Woolly mammoth ivory jewelry is everywhere.
Luxury retailer Stanley Korshak in Dallas can't keep it in stock. Michelle Obama has been photographed numerous times wearing it. For CFDA design darling Monique Péan and Ivory Jacks in Bothel, Washington, that create jewelry out of the material, business has been good.
The First Lady wore woolly mammoth jewelry by Monique Péan on a trip to Mexico a few months ago (pictured above and below)-specifically earrings, cuffs and strands. She wore the cuffs again recently to greet President Obama on his 49th birthday. The cuffs go for $4,480 to $7,420 at www.twistonline.com. The earrings can fetch anywhere between $915 and $2,970 at www.barneys.com.
Unlike elephant ivory which is primarily off-white, woolly mammoth ivory is unique in that it has many different colors-tan, brown and sometimes blue. Ivory Jacks jewelry designer Courtney Tripp explained to me this week at the Gift Show in New York that the colors are a result of thousands of years of mineralization. No two tusks are the same color. So no two mammoth jewelry pieces can be exactly the same.
.jpg)
