Living in Color

Hutton Wilkinson breezed

into the Valley in mid-

November to showcase the

Tony Duquette collection

of jewelry at Neiman Marcus.

Later in the day, he joined the

Neiman Marcus team and a few

invited guests at Lon’s at The 

Hermosa for dinner, where he

regaled everyone with stories

of his years with Duquette and

the extravagant jewelry creations.

Before designer extraordinaire Tony Duquette’s death in 1999, Wilkinson was his business partner and design collaborator in the Tony Duquette Jewelry Collection, which the pair started in 1995. The two shared a love of colorful, imaginative excess, whether in interior design or as they fashioned elaborate necklaces, brooches, earrings, rings, bracelets and cufflinks.

“More is More” was Duquette’s mantra, as he created bold, theatrical jewelry pieces with Wilkinson, his business partner and design collaborator for more than three decades. Wilkinson’s bent was similar: “If it’s not fabulous, it’s meaningless,” Wilkinson says.

Color is everything to Wilkinson, whose amazing interior designs incorporate emerald green, deep, saturated red and rich metal tones. “I’ve always been interested in color. I’ve never done a white room, and I make the ugliest beige rooms you’ve ever seen in your life.”

Then he adds, “But I make really good beige jewelry.”

That he does. Among his simpler pieces are a necklace and bracelet of smoky topaz set in 18-karat yellow gold. Both are stunning and, like the rest of the Tony Duquette Collection, as beautiful on the underside as on the topside.

These pieces are the exceptions, however. More dominant in the collection are the brilliant pink of tourmaline, the red of coral and the green of uncut emeralds. Add diamonds, turquoise, amethyst, garnet and any other brilliantly colored stones he can obtain, fashion them as the “stones speak to you,” and they become the sought-after works of art for which his clients pay $40,000 to more than a hundred grand.

Who are his clients? “Well, men don’t necessarily understand my jewelry,” Wilkinson says. “They want to discuss karats.” But the more sophisticated buyer, usually a woman who knows what she likes and doesn’t need the approval of her friends, immediately gets it.

“I think – and hope – these women live their lives this way, too,” says Wilkinson, “in color, with imagination.”

Wilkinson has loved jewelry from the time he was a child, admiring his mother’s jewelry, fine pieces inherited from her grandmother, a “very rich South American lady” whose jewelry was either custom-made or purchased ready-made in France. The problem was the young Wilkinson wanted to wire his mother’s jewelry together to create original pieces. Needless to say, that didn’t go over well.

He first connected with Duquette when he was in 7th grade. It happened through the pages of the Los Angeles Times, which featured Duquette’s work. What he saw thrilled him. While his mother’s jewelry was lovely, Duquette’s was outrageously bold, daring, theatrical. He told his father, “That’s what I want.”

Duquette’s influence is clearly seen in Wilkinson’s work both an interior designer and a jewelry designer. But there are differences as well. “The stones tell me what they want to be,” he says. “My combination of colors is unusual. I think that’s different from what Tony was doing.

“I look at his jewelry from the ’50s to the ’70s, and it’s big, but simple. He was very easy with his stones, probably because they were hard to come by.

“I’m more organized, slightly more commercial and probably I’m a little squarer. He would paint an emerald if he didn’t think it was quite the right color. I would never do that.”

Well, everyone has his limits.

The collection is available at Neiman Marcus in Scottsdale Fashion Square.

At top, Hutton Wilkinson with Barbara Barrett (wearing a Tony Duquette brooch) at dinner at Lon's at The Hermosa.

At bottom: The dinner table at Lon's was accessorized with the Tony Duquette Collection. 

PHOTOS BY ASHLEY LOWERY AND COURTESY TONY DUQUETTE