Community Chat

[Sooner]

If you have pearls, big or little, real or fake, wear them this weekend if you feel like paying tribute to Mrs. Bush!   

Wear them with jeans and a t-shirt, wear them with a sweater, wear them with whatever you are wearing!  If someone asks, tell them it is a tribute to a remarkable lady!  

[Sweet_Serenity]

[blueluna]

Part of a nice article about this special lady and her famous pearls.

(And QVC connection! )

kansascity.com/news/nation-world/article208994614.html

Faux and fabulous: How pearls became Barbara Bush's iconic fashion statement

"Last year, the George H.W. Bush Library and Museum hosted a public celebration for the June birthdays of the former president and first lady Barbara Bush.

Suggested attire: pearls and socks.

Colorful socks are his style statement, pearls are her trademark.

When people speak of Barbara Bush's impact on fashion as first lady, it's always about the pearls. Bush died Tuesday at age 92.

"The pearls are to cover the wrinkles, which they no longer do," she joked in 2015 with her granddaughter, Jenna Bush Hager, a "Today" show correspondent. "You can't wear pearls all over your face."

When Bush wore a three-strand necklace of faux pearls with her royal blue inaugural gown in 1989, that one piece of jewelry became a shot heard 'round the fashion world.

The three-strand necklace — nicknamed the "Barbara Bush Pearls” or the “Barbara Bush Necklace" — was created by a king of costume jewelry, Kenneth Jay Lane, the same man who designed the iconic, five-strand pearl necklace Audrey Hepburn wore in "Breakfast at Tiffany's."

When the Chicago Tribune caught up with the designer two months after the Bush inauguration, he was a man under siege.

"The demand is so great, it's as if they just invented the pearl," Lane told the Tribune. "I've done pearl necklaces for years and years, but it's Barbara Bush who has sent pearl sales through the ceiling.

"The three-strand necklace is by far the major look. It's outselling the double-strand significantly......."

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"....In the late 1980s, the fashion industry hadn't expected much from Bush in the way of setting style trends. With a crown of snowy white hair and ever-constant pearls around her neck, she projected an image of grandmother, not glamazon.

But when she wore simulated pearls on Inauguration Day, American women started dusting off their own old strands languishing in their jewelry boxes......"

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"......Bush had favored large imitation pearls for years and the three-strand necklace was her favorite look, her deputy press secretary, Jean Becker, told UPI news service in May 1989.

Bush bought most of her pearls from New York-based Lane, who died last year at the age of 85.

He had a famous clientele — Princess Diana, Elizabeth Taylor, Nancy Reagan, Jackie Kennedy and Britney Spears.

There's a photo of Bush with the designer on the Kenneth Jay Lane website.

"The last time I checked she had about 10 different pearl necklaces," Becker told UPI at the time. "She says she just really likes them. Beyond that there really isn't a reason."

Bush once joked that she wore the three-strand necklace so much that if she ever took it off her head would fall off.

The pearls she wore for the inauguration balls were faux, but they were high-quality fakes — large, 12-millimeter glass beads. The necklace was worth about $600, Lane told the Tribune.

"If they were the real thing, they would have cost around $200,000," he said.

Bush found a bit of humor in her new status as a style icon.

"Suddenly she is setting all these trends and she kind of gets a kick out of it," Becker said at the time. "'She enjoys looking nice and certainly looks her best, but it is not what is most important."

Bush donated her inauguration gown and the famous pearl necklace to the Smithsonian Institution in 1990."

[OKPrincess]

I will wear pearls this weekend. I have many from Honora in many colors too.

[denisemb]

I don't have pearls, but I will honor this great lady by having a sip of bourbon.

(Evidently she had a glass of bouron the night before she passed.)

RIP, classy lady!

[Oznell]

Great suggestion, @Sooner, which I intend to honor all weekend!  I never thought of doing it all through the weekend, but it's a terrific idea, and I bet we will see a lot ot other people doing it too. 

Wore them Wednesday night in honor of her, and encountered another woman wearing hers also as a tribute!   (See "Love Pearls" thread in jewelry section for more stories.)

I also like your idea of mixing pearls with whatever you are wearing, casual or otherwise.  I wear mine most often with casual button front shirts and denim.  I think worn that way gives them freshness and a bit of surprise.

Mrs. Bush liked to fill her collar with her heavy. lustrous faux pearls.  I like to wear my real and faux pearls that way, but also to take my long ones and twist, double, loop or knot them, depending on mood...

[Isobel Archer]

What a neat idea.  Definitely going to do this.

[cherry]

I certainly will. What a nice thought

[cherry]

I'm also going to wear blue. It was a color she loved. When she became First Lady, they said she would be as  known for blue ,as Nancy had been known for red

[ms traditional]