Kenneth Jay Lane (April 22, 1932 – July 20, 2017) was an American

costume jewelry Costume or fashion jewelry includes a range of decorative items worn for personal adornment that are manufactured as less expensive ornamentation to complement a particular fashionable outfit or garmentBaker, Lillian. Fifty Years of Collectabl ...

designer.

Life

Born in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

, the son of an automotive parts supplier, He is of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

descent. Lane attended the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

and the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

. Lane was a member of the New York art staff on ''

Vogue Vogue may refer to: Business * ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine ** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine ** ''Vogue China'', ...

'', 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 Roger Henri Vivier (13 November 1907 – 2 October 1998) was a French fashion designer who specialized in shoes. His best-known creation was the stiletto heel. Career Vivier has been called the " Fragonard of the shoe" and his shoes "the ...

. Lane was one of the subjects of

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...

's '' Screen Tests'' (where, in a film taken in 1966, he represented "high fashion"). From 1977 until his death his home in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

was a duplex in the

Stanford White Stanford White (November 9, 1853 – June 25, 1906) was an American architect. He was also a partner in the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, one of the most significant Beaux-Arts firms. He designed many houses for the rich, in addition ...

mansion completed in 1892 and one of the few surviving mansions on

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Av ...

. From 1923-77, it served as the home of the Advertising Club. At that time it was converted into a

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-contro ...

apartment house. His living room is the former club library and features an original marble mantelpiece, original artwork and lamps designed by

Robert Denning Robert Denning (March 13, 1927 – August 26, 2005) was an American interior designer whose lush interpretations of French Victorian decor became an emblem of corporate raider tastes in the 1980s. Early life Denning was born Robert Dennis ...

of Denning & Fourcade.''Home Design 2002: Jewels in the Town'' by Bob Morri
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 The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

in tribute to his philanthropy and bequests.

Jewelry design

Lane started designing jewelry and launched his business in 1963 while producing bejeweled footwear for Dior and

Arnold Scaasi Arnold Isaacs (May 8, 1930 – August 3, 2015), known as Arnold Scaasi, was a Canadian fashion designer who has created gowns for First Ladies Mamie Eisenhower, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Laura Bush, in addition to such notable persona ...

. He first came to public attention after Jo Hughes, a fashion industry insider, showed some of his designs to

Wallis, the Duchess of Windsor Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield, later Simpson; June 19, 1896 – April 24, 1986), was an American socialite and wife of the former King Edward VIII. Their intention to marry and her status as a divorcée caused a ...

, who bought several pieces and recommended him to her friends. As both costume jewelry and

society reporting In journalism, the society page of a newspaper is largely or entirely devoted to the social and cultural events and gossip of the location covered. Other features that frequently appear on the society page are a calendar of charity events and pi ...

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. Writing for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' at the time of

Truman Capote Truman Garcia Capote ( ; born Truman Streckfus Persons; September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, ...

Black and White Ball The Black and White Ball was a masquerade ball held on November 28, 1966, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Hosted by author Truman Capote, the ball was in honor of ''The Washington Post'' publisher Katharine Graham. Impulse Truman Capote deci ...

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." 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

kaftan A kaftan or caftan (; fa, خفتان, ) is a variant of the robe or tunic. Originating in Asia, it has been worn by a number of cultures around the world for thousands of years. In Russian usage, ''kaftan'' instead refers to a style of men's ...

s in fashion photographs. In 1966, he was awarded a special Coty Award for his jewelry design. He won the

Neiman Marcus Fashion Award The Neiman Marcus Award for Distinguished Service in the Field of Fashion was a yearly award created in 1938 by Carrie Marcus Neiman and Stanley Marcus. Unlike the Coty Award, it was not limited to American-based fashion designers. Recipients of th ...

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 Diana Vreeland (September 29, 1903 – August 22, 1989) was a French-American fashion columnist and editor. She worked for the fashion magazine ''Harper's Bazaar'' and as editor-in-chief at ''Vogue'', later becoming a special consultant to the ...

, 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 Barbara Pierce Bush (June 8, 1925 – April 17, 2018) was First Lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993, as the wife of President George H. W. Bush, and the founder of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. She previously w ...

wore one of his three-strand faux pearl necklaces to her husband's

inaugural In government and politics, inauguration is the process of swearing a person into office and thus making that person the incumbent. Such an inauguration commonly occurs through a formal ceremony or special event, which may also include an inaugur ...

ball. In 1993, the year Lane commemorated the 30th anniversary of his founding, ''The New York Times'' compared him to

Coco Chanel Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel ( , ; 19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971) was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post-World War I era with popularizing a sporty, c ...

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 QVC (short for "Quality Value Convenience") is an American free-to-air television network, and flagship shopping channel specializing in televised home shopping, owned by Qurate Retail Group. Founded in 1986 by Joseph Segel in West Chester, Pen ...

, 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.

Death

Through

he met Nicola Weymouth, an English socialite who became his wife in 1974. They divorced in 1977. Kenneth Lane died in 2017, aged 85. No known immediate family members survive.

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.

References

External links