Description
Trifari developed its own plating solutions for both gold and rhodium colors. The gold plating solution contained real gold and was applied much thicker than industry standards. While some gold jewelry had a finish 1 millionth of an inch thick, Trifari's was 8 millionths of an inch thick. Rhodium, a rare metal found in conjunction with platinum ore, is difficult to work with but it provides a beautiful, non-tarnishing finish. In fact, it is sometimes used in the industry as a plating over sterling silver because of its non-tarnishing property.
Trifari felt that their plating solutions were superior to others on the market, and made them available to other jewelry companies. Rather than keep these solutions to itself, Trifari was more interested in raising product standards for the industry as a whole. Some of the companies that Mr. Wolf recalls selling these plating solutions to: Speidel, S. Rappaport Co., Brier Mfg., and Napier.
These plating solutions were quite expensive, which led to some nefarious activity by one customer's employee. Each bottle of plating solution had a unique stock number attached to it, and complete records were kept of every bottle sold. It came to the attention of Mr. Wolf that one customer's orders had doubled over the course of a year, so he called to investigate. He was informed that production had not increased, and so there was no logical explanation for the increase in plating solution purchases. Mr. Wolf devised a "sting" operation where someone was sent out to buy bottles of plating solution on the open market. The bottles purchased turned out to be ones that had been sold to the suspect account. An employee had been siphoning off the extra bottles and selling them on his own.
Mr. Wolf is particularly proud of Trifari's community mindedness. Trifari was the first company to make a sizable monetary contribution to the Brown Medical School. As the person in charge of community relations for the company, Mr. Wolf received acknowledgment for the various charitable donations, but he was quick to point out that it was Trifari as a whole that made these charitable donations a high priority.
Mr. Wolf has fond memories of his career with Trifari. He describes the company as a family, which encouraged and supported him over the years. And Mrs. Wolf remembers company get-togethers as being quite convivial. The Wolfs attended the annual 24Karat Club dinner in NYC at the Waldorf Astoria. In keeping with the times, she explains that there was a separate dinner for the wives. Over the years, they attended weddings of co-workers' families and, in general, remember the people as embracing, and the company as loyal to its employees. Trifari was early to provide a pension plan for its workers.
In addition to his duties as head of Trifari, Mr. Wolf also served as the President of the Manufacturing Jewelers & Silversmiths of America, a large organization with some 2200 members.
During Mr. Wolf's tenure with Trifari, they were the exclusive agent for the sale of Majorica Pearls. A competitor tried to piggyback on the success of the Majorica line by selling a similarly named product, which copied the packaging of the real Majorica pearls. Trifari took the copycats to court for copyright infringement to stop them.
Mr. Wolf shed light on the patent versus copyright issue. Many early jewelry designs were patented, in hopes of preventing copycats from stealing them. Management at Trifari eventually realized that the patent process was both costly and ineffective, in part because it took so long. By the time the patent was issued, the damage had been done. The design thieves had completed their copying and selling, and had moved on to something else. Therefore, sometime in the 50's to 60's Trifari switched to copyrighting its designs instead. This was easily accomplished by filing papers with the copyright office, and shipping a sample of each new design (marked with the Trifari name and the copyright symbol) via interstate commerce to a trusted individual. After adopting this method of protecting its designs, Trifari was able to take the copycats to court and it won every case.
When asked about sources for materials used in the creation of Trifari jewelry, Mr. Wolf stated that some rhinestones were supplied by Swarovski, but that some stones were designed by Alfred Philippe and manufactured especially for Trifari. Chain was purchased from Armbrust Chain in Providence, and clasps were often made by Trifari to complement a specific design.
Faux pearls were used in many Trifari designs. Originally, Trifari made their own pearls, but eventually decided to look for a manufacturer who could supply them with faux pearls at a lower cost. Mr. Wolf reports that it took approximately 2 years working with a Japanese firm to achieve the results that they were looking for. When the appearance and durability of the Japanese pearls was acceptable, Trifari ceased manufacturing their own pearls.
Mr. Wolf confirmed the origin of what we now call "jelly bellys". As he recalls, in the day, they were simply referred to as the "lucite group". Someone at Trifari, perhaps Alfred Philippe, thought of using the imperfect discards from the manufacture of lucite airplane windshields to make lucite cabochons for jewelry. These are now among the most highly collectible Trifari creations.
Over the years, there were certain designs that became "best sellers". Among those that Mr. Wolf recalls are the crown pins, and the honeycomb style bracelet. This versatile bracelet, originating in the late 40's, was created in a number of variations, some plain, others accented with rhinestones.
A high point for Trifari came in 1953, and again in 1957, when Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower elected to wear Trifari jewels at the Presidential Inaugural Balls. Mr. Wolf related that two Trifari employees (the head of the pearl department and a pearl stringer) were sent to Washington to custom fit Mrs. Eisenhower's necklace. All of the Eisenhower pearls are on display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.
Experienced collectors and dealers of vintage costume jewelry always look at the backs of pieces for clues to age, quality, and condition. Mr. Wolf explained that probably in the early 50's Trifari switched from a smooth finish on the backs to a textured finish. The reason: profitability. It became too expensive to produce the smoothly polished surface on the backs. Through the years, other manufacturing changes were dictated by cost, materials availability, and the fashion world. Alfred Philippe traveled to Paris at least once a year to attend the fashion shows and insure that Trifari designs were "au courant".
In addition to its main office and manufacturing plant in Providence, Trifari at one time had both a sales/advertising and separate design offices in New York City, and branch offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and London.
It is thought that Trifari was the first costume jewelry company to advertise nationally, in such magazines as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Glamour, Mademoiselle and Life.
The sales team at Trifari devised a method for getting through the normal slow down in business after the holidays. They promoted a special line to their best customers, usually one high profile retailer per city, such as Saks, Bergdorf-Goodman, Marshall Field, and Nieman Marcus. They accepted pre-orders on this line from September through November, which were shipped within one month, and which helped the company weather the post-holiday slump.
Some significant dates in the history of Trifari:
In 1966, Mr. Wolf helped to design, equip, and build a new, modern factory. In 1975, Trifari was purchased by Hallmark. Mr. Louis Krussman (son of Mr. Leo Krussman) and Mr. Fishel both retired shortly after the Hallmark buy-out. Mr. Wolf served as a consultant to the company following his retirement. In 1988, it was purchased by Crystal Brands.
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