Paul Flato

Paul Flato

Paul Flato was one of the biggest names in American jewelry in the mid-20^th century; yet, until fairly recently, appreciation for his work’s distinctive style and exuberance was maintained by a small circle of knowledgeable collectors.

Born and raised in southeast Texas to a prosperous family of German immigrants, Flato developed an interest in jewelry from a young age. Elizabeth Irvine Bray, whose 2010 book Paul Flato: Jeweler to the Stars has helped return 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 watched with rapt attention as a man fashioned a necklace out of silver wire, an act of creation that was forever burned into his memory.   

He 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 selling 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 jeweler, 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.) 

A gregarious and charming young man with a great sense of humor, Flato was a natural salesman. He opened an elegant salon at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57^th Street, the location itself a sign of his growing success. He mixed amongst high society, hosting and attending events, collecting clients along the way. While much of his business was word-of-mouth, he provided jewels to Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, making his name synonymous with high glamour.  He developed a fiercely loyal clientele which allowed his business to remain remarkably unaffected by the stock market crash of 1929. In fact, it was against the backdrop of the Great Depression that he created some of his most spectacular designs.

Flato’s dramatic designs found 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 enhance the escapist fantasies of moviegoers and readers of the Hollywood press. His contributions to the movie industry were so significant that he was credited for jewelry design in no less than six films including Holiday starring Katharine Hepburn, Blood and Sand with Rita Hayworth and Two-Faced Woman with Greta Garbo. 

Unfortunately, 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 have 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-hearted spin on the theft, commissioning a drawing of a gunman with the caption “Everybody Wants Jewels by Flato” for an ad in the Hollywood Reporter.

Though 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 personally and professionally, when a 17-carat emerald-cut diamond that had been entrusted to him by Fabrikant Jewelers vanished from his safe.  Suspecting Flato may have played a part in its disappearance, other members of the 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 jewels 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 misfortune could have possibly been softened had he not been so generous in extending credit to his well-to-do clients: Nelson Rockefeller, Mrs. Alfred G. Vanderbilt, Mrs. Frank Gould, Lady Isabel Guinness and Brenda Frazier all appeared with outstanding amounts in his ledgers.  

To escape his legal 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 States. The process dragged on for five years and he eventually found himself in 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 which 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.”

Flato possessed an optimism 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 Rosa.  Like his previous ateliers, the salon’s enticing window displays lured clients into a beautifully appointed, character-filled space. The jewels produced during this period were a significant departure from his high-glamour style of the 1930s and ‘40s, but his trademark eccentricity remained. He was a frequent visitor to the Anthropological Museum where he drew inspiration from Mayan and Aztec artifacts; he developed a pared-down, sometimes raw or “primitive” aesthetic. Some of the jewels continued his earlier exploration of surrealism, such as a necklace made of brass bells and a bracelet with longhorn bull terminals. Diamonds were used sparingly, and he played with different textures to emphasize the hand-wrought nature of his jewels, sometimes incorporating gemstones in their rough, unpolished form.

Flato maintained he wasn’t a draughtsman, but with no in-house designer in Mexico City, he was the one who created sketches for his clients’ consideration. One of the keys to Flato’s early success, however, was his ability to recognize talent, especially in those with fine pedigrees. He engaged a crop of highly imaginative designers that ensured his creations remained fresh, inventive and thoroughly enticing. His chief designer, Adolphe Klety, excelled at creating more formal, diamond-set jewels, such as his starburst earclips and entwined rose leaf bracelets (Iots 175 and 176).  Fulco di Verdura who, after beginning his career with Coco Chanel, was introduced to Flato by Diana Vreeland. Verdura, like Flato, was embraced by New York society but held additional appeal as the 5^th Duke of Verdura. George Headley, who married into the Whitney-Vanderbilt family, was pivotal to Flato’s appeal with the Hollywood set. Serving as designer, muse and client, Standard Oil heiress Millicent Rogers conceived the “puffy hearts” that Flato fashioned into brooches and earclips. Similarly, Josephine Forrestal, wife of James V. Forrestal (Secretary of the Navy under FDR) and a former fashion editor at Vogue, was not a full-time designer but a contributor of ideas and designs. His eye for exceptional talent is further evidenced by his correspondence with Suzanne Belperron during WWII, entreating her to come to New York to lend her genius to his already inspired designs.   

The jewels offered as lots 171-177 highlight Paul Flato’s independence from the European houses that so greatly influenced American design, particularly in the early to-mid 20^th century. The extraordinary range of his work—from the whimsical to the sensational—suggests that Flato’s desire to delight his audience may have outweighed any concern for financial stability. We are privileged to present one of the most significant groupings of Paul Flato jewels ever to appear at market and to herald his contributions to American jewelry design to the current generation of collectors.