Welcome to the GiltTrips podcast. I'm your host, Kendra Lockhart. As a goldsmith and
gemologist, I'll be speaking 24 karat on all things jewelry, metals, and gems. Join
me plus a few friends to demystify both materials and designs as your private jeweler. Let's
tune in on these topics and get golden. In 1947, Cosmopolitan magazine dubbed him the
King of Diamonds. Six years later, he was one of three jewelers called out in a performance
by Marilyn Monroe on the solar screen. He owned over one third of the world's most
famous and valuable stones, created the undisputed standard for new design, superior craftsmanship,
and commitment to rare excellence and beauty. He was a dark horse during the hardest times
of American history. Harry Winston would become a name that is globally recognized and remembered
for the most famous jewels, acquired notable collections, had epic patrons, and was a purveyor
extraordinaire at auctions. How did this private soul go from modest man to overlord of the
industry and become a household name? What genius did he possess that made him unstoppable,
even in a century of wars and a stock market crash? In today's episode, we will discover
the rise of an entrepreneur who has equal parts, purveyor, profiteer, publicist, and
philanthropist. Let's explore his growth, strategy, style, and marketing through seven
decades. Timestamps for the chapters will be in the show notes.
In 1896, Harry Winston was born in New York to his Russian immigrant parents, and his
father was a bench jeweler. He worked in the family shop and at age 12, Harry had his first
innate gemologist moment. Apparently he was producing a pawn shop and spotted a two-carat
emerald ring at 25 cents. He bought that and a second one to distract from his keenness,
which he would sell for $800 within 48 hours. That's over 3,000 times what he paid. And
it would set the tone for his business chops with estate knowledge, brokering, and reselling
his purchases. A year later, his father would move the family and the business out to Los
Angeles, a bit of a foreshadowing for Harry's future relationship involving the film industry,
which would soon make the jump from silent movies into the world of talkies.
After World War I, Harry would return to his hometown of New York and go solo in 1920 as
the premier diamond company. Initially, his roles were that of over-the-counter buying
plus appraising. He is just 24 years old at this point. And within five years, he had
acquired two of the most prominent estates of American socialites. In 1925, he bought
the lot of Rebecca Darlington Stoddard, a coal heiress and a woman who was very charitable
with children's causes, who had sadly died from childbirth 12 years prior. And the following
year, that of Arabella Huntington, widow of a railroad magnet who married well not once,
but twice, leaving her former life of poverty. The second purchase was for $1.2 million.
In today's value standards, that would exceed $17 million. Excessing both high society and
industry giants was a powerful step one in his domination. It would not be long before
the glass ceiling to overseas royalty was shattered as far as desirable clientele. But
what he did next with this collection was daring. Arabella had primarily had all of
her jewels done by Cartier, and at the turn of the century, that company was designing
for the British crown, which still owned India. The look was very formal and exceedingly ornate.
Very considered it outdated for America, which was in the midst of the Roaring 20s. Expression
was showing up in women's voting, jazz music, sound movies, and a high tide of new affluence
from the industrial area, or in some cases, bootlegging like Gatsby. Unlike Cartier,
Winston believed the gem should dictate the setting.
The last decade would end with economic turmoil. In 1929, the United States would nosedive
into the Great Depression, a dark hat trick of the Wall Street crash, banking failures,
and government policies that would harm not help with world trade. Amidst business failures,
decline in employment and rising prices, Harry Winston opens his eponymous new store in 1932,
three years into the chaos. He begins to manufacture jewelry under his name, with his future wife
Edna and her taste and style helping with the print ads. Despite the devaluing of assets
around the world, just three years later, he would purchase the raw diamond, known as
the yonker, for $700,000, weighing 726 carats, which would be cut into 12 impressive diamonds.
Harry would put his purchase in a parcel with the U.S. Post Office, uninsured for $0.64 to
his New York office. He said, if you can't trust the U.S. Post Office, who can you trust?
