Designer Quiz

From a Humble Start, I Grew Up to Become “America’s Court Jeweler.”

I sold fruit from a pushcart in New York’s tenements but learned my “asymmetric” style from antique shops and the old European masters. Who am I?

Published

1 month ago

March 12, 2026

INSTORE Staff Instore April 2026 Issue

From a Humble Start, I Grew Up to Become “America’s Court Jeweler.”

BORN IN 1881 TO Hungarian immigrants, I grew up in the tenements of the Lower East Side. Worked odd jobs. Sold antiques in Los Angeles for a while. By 1921, I was back in New York, and by the mid-1930s, I had a salon on Madison Avenue. No European training, no family connections. I just haunted the 47th Street shops, studying old pieces, thinking: What if?

Here’s what I figured out. A turbo shell from the Indian Ocean looks incredible next to a sapphire. Citrine chunks the size of jelly beans? Put them beside tiny diamonds. Wood — sandalwood, ebony — set in gold that cost more than a car. My “Barbaric” bracelets and “Bubble” earrings were not for the shy. The Duchess of Windsor bought several. So did Andy Warhol. The Vanderbilts. Coco Chanel.

Competitors tried to copy me. They missed the point. It wasn’t randomness. It was deliberate asymmetry — things that shouldn’t work, working.

I retired in the late 1960s, died at 91 in 1972. The workshop’s still going. Turns out nobody else can quite nail that ugly-beautiful thing.

Who am I?

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After 35 Years in Kent, Bonaci Fine Jewelers Found the Right Partner to Close the Right Way

Bob Bonaci spent 35 years building a jewelry business and community presence in Kent, Washington. When he decided it was time to retire, he knew the process would take careful planning — and the right help. Fellow jewelers who’d been through it pointed him to Wilkerson. The results exceeded expectations. Wilkerson’s hands-off approach let Bonaci step back while the team handled every detail, meeting his personal and financial goals throughout. “It is phenomenal, the success that we’ve had.” Watch Bob share his retirement story.