The jewels of Temple St. Clair, from Virginia to Florence, passing through the Renaissance and the nature ♦ ︎
It left Florence over 30 years ago. And it has returned to Florence, right on the Ponte Vecchio, with its first Italian store. The fine jewelry brand Temple St. Clair, founded in the Tuscan capital in 1986, arrived in the city’s historic center in 2018 with a boutique thanks to a partnership with the Vettori family of Florentine jewelers. Born in Virginia (USA), after studying in Switzerland, Temple St. Clair discovered in Florentine artisans the skill that is the fruit of a centuries-old tradition. Thanks to their teaching, the designer founded her company in Florence in 1986.
She loves the Tuscan city: she has a degree in Italian studies at Smith College and a master’s degree in Italian Renaissance literature at Middlebury College. But she also loves nature: for November she decided to donate 20% of revenues of e-commerce sales to the Big Life Foundation in Africa: it’s a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting a vast territory of nature wilderness in East Africa employing hundreds of local Maasai rangers in its anti-poaching programs, among other conservation initiatives.
But besides the ability to work with gold, Temple St. Clair has a particular sensitivity in the use of stones.
She loves the translucent, elusive colors, like those of the moonstone used in the Silk Road collection. But it also seeks rare gems, such as the Australian black opal Lightening Ridge, Paraiba tourmaline, tsavorite. In 2017, Temple St. Clair was chosen, along with myths such as Louis Comfort Tiffany and Alexander Calder, as the third American designer of jewelry represented in the permanent collection of the Museum of Decorative Arts at the Louvre in Paris. Need to add more?
