Jean Schlumberger was, his legend goes, born into a powerful textile manufacturing family in Alsace, France. They wanted him to be a banker, but Schlumberger, who sketched throughout his childhood, had other ideas. A few years after he landed in Paris, he began working for Elsa Schiaparelli. Diana Vreeland spotted him there in 1937, and the rest is history.
After he moved to New York in the ’40s, the jewelry he designed—inspired by sea creatures, birds, and the tropics—became the center of the most stylish conversations. Word eventually reached Walter Hoving at Tiffany & Co., who hired him in 1956. Tiffany’s famed yellow diamond was soon wrapped in a Schlumberger setting of diamond ribbons. The following year came his Ribbons compact, with hand-carved gold swirls exploding from its center into an interlocking woven motif—he had been paying attention to his family business after all. (And also to the decorative arts: The jeweled objects he made for clients like Bunny Mellon and Babe Paley harked back to the stone-studded cases and pillboxes popular in the 17th and 18th centuries and again during Art Deco.)
Tiffany & Co.’s new limited edition Ribbon minaudière celebrates Schlumberger’s Tiffany legacy, and his personal one: It comes with three detachable tassels.
Photographed by Joe Lingeman; produced by Will Kahn; styled by Miako Katoh.
This story originally appeared in the Summer 2025 issue of Elle Decor. SUBSCRIBE
