Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair with Jewelry (Again)
“Dad had an art gallery in the Beverly Hills Hotel on the arcade level… Right off the entrance was a boutique filled with beautiful clothes and accessories, and I’d look in there and just sort of dream. What I most wanted was to buy my mother something on my own from that little shop, so I started saving my allowance. I was only twelve or thirteen, and I probably got something like 50 cents a week. One day I went into the boutique and told the nice lady who worked there that I wanted to purchase a pin for my mother, but that as I didn’t yet have enough money, would she hold it for me… The day came when I had enough money. I bought the pin, and it was wrapped with a pretty ribbon, the whole works… When my mother opened the box, she really was surprised, and very proud of me. Dad admired the pin and said, ‘You have such good taste, Elizabeth,’ which coming from an art dealer was the best praise… It was the first piece of jewelry I ever bought, and the first time I’d saved up my allowance to do something special, instead of buying the usual candies or whatever. I’ll never forget saying, ‘I did it! I did it all on my own!’ The independence of that act has stayed with me all these years,”
-Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair with Jewelry by Elizabeth Taylor