Lane worked with milk glass, gilded silver hardware, faux coral and other materials, and sold pendant necklaces, dangle earrings and modern bracelets to private customers. Lane was given the position of design director for Carnegie but he soon changed course, moving instead into a small studio and pursuing his own path. In the early 1960s, ready-to-wear pioneer Hattie Carnegie purchased Lane’s jewelry line.

A pearl necklace he designed was worn by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Lane created his own collection and admirers such as Jackie Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor showered him with praise. A show for the latter afforded him the opportunity to beautify shoes with rhinestones and create bangles and earrings to pair with the footwear - he found plastic bracelets at discount variety store and had them embellished by craftspeople at a shoe factory.Ī love for costume jewelry design emerged thereafter. Lane would occasionally develop shoe designs for friends he had in the fashion world such as Bill Blass and Arnold Scaasi. He pursued a design career in New York City, and a failed start in the art department of Vogue magazine led to a decade of designing shoes for the likes of Delman and Christian Dior. He studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Michigan. And while Lane aspired to create classic designs for earrings, bracelets and necklaces intended for everyday wear, his pieces caught the attention of celebrities, royalty and socialites.įrom a young age, the Detroit, Michigan-born Lane was a lover of fashion. The father of so-called “fabulous fakes,” Kenneth Jay Lane was a spirited innovator within the jewelry industry, designing elegant and luxurious pieces without the use of real jewels.

Kaleidoscope necklace with stones