Iconic Necklace commission: Catching up, and the frustrations.

Where to start.... 

I knew this was going to be a challenge when I took on the commission, only because of the complexity of the design.  

I could have chosen to only do the front part of the necklace, and make it so the back clasp was standard.  That is what most of the Etsy designers went with. And for good reason actually.

You have to take into account how to clasp, how will it lay both front and back, there are 5 strands, and the pearls themselves are 10mm with spaces between each pearl,  which is what makes this so iconic.

The measurements needed turns out to be a bit of the challenge part as well - for the young lady.  

Audrey was 5' 7", with a bust of 34A. Given her frame - that would put a petite size 4 for her dress size, with alterations for the 20" waist. Based on that the width of her collar measurement and the placement of the 5th strand - which would be approximately 14-18 inches

I had hoped that Roger Scemama who designed the first necklace would have done something similar and there would be a picture of the way he did his multi-strand necklaces, especially draping like this.

Alas, while there are many pictures of his iconic pieces nothing with multi-strand that are pearls.

So I resorted to counting pearls visible in the front and back of the necklace in the pictures.

I had already created a multi-strand prom necklace with 6-7mm fresh water pearls, so I already had some starting point for what would be standard necklace length

I sent an email with instructions to the young lady who I am doing the commission for, she was sick, which delayed the information. She came back with measurements close to what I had estimated, however shorter for the last longest strand.

21 1/2 for smallest length / 27 for the longest length  I had 21 and 29.

So off we went to create the lengths, 27", 25 3/4," 24 1/2", 23, 21 1/2"

After getting all 5 strands crimped and o-ringed, (not without my common dropsies, having to restring because I missed beads in the pattern or had too many) I started working on the final stages of the design, mounting the clasp so I can get the brooch attached.  And that is where the real frustrations starts. 

And there have been many!

First I had to bag the brooch converter bail I bought.  The brooch back was mounted in a way where the brooch when on the bail kept flopping over and exposing half of the back of the brooch. 

I bought a five strand silver plated clasp and had plans to hook the ends of the strands to the clasp by using the o-rings which were attached to the Accu-guards. After breaking one of the hoops (my bad) trying to get the ring to catch correctly, managed to catch it with the pliers and bent it, then tried to bend it back into shape which ended up snapping one of the hoops off.

After that, I managed to put one of the sides on incorrectly (doh) had to re-do the work and re-attach it properly.  Then, after laying it down,  found it just wouldn't lay flat on both sides.  AND it was heavy.

It has to lay flat both sides, front and back as it is a drape design.

At least the brooch didn't completely look out of place the way I secured it by pinning it to the strands. But is is crowded, heavy and doesn't have that pretty drape I am looking for.

So I took it apart, unmounted the clasp.  If I remove one of the strands I can get it all to lay flat both front and back, but I would be missing a strand from the design.

I've spent most of 3 hours today watching videos, scouring the internet, seeing if I can figure out a way to make this work.

Down to the studio to see what I might have.  I would really hate to have to re-string any of these.  Let alone how to figure out what kind of clasp if any will work, or do I have basically the o-rings connect up and no real five strander, but five strands you put on separately.

Sorta defeats the entire point of this design.

Iconic Necklace Commission: Day 2 ....and we are waiting.....

We're in a holding pattern until I get some answers to length since I am going to have to start stringing after all to see what the one largest strand is going to look like.

In the mean time I started working on cleaning up my backlog list of half finished projects that I have stacked up in the studio.

Iconic Necklace Commission:Day One - supplies and best way to proceed

As a designer who has a studio to work in, sometimes my current table setup isn't big enough to do multi-strand necklaces, so I take over the dining room table.

The lighting in the room is not great, we're planning on replacing the bulbs with natural white light dimmer bulbs.

Firemountain seems to think that sending beads in bubble wrap priority envelope is good idea. I wish they would go back to the boxes. But, everything is accounted for. I definitely will be returning the 10mm and 8mm Celestial Crystals. Way too big for the design.

Moving along I have several different styles for bead boards. My intent was to lay out without having to string a design to closely match the Tiffany's necklace. I normally love working with just this type of tray, since I have the dropsees.

But for this I need to see exact inches so I am using this board, not that I am fond of it. It's very flimsy.

After playing with three combos of 10mm pearls, 2mm/6mm crystal faceted rounds (left side on the picture below), and 2.5mm/4mm crystal faceted rounds(right side of the picture below) just not quite the spacing or look.

I guess I get to do some stringing now after all. I got to play around with that spacing. The 2.5 mm/ 4mm almost looks right with the 10mm but doesn't look right with the 8mm pearls.

Audrey was 5' 7" - not much other than her chest/waist/hip sizes. I did find a reference that she liked to wear a strand of pearls that was 16 inches in length.

 
I found another interesting tidbit today - Harper’s Bazaar November 2006 wore a recreation by Kenneth Jay Lane of the iconic necklace. However his version only had the knotted pearls and a different brooch off the front. There was no additional spacing between the pearls themselves other than the knots.

Tomorrow I go through my crystals to see if I can find my 4mm ab rounds.

Recreating an Iconic Necklace - A new Commission

 I have always wanted to have a commission that taxed my creativity and skills, but still stay within my known space.

My niece reached out to me two weeks ago, and asked if I would take on a commission for a necklace for her Halloween costume.

When she explained that she was going to do the iconic black dress from the opening scene from "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and wanted me to do the necklace - knowing her sewing skills and her love of authentic looking pieces, this was a challenge I grabbed onto.

And it's not just a costume.  She wants to wear this as a semi-formal/formal outfit.

So, off to research to create a materials list.

First thing I noticed in the research - there wasn't a crisp high resolution image of the necklace - that you can see all the details.

Second thing I noticed was the Etsy was filled with designs that well made me wonder if most of these other designers actually noticed that there were other components between each pearl on the iconic 5 strand necklace.  (Check out the search I did) 

There were a few that sorta did add a crystal round to separate the pearls, but there appears to be more than one item.  That's when it became clear that I needed to google for better quality image of the necklace.  It was almost impossible to find any real close up that wasn't grainy or distorted.  Even Pinterest didn't result in anything I hadn't already gotten.

Seems such a shame that such an iconic necklace would not have a high quality image just about it, especially the pendant/brooch.

Now, picking pearl size.  Based on the size of the pendant, the pearls are at least 8mm if not 10mm in size.  So I decided to get 8/10 white glass pearls. I already have 6mm and I think based on the spacing and width they might be used for the top row.

Rhinestone round balls are rather expensive, at almost $6.00 for 1 8mm wholesale.  I could only identify one or two in the front of the design.  So we're dropping those.  And there are no diamonds.  Hahahaha

I plan on using a 5 strand tube clasp to sit under the pendant brooch, which I am still looking to find one that can be use -that doesn't break the piggy bank.  There are some really beautiful brooches.

Tomorrow I am going to lay out the front of the 5th row to see what it looks like.