A photo with Shirley Temple holding the raw crystal made for a charming black and white
picture to the general people. A U.S. cutter by the name of Lazar Kaplan took the risk
and got the reward after a year of studying and planning the facets. Harry's shrewdness
of buying low and reselling at great margins was in his DNA, but the people needed feel
good news and signs of hope. Harry had been featured in an article to a prior purchase
in 1930, the formula of quote, immigrant son does good, unquote. But this deal created
such public excitement that he toured the gem, and it would be the subject of a short
film produced by MGM Studios in 1936. And now we see the beginning of his mutually beneficial
alliance between Harry and Hollywood, as well as the second step of his winning formula.
First it was product, now it's publicity. We enter the 1940s and hey, another war. But
at the dawn of this decade, Harry had hired the creative head named Nevden Kumryan, chief
of the design studio. Nevden sketches birthed the signature cluster style, incorporating
assortments of pair cups, marquee shapes and round diamonds into various groupings and
angles to maximize beauty. And this design would be a great counterbalance to fashion.
Old Hollywood had an abundance of leading ladies, but the outerwear was post war utilitarian
and boxy. Harry, being a passionate Pisces, offered creations capturing allure, softness,
and a dreamy vision for diamonds and gems. His clientele was now international, thanks
to his famous investments. In a handful of years, he would possess the Hope Diamond,
the hexagonal Stokesbury Emerald, the 90 karat briolette, and would be dubbed by Cosmopolitan
magazine as the King of Diamonds. He would also receive a letter from the Duchess of
Windsor, yep, that gal who had Queen Elizabeth's uncle leave the throne that we mentioned in
the last episode with Cartier, and he would become jeweler to the Marrage of Indore. That
commissioned necklace, along with other treasures, would go cross-country on an exhibit called
the Court of Jewels, because Harry wanted, quote, the public to know more about precious
gems, unquote. This four-year tour would generate donations to worthy causes, and be the final
ingredient in his success playbook. Popularity.
The 1950s were key in his exposure and cementing him as a household name. Harry would get dubbed
jeweler to the stars. As that strategic partnership satisfied Hollywood's appetites of attention
and uniqueness, while he gained their visibility and consumer attraction. A brilliant marketing
move, and an even smarter solution for an introvert who was intensely private and refused
to be photographed for fear of being held up and robbed. In 1952, Life magazine ran a
feature on his empire, noting that Harry held the largest historic collection of jewels
outside the British crown. In 1953, he gets a name drop directly from Movieland by Marilyn
Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. It would be the first, but not the last time his company
gets mentioned in films. A year later, the touring jewels finishes, and America is done
with the Korean War. This decade would see Winston's brand expand into Geneva, Switzerland,
and two years later into Paris, France. Near the end of the decade, Harry donates the hope
diamond to the Smithsonian, again mailing a priceless gem through the post office. I'll
say more about the legend of the curse on that, which clearly Harry was quite immune
to, but as of today, over 7 million visitors can witness this in the museum thanks to him.
The 1960s start with the company moving to a bigger New York location to accommodate
its breakneck speed, growth, and the need to house the design studio, manufacturing area,
showroom, and loose diamond department under one roof. This decade would be an enormous
shift culturally, politically, and socially. The president, John F. Kennedy, would get shot
on national television. Civil rights movements would organize and demonstrate. America would
go to yet another war, this time in Vietnam, and the hippie area of wanting peace and love
to prevail would both unite and divide. Meanwhile, two highly important diamonds for the country's
most famous women would realize in the second half of the 60s through Harry Winston's brand.
In 1966, Winston bids and wins a rough diamond weighing 241 carats from the Premier Mine in
South Africa, the same name as his first company. He gets it cut into a 69 carat pear shape.
In 1967, the sister of a billionaire publisher buys it, but based on turmoil in the times,
she isn't okay with the risk of wearing it out in New York City. So she sends it to an
auction in 1969. Elizabeth Taylor, Hollywood's queen, and one half of the power couple with
fellow actor Richard Burton, previews it in Switzerland, and the couple arrange a limit
of $1 million to bid upon it. But they had some stiff competition. The king of diamonds
himself ready to rebuy it, and Aristotle Onassis, a Greek shipping tycoon who had met Jackie
Kennedy when she was married and while he was dating her sister. Who wins the diamond?
