If Liza Minnelli’s Jewelry Could Talk
The New York Times
Studio 54. Versailles. The Oscars. Some of the pieces worn by Ms. Minnelli have seen a lot.
The scene had all the subtlety of a sequined sledgehammer: Liza Minnelli, a performer who has often been measured against her mother, the actress Judy Garland, was lounging on a sofa beneath fluorescent Warhol portraits of Ms. Garland, Ms. Minnelli and her father, the director Vincente Minnelli.
Ms. Minnelli, 78, was sitting in the living room of her apartment in West Hollywood, Calif., on a Monday afternoon in August, with a small entourage that included a manager, a personal photographer and Michael Feinstein, a singer and pianist she has collaborated with for years. Tabletops were packed with nearly arranged accolades and other detritus from her career in show business — a French Legion of Honor award here, some Golden Globes there.
Ms. Minnelli was wearing a red collared shirt over a black turtleneck and swingy black trousers — no shoes — along with silver bone cuffs and other jewelry designed by her close friend Elsa Peretti.
Ms. Peretti, who died in 2021, has long been associated with Tiffany & Company: This is the 50th year that the brand has been selling her pieces. But Ms. Minnelli’s relationship with the Italian jewelry designer goes back even further. The women had a mutual friend in Halston, the American fashion designer born Roy Halston Frowick, who introduced them in the early 1970s. (Halston also introduced Ms. Peretti and Tiffany, in 1974.)
He and Ms. Peretti dressed Ms. Minnelli for several occasions that would become defining moments in her life. Ms. Minnelli wore a yellow Halston gown when she accepted the Oscar for Best Actress in 1973 for her performance in “Cabaret.” In her television special “Liza With a Z,” for which Ms. Minnelli won an Emmy in 1973, her wardrobe included several pieces by Halston and Ms. Peretti, a white suit and silver bone cuffs among them.
