Books & Exhibitions

The Jewelry in Frida Kahlo’s Fashion Book

Accessories were an integral part of the artist’s style

by Marion Fasel

While the main subject of Frida Kahlo: Fashion As The Art Of Being is clothes, jewelry shines from cover to cover. Richly illustrated, the publication has gorgeous photographs and self-portraits of a bejeweled Frida from all stages of her life. Frida’s jewels, like her clothes and art, were a symbolic part of her personal narrative.

According to the author, Susana Martínez Vidal, a former fashion director at Elle Spain, Frida appreciated opaque stones because Mesoamerican people believed they were part of the earth’s heart. Many of Frida’s Columbian jewels were gifts from her husband Diego Rivera. A stash of Frida’s necklaces, earrings and rings, that were found in storage in 2004, reveal her taste was an eclectic mix of Latin American styles. As journalist Lynn Yeager succinctly states in her introduction for the book, “Kahlo was a charter member of the more-is-better school when it came to accessories.”

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Frida Kahlo’s Style Is All Over Jewelry

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