The Crowd

B.W. Cook

He comes to town but once a year. A pilgrimage of sorts. No, he does not

wear a red suit and sing “Jingle Bells.” He comes with his latest book,

wonderful stories of life on the planet in distant places, often shared

with a most urbane and sophisticated wit.

He is John Loring, design director for Tiffany and Co., headquartered in

New York, who is traveling on a cross-country tour to introduce his

audience to “Tiffany Jewels,” a vibrant and richly storied book complete

with more than 350 illustrations tracing much of the world of jewelry

design as it relates to Tiffany and Co. and the 19th and 20th centuries.

The man who makes his living understanding the tastes of the American

monied class arrived in town last week for a series of charity-sponsored

receptions at such venues as the Mission San Juan Capistrano and the

Southern California Art Institute.

Then, midweek, Loring walked into Pinot Provence Restaurant at the Westin

South Coast Plaza Hotel, Costa Mesa, for a little luncheon conversation

with a contingent of local style meisters of Orange County.

Hosted by the lovely Jo Ellen Qualls, vice president of Tiffany’s

important Costa Mesa store at South Coast Plaza, an afternoon of social

round-table talk ensued at high pitch.

“I want to have a moment of fun. I want us all to relax and enjoy each

other’s company. I want you all to get to know this remarkable man John

Loring,” said Qualls, toasting her luncheon crowd gloriously assembled in

the long, narrow Provence-inspired private dining room of Chef Joachim

Splichal’s award-wining establishment.

Loring, an erudite and soft-spoken master of the artistic side of life,

said, “In a larger sense, the book is a chronicle of American society,

wealth, and style over the course of eight generations.”

Loring knows best. He comes from an aristocratic American line. Part of

his ancestry dates to the Puritan roots of Daniel Webster.

He was born at the dawn of World War II, and raised on a ranch in Arizona

when desolate land known as Carefree sold for a few paltry dollars an

acre. City folk, like his own clan, settled the region living in rambling

adobe houses filled with Navajo pottery and European master paintings

that hung askew over the occasional heirloom Chippendale bureau. A little

Carefree dust over the mahogany patina added local authenticity.

Such early Westerners inhabiting the glorious Southwest in the yet

undeveloped mid-20th century often drove their battleship Lincoln

Continentals down the dirt roads to town to fetch groceries for the week.

For Loring, life was simple and beautiful. It was a childhood that

forever shaped the man who would move on to New York City, then Yale

University (graduating with a degree in English literature), and finally

off to Paris, France, to complete his education at the Ecole des Beaux

Arts in the great tradition of artists, architects and designers of the

century.

His passion would be painting and print making as a young man of 21.

Loring would fall into the cafe society of his day, growing up as a

younger constituent along side the great mid-century design talent in

Europe the likes of Givenchy, St. Laurent and Dior. Naturally, his mind’s

eye would be colored by the experience.

The mix of Arizona roots and French society juxtaposed Loring’s

perspective just enough to create a uniquely American sensibility with

respect to the manners and maneuvers of people and our time.

Loring -- who for many years following his European tour, worked for

Architectural Digest as the New York bureau chief with the indefatigable

Paige Rense, before joining Tiffany and Co. more than a decade ago -- has

seen it all, culturally speaking.

Especially with regard to the habits, the tastes, the highs, and the lows

of America’s privileged. In a sense, Loring is the nonfiction counterpart

to society novelist Louis Achincloss.

Under the Tiffany name, his books, now numbering nine -- are filled with

volumes of research and reveal the real lifestyle of the rich, the

famous, and the motivated in American society.

Published by Harry N. Abrams Inc., the latest entry into the library of

style explores the design paths of such notables as Elsa Peretti, Jean

Schlumberger and Paloma Picasso. Loring also includes the incredible

women such as Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis, Babe Paley, Diana Vreeland,

Carrie Donovan, Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn and Liza Minelli, who

have showcased the jewelry designed by the talented creators. In

addition, the book explores American families of social distinction with

names such as Astor, Stanford and Pulitzer.

At the Westin event, Loring shared a bit of his personal lifestyle,

telling the crowd, “I’ve just recently moved into my new home in

Manhattan, leaving the upper Eastside for an 1850s brick townhouse in

Hell’s Kitchen.”

Eyes widened at the mention of Hell’s Kitchen.

“It is an absolutely wonderful place to live,” continued Loring sharing

the ingredients of his major renovation of the once dilapidated structure

that nobody wanted. Purchased several years ago at what Loring calls a

giveaway price, the sellers repeatedly asked him if he was sure he wanted

to buy the house.

“Yes, I’m sure, I want the house,” he offered with a laugh. “I never

thought I could leave the security of my apartment life on the east side.

I was very content.”

Loring mixed up the elements of his so-called secure existence, and now

gives dinner parties in the long and narrow dining room of his townhouse,

decorated in the fashion of a Portuguese dining salon.

“I am very eclectic,” he added. “And I don’t aspire to collect and hoard

any object. I am constantly changing my surroundings, selling off the

old, giving it away, allowing it to move on and out of my life and into

another situation. I am not the master of things. They are just that,

only things. Things to be admired, appreciated, studied, and perhaps

collected, but things just they same.”

Odd perhaps that a man who has made a career as a student and as a

creator, collector and purveyor of “things,” from art to architecture,

interior design, fashion and fine jewelry, feels no mortal connection to

those objects of human desire.

In a word, it is because Loring’s real passion is the people behind the

things. Style is not so much defined by the material representation, but

rather by the man or woman.

Perhaps that is why a fabulous diamond brooch by Schlumberger really only

dazzles on the shoulder of a woman of style and substance. Perhaps that

is why a home filled with finest furniture is nothing if it is inhabited

by a person without soul.

John Loring knows these truths. He is, after all, just a spoiled kid who

grew up wandering out into the Arizona desert to stare at the heavens and

dream about Paris.

His dream came true. His book, “Tiffany Jewels,” is available in

bookstores everywhere and of course can also be found at Tiffany and Co.

* B.W. COOK’S column appears Thursdays and Saturdays.