Neither of those men. Cartier, Cartier won it, which historically had been underbidding
against Winston before. Richard Burton was famous for his looks, his talent, and his
tantrums. While Liz was accepting of the outcome, her husband went into a 24 hour maniac episode
where he was berating Cartier to buy it no matter what, $2 million, or his life, whichever
was greater, as he wrote in his journal. Richard went so far as to say that the world's most
lovely diamond belongs on the world's most lovely woman, and that he would have an absolute
fit if it went to Jackie, or Sophie Loren, or Mrs. Huntington Misfit of Dallas. Petty.
But he got his way, and the diamond would be named for the pair. Taylor did not like
wearing it as a ring, which is how it was purchased, so it went into an $80,000 commission
necklace, which cleverly hid her tracheotomy scar from her life-threatening battle with
pneumonia. But the stipulation is Cartier gets to show the ring in its New York and Chicago
locations, a play straight out of Winston's book for making jewels viewable by the public.
Let's bring Jackie Kennedy back into the mix. She is widowed with the country's cameras
rolling in 1963. Meanwhile, her sister, who is dating Aristotle on asses, gets Jackie
invited onto his yacht to soften her grief. Whom does she go running back to when her
brother-in-law Bobby is assassinated five years later? Jackie is fearing for the life
of her children and wants to leave the country. And in doing so, she ends up with the Lesotho
Diamond as her 71-carat engagement ring. The raw was cut into 18 diamonds, and Winston
had the genius at this point to request a live broadcast of the cutting. Now how he got
the rough? He went over to Brazil and then to Antwerp, and once it was his, mails it.
Yes, the good ol' post office oversees back to his office. The luck of this guy.
The 1970s ends a glorious run with Harry's death in 1978 at age 82. Two years prior,
he had acquired a rough diamond he would cut into a 72-carat pear shape just in time for
the country's bicentennial, or 200-year anniversary, and he called it the Star of Independence.
Harry would carry it in his pocket so as to have such a perfect stone, both dear and near
to him, and in a final act of shrewdness, talent, and patriotism for the country as a first-generation
American. He would repeat this also in 1976 with another perfect pear shape he named the
Washington for our country's first president. His legacy in the world of gems, American
business, public relations, designs, diamond cutting, dressing the A-listers decade after
decade came to a conclusion. Harry also popularized the pear cut in all styles of adornment and
brought the Asher cut engagement ring to the forefront of people's attention. Lastly,
he elevated the prominence of emeralds and made it into the film industry. His business
would be handed down to his second generation of both of his sons. Unfortunately, they would
get locked into a decade-long battle with each other, and finally in 2000, Ronald and
a firm would buy out his brother Bruce for $54 million. But at least in the time that
it was in their hands, the company would launch watches in 1989, which may have foreshadowed
the acquisition of Harry Winston by the Swatch Group, a Swiss conglomerate primarily representing
timepiece companies. Nyla Hayek would take on the role of CEO and be pivotal in Harry
Winston's three power moves in the auction world. She led the continuation of the Winston
legacy of holding the best jewels we can find. The first in 2013 at Christie's, the company
would bid on and win a 13.22 carat flawless vivid blue pear-shaped diamond for $26 million.
Five years later, in 2018, also at Christie's, a diamond whose weight of 18.96 carats matched
the year of the founder's birth, a fancy pink vivid, for $50 million, which was faceted
as an emerald cut pattern. And lastly, in 2017, Christie's for the third time would auction
off a square-cut Colombian emerald for $5.5 million and 18 carats, the most expensive
emerald per carat to date, and an heirloom in the Rockefeller family.
