Courtesy Faraone Mennella
The issues arrived immediately pursuing the death of jeweler Roberto Faraone Mennella, from most cancers, at age 48. “Are you heading to shut? How will you proceed?” And they came, says Amedeo Scognamiglio, his husband or wife in existence and organization, “from every person. And I realize. I normally wished Roberto to be at the heart of the brand and have the highlight, but we worked on almost everything alongside one another. The enterprise could go on, but how?”
Faraone Mennella, the jewelry model the childhood close friends proven alongside one another in 2001, was a collaboration that would produce some of the era’s most acknowledged items, such as the Stella gold hyperlink earrings made famous by Sexual intercourse and the City. The brand has a handful of suppliers all over the earth, all intended by Roberto, but the store at the heart of the tale is the just one on By using Fuorlovado on Capri.
The island is the place the two guys, regarded by lots of in jewelry circles as “the boys,” hosted their yearly Fourth of July get together and expended time with their fiercely faithful purchasers. “Seeing Roberto and Amedeo on Capri was like looking at mates with whom you select up ideal where by you still left off, no subject how a great deal time has passed,” suggests philanthropist and entrepreneur Hope Smith. “We would go on early morning hikes, swim in the sea, take boats to mysterious dining establishments.” Hospitality was as vital as the aesthetic.
But the aesthetic, in the jewelry and the retail outlet style, was solid and apparent: a signature pale grey and white palette, a tasteful chandelier, and jewels, in both of those yellow gold and colorful cabochon stones, displayed lovingly in circular vitrines. “I was scared to improve something, for sentimental causes,” Scognamiglio suggests. “But in the course of the lockdown I invested time with our buddy the architect Marialaura Rossiello Irvine, who had long gone through a very similar working experience when her spouse died. At 1st she also was scared to contact Roberto’s do the job, but she knew that if we didn’t it would switch into a mausoleum. If I was to continue on, it would have to be an evolution. It couldn’t just cease at the second Roberto died.”
The pair labored with each other to maintain Faraone Mennella’s spirit while also letting it to evolve. The pale gray details turned a mild blue. Rossiello Irvine created a new mosaic reminiscent of Amalfi Coastline pathways to use in the course of. In several means the improvements are delicate, apart from for a single: the light installation in the window. “My desire
was to make the Stella earring iconic,” Scognamiglio suggests, “so Marialaura mentioned, ‘Let’s make it a large light.’ ”
In accordance to Scognamiglio, two times right before he died, his associate puzzled if people really understood what they had completed with jewelry. “For some cause, he felt as if no person seen. This is my way to make him see that did not occur,” he claims. “We did one-of-a-variety pieces, tiaras, and million-dollar necklaces, but it’s possible we have been shy about expressing our main. This earring designed us who we are. I however see ladies going for walks on Capri with the earrings and the Stella necklace they purchased a long time ago.”
And the jewelry will go on to come. Scognamiglio will emphasize their signature gold items and use the trove of drawings Roberto remaining to generate new types. A documentary is in the works, too, to explain to their tale, which options a sequence of chance encounters—with Neiman Marcus, with Patricia Field—that do not appear to be achievable in today’s surroundings. There will also be a occasion on Capri. Complete disclosure: I will be there, sporting the Stella earrings I bought 15 many years in the past in Nina Griscom’s shop on Lexington Avenue and set on soon thereafter for supper with “the boys.”
You see, there is a quotation from me about Roberto in the window of the shop on Capri. I hope 1 day you can go by and read it.
This tale appears in the November 2021 challenge of Town & Country.
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