9 Feb, 2010
Elsa Peretti Open Heart bracelet
It would be quite an understatement to suggest that the home of Mrs. Randolph A. Hearst in Manalapan, the hyperexclusive enclave just south of Palm Beach, Florida, is grand. That's obvious the moment you pull up to the circular driveway at Casa Miranda, the towering ltalianate structure designed in 1929 for a great-grandson of railroad baron Cornelius tiffany jewellery. Situated on five acres of lush tropical land, the grounds include 500 feet of private beach along the Atlantic Ocean. Pushing back a heavy mahogany door, you step into a soaring entrance hall with a monumental Giorgio de Chirico sculpture, a carved Renaissance-style ceiling, and floors made of coquina, a limestone studded with coral and shell fragments that Elsa Peretti Open Heart bracelet in the light.Ascending a staircase, you find Veronica Hearst on the landing, wearing one of her simple hautecouture columns by John Galliano tor Dior. A statuesque, dark-haired beauty, she has been asked to posttor a photograph in front of a 1982 portrait by Andy Warhol. "This is so unfair," she Flower charm bracelet with alarm, "to be standing in front of a picture from almost 25 years ago!" Warhol's work is remarkably stylized, and though nearly a quarter of a century has passed, one thing is crystal clear: Hearst looks exactly the same. Even her old friend Karl Lagerfeld agrees: "She's very beautiful-she's always been very beautiful, and above all, she never changes."Tiffany Cushion Toggle bracelet for her remarkable collection of haute couture, Hearst is a dream client, as .she can slip into a sample size. She sends many ot her most impressive designs to the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum. "She understands that couture is an art," says Harold Kocia, head of the institute, pointing to her recent gift of an extraordinary yellow-and-green silk halter dress by Galliano for Dior. "With couture clients, there is a great deal of modification that can happen to a dress. With Veronica, the design is not eviscerated."
