Portrait of a Teacher – Inezita Gay-Eckel

Jewelry Historian

Inezita Head Shot

Portrait of a teacher – Inezita Gay-Eckel

Jewelry Historian

Clip Spirit of Beauty
inezita ambre

A word about your professional career? How did you arrive in the jewelry world?

Inezita Gay-Eckel

I started out from about the age of 6 or 7 always intending to go to law school and become a Supreme Court Judge.  I wanted to change the world for the better, like so many children do!  While at Princeton, I became very disillusioned with politics and found myself madly, head over heels in love with Art and with studying its history and losing myself in the past and all the beauty of human creations since the beginning of time. In particular, through the Ghent Altarpiece, by the Van Eyck brothers, I fell into the rabbit hold of obsession with pearls in particular and the symbolism of gems in painting in general.   After school, my Chinese Art Professor sent me to a wonderful Chinese and Japanese art gallery on Madison Avenue, “E & J Frankel” and there I found their antique Chinese jewelry to be fascinating. To make a long story short, I then took a temporary job at Cartier to practice my French and stayed 17 years to make my way to being Director of Jewelry Marketing for Cartier US.  Then I accepted an opportunity with Tiffany to create a pearl company, from the grass roots up, which was named “Iridesse Pearls”, where I was their Vice President of Product Development and Brand Ambassador.  Ultimately, I joined Van Cleef & Arpels, Inc. as Director of Training/Education. 

When and how did you become a teacher at L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts? 

Inezita Gay-Eckel

It was my time as Educator for Van Cleef & Arpels, Inc. that put me in the spot to be able to get involved with L’ÉCOLE right from the start. After participating in a colloquium with Marie Vallanet, the now President of L’ÉCOLE, who was then planning to start the school up, she gave me the opportunity to help with creating courses and other content, and that led to the offer to move from the USA to France. I made that move completely, 100 percent, to be involved with this unique project, a once in a lifetime opportunity. I moved over with my 91 year old mother, our dog and our cat. My American fiancé started commuting back and forth, and we got married here in Paris in 2015. We are both completely committed to L’ÉCOLE and to France!

Which courses are you teaching? Do you have a favorite course?  

Inezita Gay-Eckel

I teach all the different jewelry history course, and also periodically the children’s workshops, and of course the online live talks, and also, I teach through my deep involvement with our communication through Instagram and Facebook.  I consider my online teaching to be of major importance for all those who cannot get to our in person classes.

They are all my favorites!  I guess if I absolutely had to pick, I would say two: the course “Amulets and Precious Symbols” and ALL the children’s workshops. They are the most emotionally fulfilling for me. And that is saying a lot, because ALL my involvement with this school is emotionally fulfilling. Every minute of my life has led to this role at L’ÉCOLE. I use all my experience, all my education in every one of the courses I teach.

 

Your next project or the project you dream of working on?

Inezita Gay-Eckel

Once again, there are a couple: I would love to write “The Big Book of Baroque Pearls” (that’s our fun, working title), with Olivier Segura, Scientific Director of L’ÉCOLE, and Leonard Pouy, Art Historian and teacher at L’ÉCOLE like me!  And on my own, I would like to write a small book focusing on Jewels in the Painting of the Van Eyck Brothers.

And to finish, can you tell us what is your favorite jewel?

Inezita Gay-Eckel

Tough, tough question: I love jewelry from all around the planet and from the dawn of humanity to today, so it’s almost impossible.  However, jewelry, like the humans about which jewels tell everything, is as complex as we are and also as simple as we are. 

Once again, I must pick two:

1. The jewel which is the Muse of L’ÉCOLE, the “Spirit of Beauty” clip who was “born” during World War 2 in America, as the brainchild of Claude Arpels, that fairy who is a part of the Van Cleef & Arpels Collection.  I LOVE pointing out to the children in our workshops that the MUSE is on their aprons and then explaining the word to them…. 


2. My grandmother’s cherry amber necklace which she purchased in China in the first quarter of the 20th century.  My mother gave it to me one day, telling me how much I was like my grandmother, whom I never knew because she died young.  The cherry amber was originally part of a Mandarin’s necklace, with its 88 beads.  (I found that our thanks to the expertise of Edie Frankel, during my first job).  Every time those light and warm amber beads touch my neck, I feel that connection with my mother and thus my grandmother too.