Raymond Yard began his career in the jewelry industry at the age of thirteen when he became a messenger boy at the well-established firm of Marcus & Co. in New York. Over the next twenty-four years, Yard firmly established himself with the company’s well-heeled clientele and received a thorough education in all aspects of the jewelry trade. He came to understand and value the highest standards of gem material and craftsmanship. In recognition of his jewelry acumen and integrity, his client, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. encouraged him to start his own firm. Raymond C. Yard Inc. opened its doors on Fifth Avenue in New York in 1922.

Yard is noted for two original stylistic designs: the iconic anthropomorphic rabbits and the house brooches that debuted in the late twenties and early thirties. Featuring pavéd diamonds, calibré-cut gems and accents of enamel, these whimsical pieces were as always, gorgeously executed. The delightful rabbit brooches were created in a number of different themes. Among them are brides, anglers, yachtsmen and British Royal Guards but the most famous of all are the rabbit waiters. Dressed in stylish formalwear, they carried trays of cocktails, along with buckets of ice and bottles of champagne. The waiters first appeared in early 1929, near the height of prohibition; a chic, elegant and playful gesture of protest.

The first house brooch was introduced in 1932 and by the 1960s, well to do clients were bringing in photographs of their homes to be turned into exquisite jeweled replicas. The most elaborate of these was an astonishing reproduction of Cee Zee Guest’s lavish Villa Artemis in Palm Beach.

The first Yard brooches of the early Twenties reflected that era’s Art Deco aesthetic of circular and geometric bar designs before moving onto the popular style of separate dress clips which remained in vogue through the Nineteen-Thirties and into the early Forties. Their dress clips evolved from simple, monochromatic shield shapes with pave diamonds and a few fancy-cut diamonds into much bolder designs featuring strong color contrasts. A particular favorite of Yard were rubies standing out in bright relief to the surrounding diamonds as evidenced in many of the stock pieces of that time.

As the 1930s progressed into the 1940s, the prevailing design preference moved away from shield shapes into curvilinear designs with folds of ribbons and scrollwork. Dress clips were no longer ascendant and many more single brooches were being worn. Calibré-cut stones were less utilized in the newer curvilinear shapes particularly as precious stones were in sparse supply during the war years. This scarcity also manifested itself in inventive designs that now featured large areas of unembellished metal. The most marked change of these years however, was Yard’s extensive use of yellow gold and a new array of colored stones such as topaz, amethysts and moonstones. During this period, Yard’s attention shifted from the design influences of Cartier to the newly prominent firm of Van Cleef & Arpels. The most noticeable example of this was the small group of “Southern Belles” that were produced in direct reference to Van Cleef & Arpel’s iconic ballerina brooches.

The first of the Yard bracelet designs were the classic straight-line bracelets of the Twenties. Manufactured in platinum with box set diamonds and calibré-cut colored stones, these developed into more intricate pieces with open links, more complex designs, and much wider styles. These more detailed pieces featured the classic Yard style of mixing various step and brilliant-cuts.

The limited supply of precious stones and the shift to yellow gold, as a result of World War II, led to an extensive use of less traditional stones such as moonstone, colored sapphires and amethysts. Moonstones accented by colored sapphires were particularly popular in a unique yellow gold Yard “buttercup” flower design, which centered a moonstone surrounded by smaller colored sapphires or rubies.

As the Fifties progressed, platinum and diamond bracelets were again in favor as were simpler gold and diamond bracelets. Yard bracelets in the Sixties were primarily made in yellow gold and placed a greater emphasis on individually mounted stones. Modern Yard bracelets are based on the classic designs of the 1920s, often reinterpretations of the traditional line and geometric link bracelet.

As was the style in the Twenties, the earliest Yard earrings were long drop pendant styles of platinum and diamonds often featuring a carved stone or pearl in the drop. In the early 1930s, the clip-on earring back was patented, opening up a new style of earring that primarily rested on the ear. Yard designed a distinctive ear-clip style that curved up the lobe. These “up-lobe” earrings quickly became Yard’s dominant style and were typically composed of a large colored stone surrounded by diamonds that curved up the contour of the ear. As with all other jewelry, World War II greatly changed the prevailing materials used in the fabrication of earrings. Yellow gold with a greater amount of exposed metal and a larger variety of stones was used and new styles such as the “buttercup” design, which was centered on the ear, as opposed to the up-lobe, became popular.

The Yard rings of the 1920s were made of beautifully engraved and pierced platinum surrounding a center stone set off by smaller round diamonds. By the end of that decade, however, this style changed substantially. Their signature look now featured a center stone with shoulders of clearly articulated step and round cut diamonds in a much more geometric and modern style. The predominant metal was platinum and the stones, as always, were impeccable. Cocktail rings were introduced in the 1930s and a simpler side mounting using bullet or baguette cut diamonds started to be manufactured.

During the war years of the Forties, palladium was substituted for platinum in many of their cocktail rings and Yard, as part of his war-time contribution, launched a line of relatively inexpensive diamond rings featuring a diamond center stone under a carat, with two small side diamond accents. Needless to say, these proved quite popular with the servicemen of the time. Yellow gold rings of the period featured a variety of large sized colored stones, including moonstone, citrine and amethysts set in bold, tailored settings. Joan Crawford’s step-cut amethyst ring of approximately seventy-five carats is a wonderful and famous example of this trend.