In the book I featured the 3 designers who helped to create the image that became and was Monet. The last designer  of the 3 to leave was Roy Miozzi who left in 1985. Monet had many designers throughout its long history, there were chain manipulators, designers for special collections like Ciani and YSL and many other talented designers whose name not all of us may know.

This page from the companys newsletter, The Monet Family, is a page dedicated to the senior designers on staff at that time.

Even if there were no words at the bottom this ad conveys what Monet was all about throughout their long history-luxe glamour and quality.

The bracelets shown here are wonderful–do you have any?

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

The Chernows had a seemingly relentless publicist during the 30s – not only did he make sure that Monocraft and later Monet were featured in every newspaper and magazine in the country, he also wrote a weekly column for Womans Wear Daily promoting Monocraft!

The ad here is from the Washington Post of 1936- while it was not clear enough to be reprinted in the book, I thought it might be easier to see here. While not too clear you can see the arrow pin the model is wearing right under her collar.  The ad reads: Monogram is  New Style Fad.  For that smart touch of gold to accent your black ensemble try a golden arrow pin with dangling monogram. Particularly chic when worn under the chin as shown above. The sharp angle mode is echoed in the stitched black envelope hat slashed by a long black feather. Love the hat too!!!!

Underneath is one of my  Monocraft dangle monogram pins  in a very similar style which probably dates from the same time period!

Love this pin, it’s  soooo very Art Deco.  None of the sketches are dated so my guess is this must be from the early to mid 30s–it’s beautiful!

Monocraft did a number of different initial bracelets starting in late 1935 and into 1936. My guess is the Chernows may have been taking small steps towards entering the jewelry business. They were both notorious for  thinking things over for long periods of time before taking that final step. The patent for an initial bracelet is from 1936, while the sketch  by Mario “Granny” Granville is  for a bracelet similar to the one in the patent but with different style intials.

One of the things I recieved while writing the book was a whole “stack” of pencil sketches all bound up together in a manila folder! Many of them were sketched on interoffice memo paper, others were carefully sketched on vellum paper and some were just doddles on hard bristol board……..and of course NONE of them were dated, well of course not, why would they be!!!  Yet some of them I was lucky enough to find in some old newspaper ads, others I found in an old Monocraft catalogue from the 30s, so the dates on some were easy enough to find. There were so many it was impossible to fit them all in the book so I’ll  be posting some here. These were all sketched by Edmond Granville, Monets’ only designer from 1934 to 1959! The Scottie pin is probably from the mid 30s while the bracelet we know to be from 1935-36. The  bracelet shown is a click it bracelet . The sketches are old and a bit fragile so they may not all be too clear.

Shown here from the 1990s is the Claret series – both jewelry and photo are courtesy of Irene Kramer – one of the biggest Monet fan I know!

If anyone has any further information on this series we would both love to know!

This is one of my favorite necklaces from the 50s. It’s from the Carnelia series of 1952, and you can find the long pendant necklace and the matching earrings in silver on P.153 of the book.

There is also a rather iconic Monet ad from this time of a small black poodle (also in the book) wearing all of his jewelry at once! One of the earrings he wears are the Carnelia earrings. Now if I could only find the bracelet!!!!!!!!!!!

From 1957  here is the actual Tete a Tete necklace shown with the original ad-the bracelet shown in the ad is amazing!

In the 80s the YSL showroom was robbed in broad daylight- the culprits made off with all the jewelry which was never recovered.

The very first factory M&J used was a run down tenement building they bought for almost nothing. They used it until they had enough money to purchase their first real factory in downtown Providence some years later.

During the depresion with money scarce, M&J  could not meet payroll one week, so they went grocery shopping,  coming back with bags of food for each employee so they could at least feed their families that week!

FALL 1969-MELISANDE