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Diane Love For Trifari- Guide & Design Archive

Sara Brandon


Trifari ad, photo credit by Bert Stern


A few years ago, I sat down with artist Diane Love to go over her career, vintage designs she did for Trifari, and her fine pieces. I was lucky enough to interview her and gain access to all of her original samples to create the first-ever organized archive of her work. Please browse and learn about all the wonderful designs she did for Trifari, as her pieces only had hangtags and were not signed, thus they are often misattributed.




The Diane Love For Trifari Image Archive: 

This is a vintage jewelry resource for those interested in the costume jewelry produced by Diane Love for Trifari. The images presented are originals from the pieces Diane herself saved and is now in the process of archiving. She is also presenting scans of the many ads that featured her jewelry for Bergdorf Goodman and Trifari. These ad images fill in the blank concerning some jewelry examples not in her possession. Images Copyright © Diane Love,2013. Rights Reserved. 

“I did two collections each year, so a total of four. I didn’t really see them as separate collections it was more about expanding the existing body of work. I created about 50 designs for Trifari in that two year period. I didn’t have any particular theme except to incorporate an actual art facsimile into each piece…..In terms of the Trifari I still have about 30/40 examples. So I would say I have 75-80% of what I created for Trifari in my archive” Diane Love, www.dianelove.com”.



Introduction to the Archive by Diane Love. Current Image of the artist. 

"Diane Love for Trifari was originally created by me under license with Trifari in 1969 and was launched in 1970. The jewelry included replicas of antique artifacts in contemporary settings. The Trifari collection was inspired by the one of a kind precious jewelry collection I designed for Bergdorf Goodman in New York City in 1969/1972.


Sotheby’s auction image of Diane Love, 18K gold, Bronze, and Diamond necklace. 1969. Bergdorf example.


As an art historian and painter I wanted to make art a part of fashion. Why shouldn’t people wear art? And why shouldn’t the wearing of art be available to everyone? The second thought is what impelled me to contact Trifari and suggest we make replicas of art objects and include them in a costume jewelry setting. Trifari, loved the idea and conscientiously reproduced the replicas and settings to my specifications. As with my precious jewelry every Trifari piece came in a display box with a description of the history of the object. These designs were sold nationally and in my shop on Madison Avenue in New York City. In 1986 I closed Diane Love and returned to my work as a painter. I did not realize, however, that interest in my jewelry continued. In 1990 I was pleasantly surprised to be contacted by one of the authors of Jewels of Fantasy, Costume Jewelry of the 20th Century, a book sponsored by Swarovski. He wanted to include pieces from my Trifari collection in the book and traveling exhibition. Jewels of Fantasy was published in 1991 and the exhibition traveled around the world from 1991-1996 to museums such as: The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; The Musee D’Art Decoratif, Paris; FIT, New York City, as well as to museums in Milan, Tokyo, and Saudi Arabia. After the publication of Jewels of Fantasy I learned about the active secondary market for my Trifari designs at auction, on Ebay and 1stdibs and collectors started asking me to vet pieces attributed to me that were being offered. Which brings us to 2013 when Sara Brandon of Sarara Couture contacted me and requested an interview. I couldn’t have been more pleased. Finally I would have an opportunity to describe the characteristics of my work so that they would not be confused with other Trifari jewelry". 

Diane Love Precious Jewelry Ads, Press, and Articles from Her Archive:


















DIANE LOVE FOR TRIFARI DESIGN ARCHIVE: We organized and photographed her work here and it can be found here on her site: https://www.dianelove.com/design


































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