Tiffany Elsa Peretti Bone Cuff (18k gold)

Bones in a Roman crypt

The Bone cuff starts with a childhood habit. As a girl in Rome, Elsa Peretti visited the crypt of a 17th-century Capuchin church, where the remains of monks are arranged throughout the chapels, and took small bones home. Her mother kept sending her back to return them. The fascination stayed. "Things that are forbidden," Peretti later said, "remain with you forever."

Tiffany says Peretti first designed the Bone cuff in 1970, drawing on those visits and on her passion for the organic architecture of Antoni Gaudí. The earliest versions, different in shape from today's, were made in wood and ivory for her friend the American designer Halston.

When Peretti first interviewed with Tiffany, the Bone cuff was one of two pieces she brought to show the company. The other was her bottle pendant.

The oil heiress who modeled for Halston

Peretti was born in Florence on May 1, 1940, the youngest daughter of Ferdinando Peretti, who founded the Italian oil company Anonima Petroli Italiana in 1933. She chose her own path: she began modeling in Barcelona in 1964 and moved to New York in 1968, where she became one of Halston's favored models in the early 1970s.

In New York she started designing jewelry. The designer Giorgio di Sant'Angelo used her pieces to style one of his runway shows, and Halston became a close friend and collaborator. It was Halston who introduced her to Tiffany, and in 1974 she signed on to design silver jewelry for the house, its first new silver designs in 25 years. By 1979 she was Tiffany's leading designer.

Her aim was not exclusivity. "What I want," she told People magazine in 1974, "is not to become a status symbol but to give beauty at a price." Her designs became so central to Tiffany that in some years they accounted for as much as 10% of its business, and in 2012 Tiffany extended her contract for 20 years with $47 million paid up front. Peretti died on March 18, 2021, at 80.

Jewelry for a new kind of woman

The cuff took shape in 1970, a year of Apollo 13, the Kent State shootings and the end of the Beatles. Peretti's cuff offered something spare against that noise: no gemstones, no ornament, just polished form.

One jewelry writer describes her as designing for women like herself, strong and independent, who wanted to look confident at work and feel glamorous on the dance floor in the era of the feminist movement and disco. A sculptural cuff that read from across a room fit that brief.

How the cuff is made and how to tell

The cuff is a broad, asymmetric sweep of polished metal that rises over the wrist, with a domed area designed to accommodate the wrist bone. Because of that asymmetry, cuffs are made separately for the left and right wrist, and Tiffany suggests wearing one alone or a left and right together as a pair.

In its first years at Tiffany the cuff was made entirely by hand from single, solid pieces of sterling silver, which made it heavy. The Italian silversmith Peretti worked with devised a harder method: joining two pieces of silver so the cuff is hollow and lighter.

The FLOAT 100 entry is the small model in 18k yellow gold, 43 mm wide. Tiffany lists it as crafted by hand, made in Italy, with sizes from extra small (wrists of 4.76 to 5.25 inches) to large (6.26 to 6.75 inches); the right-wrist medium carries SKU 10665744. The listing notes that the original designs are copyrighted by the Elsa and Nando Peretti Foundation, and the cuff is sold as exchange-only.

As listed in October 2026 the 18k gold small cuff costs $29,000 from the maker. The same design in sterling silver costs a small fraction of that, and pavé-diamond versions introduced for the 2024 anniversary cost far more.

Fifty years on the wrist

The cuff has been worn by Diana Vreeland, Sophia Loren and Liza Minnelli, who was photographed performing in Peretti jewelry in 1973, and more recently by actresses including Rosamund Pike, Rachel Weisz and Naomi Watts, who wore gold Bone cuffs to a premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015. The photographer Hiro made a well-known image of the cuff in 1984.

In 2024 Tiffany marked 50 years since Peretti's arrival in September 1974 with new campaign images that restaged Hiro's photograph, reissues of Peretti icons with gemstones, and new Bone cuffs in yellow gold set with drop-shaped sections of pavé diamonds.

Outside jewelry, Peretti restored the Spanish village of Sant Martí Vell and set up the Nando Peretti Foundation, later the Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation, which has funded hundreds of projects around the world.

The numbers

Metal

18k yellow gold

Width

43 mm (small design motif)

Gemstones

None on this model

Production

Crafted by hand in Italy; made in left- and right-wrist versions

Sizes

Extra small (4.76-5.25 in. wrist) to large (6.26-6.75 in. wrist)

Maker

Tiffany & Co., design by Elsa Peretti, 1970

Timeline

1. May 1, 1940

   Elsa Peretti is born in Florence.

2. 1964

   Peretti begins modeling in Barcelona.

3. 1968

   She moves to New York.

4. 1970

   Peretti first designs the Bone cuff; early versions are made in wood and ivory for Halston.

5. 1973

   Liza Minnelli is photographed performing in Peretti jewelry.

6. Sep 1974

   Peretti joins Tiffany & Co., bringing the Bone cuff and the bottle pendant to her interview.

7. 1979

   Peretti is Tiffany's leading designer.

8. 1984

   The photographer Hiro shoots his well-known image of the Bone cuff.

9. 2012

   Tiffany extends Peretti's contract for 20 years with $47 million up front.

10. 2015

    Naomi Watts wears gold Bone cuffs at the Toronto International Film Festival.

11. Mar 18, 2021

    Elsa Peretti dies at 80.

12. 2024

    Tiffany marks 50 years of Peretti with new imagery and pavé-diamond Bone cuffs.

The world in 1970

• Apr 10, 1970

  Paul McCartney announces he is leaving the Beatles.

• Apr 13, 1970

  An oxygen tank explodes on Apollo 13; the crew returns safely four days later.

• May 4, 1970

  Ohio National Guardsmen kill four students at Kent State University.

• May 31, 1970

  The Ancash earthquake in Peru buries the town of Yungay.

• Jun 21, 1970

  Brazil beats Italy 4-1 to win the World Cup in Mexico and keeps the Jules Rimet Trophy.

• Sep 6, 1970

  Hijackers seize four passenger planes and divert them toward a desert airstrip in Jordan, Dawson's Field.

• Oct 24, 1970

  Salvador Allende is confirmed as president of Chile.

Price record

This is an asking price, not a sale. It is what a seller wanted on the date shown. Asking prices often sit above what buyers pay, but an ask is not a ceiling: a sale can land on either side of it. It is not a value.

By reference price, Tiffany Elsa Peretti Bone Cuff (18k gold) is number 51 of 100 in the jewelry entries of the FLOAT 100. 44 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (63 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The earliest Bone cuffs were made of wood and ivory for Halston.
• Left and right Bone cuffs are different pieces, shaped for each wrist.
• The first Tiffany Bone cuffs were solid silver and heavy; they were later made hollow by joining two pieces.
• Peretti brought just two designs to her first Tiffany meeting: the Bone cuff and a bottle pendant.
• In 2012 Tiffany paid Peretti $47 million up front to extend her contract for 20 years.
• Peretti was the daughter of an Italian oil-company founder but made her own way as a model.