Let's move on to a few bullets dodged. Harry's victory, as far as being a business titan,
was almost thwarted when he was just in his 20s. An employee had cleaned him out. And
fortunately, due to his sterling reputation, Harry was able to secure a loan and repeat
his magic, this time with less gullibility regarding others. While he would work alone,
he would also regain the ground lost by 1920. Perhaps the most important stone that he's
known for, the Hope Diamond, has kind of an interesting backstory. It was stolen in 1642
from a temple in India, and this diamond would create a cult status of being cursed. Jean
Baptiste Tavernier was a French traveler and purveyor of exotic goods. He went to India
due to the lore of an abundance of colored diamonds. So he buys the rough, and when he's
back in the homeland, Louis XIV, the son king of France, invites him to share adventures
and show goods. The king gets it cut and wears it around his neck. He passes it to his great-grandson,
Louis XV, who obtains a court jeweler and has a decoration created for the Order of
the Golden Fleece, a group to sustain Catholic chivalry. Louis XV's grandson, Louis XVI,
the throne, marries Marie Antoinette, and they die in the revolution. So far, the owners
are Louis the Great, Louis the Beloved, and Louis the Executed. The couple had tried to
flee two years prior, got busted, and had their assets taken but poorly guarded.
A cutter named Wilhelm Falls reshapes the gem after the revolution, but gets fatally
shot by his son for the gem, who later kills himself. Now the jewel is acquired by the
Hope family, a bunch of British bankers. Now let's skip to passing through to the heirs
who are fighting over sell or don't because of one sibling's gambling problems. Next,
a Greek merchant buys it and then sells it to Cartier before he drove himself off a cliff.
In 1911, Evelyn Walsh McClain buys it from Cartier and her mother-in-law dies, her son
is killed at age nine in a car crash, her husband leaves her for another woman, he eventually
passes in a psych ward, her daughter succumbs to an overdose, and Evelyn has to sell her
asset, the Washington Post, yet still can't get out of debt. The heirs sold it to Harry
Winston in 1949, where he toured it for many years and then donated it to the Smithsonian.
The mail carrier, who was responsible for the parcel, would have two car crashes, one
which would break a leg, one which would yield a head injury, his wife died of a heart attack,
his dog strangled itself on the leash, and his house had a major fire. Now it's time
for my top five favorite designs from the house of Winston. First, the Winston Cascading
Necklace. Made for Harry's beloved wife Edna, this 407 diamond baguette, round, pear, and
marquee cut total 187.5 carats, and in platinum is a weightless looking bib collar, with
larger diamonds floating off stems for a gravity defying effect. Next, the Winston Legacy sapphire,
an exceptional shade of blue, this cashmere royal blue gem is the centerpiece in a frame
of diamonds attached to a multi-row color of brilliance. The sapphire weighs in at 43
carats. My third favorite, the Almalfi Necklace. If you love unexpected color combinations and
vibrant hues in juxtaposed materials, then this piece features 47 rubolite tourmalines
surrounded by that Tiffany's blue shade of turquoise and diamonds, interpreting the
Italian palette of local flower petals against the seawaters of the Mediterranean. Next up
is the Purple Dragon Necklace. A lavender colored 65 carat sapphire cushion cut in the signature
cluster style of diamonds is a statement that does not compromise on femininity in hue
nor design. And finally, the Rubian Diamond Cluster Necklace, with signature Winston claw
prongs, a beautifully matched vivid red gems suite, showcasing the intersection of minimal
metal, multiple angles, scintillation in a symmetrical piece with alternating trios of
rounds and marquee diamonds to enhance the colored gems. The legacy of Harry Winston
was someone whom De Beers contacted first when new raw material was discovered. He had the
touch for buying, cutting, selling, buying back and reselling. He brought wealth and
beauty and impossible standards into the homes and lives of the middle class. The mutually
beneficial relationship with different types of media created a stage for this quiet man
to go around the world for rare priceless treasures and then allow us into his world.
When asked about his career, he was famously quoted as saying, I love the diamond business.
It's a Cinderella world. It has everything. People. Drama. Romance. Precious stones. Speculation.
Excitement. What more could you want?
Thank you for listening and learning with me. I would love you to share this project
with people finding rare beauty in today's world and throughout our times. Until the
next episode, keep your own stories sparkling.