Piece #20 of 100:
These two-inch door knockers are signed Kenneth Lane. On the clip of the earring, the “Kenneth” is above the “Lane” with a copyright symbol between them, which means these are from 1960s or 1970s. Kenneth Jay Lane later made a similar pair of earrings (a bit smaller) with rhinestone eyes for Avon, which are signed “KJL for Avon”. The Avon mark was used from 1986 to 1995. Tip of the research hat goes to Julia C. Carroll for that bit of Kenneth J. Lane history. One more piece of KJL trivia. Barbara Bush wore a three-strand Kenneth J. Lane faux pearl necklace to her husband’s presidential inauguration ball in 1989.
The first thing I remembered when I found these in the jewelry box was that we had a real lion door knocker on our front door in the house where I grew up! Mom loves lions because she is a Leo. And there are a lot of lions in her jewelry box, although these are the first I’ve featured on the blog.
The next thing I remembered was that back in my “working girl days” (before I was self-employed) I loved the Kenneth Jay Lane store in South Coast Plaza because I could find fun jewelry that was classy enough to wear with my working girl suits. And I still treasure the few baubles I bought myself there in the seventies. He also had a store in Beverly Hills, which was closer to where Mom lived at the time. I wonder if she bought these there? If only these lions could talk!
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