitchcock and Visconti.

Fulco di Verdura died in 1978 in London and in 1985 "Verdura" was purchased by Ward Landrigan, the head of the jewelry department at Sotheby's US.

Inside the New York boutique there are over ten thousand sketches of incredible jewels, in addition to the modern version of the Maltese cuffs that tell us about that wonderful partnership.

Verdura Flagship gallery at 745 Fifth Avenue in New York

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