Alexandra Munroe

Alexandra Munroe Instagram – I am mourning the recent loss of my remarkable friend, Elsa Peretti. I knew her from our Kyoto days in the late 1970s, when she came to work with Japanese craftspeople for designs she was developing for Tiffany’s. 
 
Many were 14th or 15th generation artisans, steeped in centuries of tradition. Elsa blew them all away with radical re-inventions of timeless material and form. She sat on the floor with them and talked in the language only artists know—gestures, drawings, running a hand over a crafted surface. These old men loved her, and recognized a kindred spirit.
 
She turned temple banner silk cords into woven belts. Tea lacquerware into bangles. Old basket-weave lunch boxes into evening purses, licked in silver leaf.
 
Issey Miyake was creating his own revolution, looking to Japanese kimono and farming gear for inspiration. They were great friends. I have never worn Miyake without an Elsa.
 
There were legends of Elsa and Halston and Warhol and cocaine in Studio 54 days, but what I saw was a generous Tuscan genius. One night, at two in the morning at our friend David Kidd’s Kyoto house, she dug into her purse and gave me $1000 in six different currencies and said that, before moving back from years in Japan to New York for my first job (at Japan Society), I needed to travel to Asia. It was my first grant. I went to Hong Kong and Taiwan, expanding and deepening my connection to East Asia. All thanks to Elsa.
 
She changed the world of jewelry design as much as my other great friend who just left this world, Jack Lenor Larsen, who changed the world of textile design. And both changed those worlds because they were changed by Japan.

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