Chow Time

VANITIES

style

Jeweling around

It all started two years ago: fashion connoisseur Tina Chow was walking around with chunks of rock crystal in the pockets of her Kenzo jodhpurs. Then, at one of the restaurants she owns with her husband, Mr. Chow, her friend Andy Warhol had a large crystal too.

From that moment on, the Best-Dressed-List Hall of Famer went deeper into what she calls "these humble materials with good, protective energy," creating a jewelry collection which Bergdorf Goodman will be selling later this month. "The Chinese wore jade as a symbol of protection," says the former international model. "That's how I designed my pieces. It's not totally your in-fashion jewelry for the season."

Indeed, it will scarcely compete with Kenneth Jay Lane: large cuff bangles carved from amethyst and rock crystal; rings of rose quartz; crystals caged in rattan pendants; and incredible woven bamboo-basket bracelets—"made after working with a great master of tea-ceremony basketmaking in Japan"—which rattle and click with the rock-crystal pebbles inside them. "I like the concept of noise jewelry," says the thirty-seven-year-old mother of two. "The pebbles create the sound of a babbling brook."

Mrs. Chow's protective instincts were also evident at Christie's auction gala in London for ACT, Aids Crisis Trust, a new British charity which all started at a Mr Chow's lunch she had last fall with Marguerite Littman, Manolo Blahnik, and Rifat Ozbek. The evening, organized by Gabe Doppelt with Catherine Bailey and Marie Helvin (the current and former Mrs. David Baileys), raised over £200,000 ($300,000). Fergie, Duchess of York, was outbid by Boy George for an outscale orange sombrero with black silk roses from Givenchy (£1,500), but secured a white Scarlett O'Hara ball gown modeled by Bianca Jagger (£800). A Hockney drawing brought £14,000. And for £250 anyone could be photographed by Lord Snowdon (like Basia Johnson, Peter Schub, and Jerry Hall) or by David Bailey (like Manolo Blahnik, Tina Chow, and Jerry Hall). At a small celebratory lunch two days later at her Chester Square town house, Marguerite Littman, the friend of Tennessee Williams whose Hollywood career included giving southern-belle elocution lessons to Elizabeth Taylor, began work on the next ACT of charity, a film gala next year.

Andre Leon Talley