Elsa Peretti’s Bottle Pendant for Tiffany & Co., designed in 1974, began with a memory that conjures an image like a film still: Portofino after dark, saturated color, gardenias as accessories. She translated that time and place into this iconic small bottle meant to hold something or nothing at all. It functions and feels good in the hand.

Peretti’s legacy at Tiffany & Co. reshaped the language of modern jewelry. When she joined the house in the early 1970s, she brought a radically new sensibility—one that treated jewelry as sculptural, personal, and meant to be lived with.

Her forms were drawn from nature and the body, pared down to their essence, and executed with an intimacy that made luxury feel immediate rather than ceremonial. More than adornment, her designs became objects of everyday attachment. Decades on, they remain not only recognizable, but relevant.

Her philosophy was refined: “simplicity is the essence of good design,” she said. “It is about finding the core of a form and letting it speak.” The pendant, a favorite of ours, does exactly that. A clean curve, a smooth surface, a form that is alive whether it's used or worn.

Among her most enduring designs for Tiffany are objects that feel inevitable, as if they’ve always existed. The Bone Cuff follows the natural architecture of the wrist, sculpted to sit flush against the body rather than decorate it. The Open Heart reduces a universal symbol to a single, continuous line—direct, emotional, and unembellished. Diamonds by the Yard reframed fine jewelry as something fluid and wearable, scattering light across the body with an ease that felt radical at the time.

If Elsa walked into our studio in New York today, we imagine she’d reach for the Coco Cup. A small object with presence and purpose, its silhouette is timeless, the details are deliberate, and the glass itself has a distinct flair. Like her hyphenate flask, the Coco Cup was designed to serve more than one mood, doubling as a glass for amaro (or a shot of something stronger) when not holding an egg.