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ONGOING IN MARCH:
The Bay, downtown location,
presents Shades of Spring
2000, a series of fashion
events including: a_ petites
fashion show March 20, 12:30
p.m.; intimates fit clinics and
fashion show, March 21, noon
to 3 p.m.; above-average shop-
ping event, March 22, 5 to 8
p.m.; the tailoved man fashion
evening, March 23, 5 to 9
p.m.; swing dance competition
and casual-clothing fashion
show March 24, 12:30 p.m;
men’s and women’s denim
fashion show, March 25, 1:30
p.m.

SATURDAY, MARCH 25:
The Cinderella Project seeks
donations of new or gendy
used gowns, shoes, iandbags
and jewelry for wear by under-
privileged teens on grad night.
Drop-offs are 10 am. to 3
p.m. at West Vancouver
United Church, 2062
Esquimalt Ave. in West Van
and the Lower Lonsdale rec
centre at 123 E. 23rd Se. in
North Van. For more informa-
tion or to arrange drop-off of a
group donation before March
3], call 689-4244.

TO APRIZ 2: Seymour Art
Gallery presents the textile arts
exhibition Patterns Unfolding.
The show features the work of
Ruth Scheuing and fellow
Capilano College fabric arts
instructors Lesley Richmond,
Mary Lou Trinkwon, Yvonne
Wakabayashi, Anthea
Mallinson, Eleanor Hannan
and Rosalind Aylmer.

MONDAY, APRIL 3:
Vanconver Rotary Women's
Auxiliary will present a spring
fashion mn show and luncheon,
11:45 am. at the Royal
Vancouver Yacht Club, 3811

See more page 17

BIRKS was the first door
Toni Cavelti knocked on
when, in 1954, the young
jeweller arrived in Vancouver
from Switzerland.

Cavelti was politely curned away.
Ali manufacture of jewelry was under-
taken at the company’s Montreal
workshop, he was told.

Times have changed. Cavelti, who
will be 69 in June, now refers to what
he affectionately calls Birks’ West
Coast workshop, thanks to a business
deal last year that saw the national
jewelry retailer purchase the jeweller’s
business outright.

Now when he’s not enjoying semi-
retirement — Cavelti and his wife,
Hildegard, are just back from a cruise
of Southeast Asia and will embark on
a tour of the Rhine in May — he’s
promoting his alliance with Birks and
oversecing the goldsmiths who hand-
craft his collection.

The complete Caveiti collection is
available in Vancouver only at the fiag-
ship store on Grenville and Hastings.
However, this past week the collection

was brought to Birks’ Park Royal loca-

tion for a special viewing and a per-
sonal appearance, Wednesday and
Thursday evenings, by the jeweller
himself.

Park Royal store manager Brenda

Eggett was expecting a number of
Cavelti’s former customers to come
out and see the jeweller, himself a
West Van resident. “He’s very mag-
netic. He has a huge following,” said
Eggett, who owns a Cavelti creation
that she wears everyday, a gold link
oracelet chat belonged to her mother.

A master goldsmith who first
learned his rade as a jeweller’s appren-
tice at age 15, Cavelti’s first entrepre-
neurial venture in Vancouver was as a
partner, with Karl Stitigen, of
European Watchmakers and Jewellers
in Ambleside. A 1957 advertisement
in the West Vancouver News promotes
“beautiful rings including exclusive
designs by Cavelai” like an emerald
ring with two baguette diamonds for
just $250. Included in the Caveiti col-
lection at Birks is an emerald-cut dia-
mond ring valued at 3 trifle more than
that — $52,000.

In his celebrated career, Cavelti
dressed in jewels such luminaries as
the Queen of England (the B.C. gov-
ernment presented Elizabeth H with a
necklace that the monarch wore to a
state dinner in Victoria in °71). In his
heyday, nine out of 10 of Cavelti’s
gems were originals, created as one-
offs for clients with the bucks and
lifestyle to afford them and wear
them. For Birks, the jeweller has recre-
ated five favourite designs for sale at
ali Birks locations across Canada: ear-
rings, a brooch and necklace featuring
a cluster cube motif from the "60s, a
heart-shaped pendant necklace with
floating diamond and a floating chain-
link necklace. The pieces are priced
from $1,000 to$3,500

The complete Cavelti collection,
which includes several one-of-a-kind
designs, remains at Park Royal for
show and sale to March 22.

Wrestling ali-stars _..

NEWS photo Mike Wakefield
TON! Cavelti’s talents as an artlst-craftsman and jeweller have
earned the West Van resident international accolades.

Book’s illustrations showcase Cavelti’s rich style

@ Toni Carciti: A Jeweller’s
Life, by Max Wyman with
foreword by Bill Reid,
Douglas and McIntyre, 178

pages, $60

TONI Cavelti may be

best known for the
flamboyant creations he
created fer Vancouver’s
social set in the ’60s

and ’70s but the self-
effacing jeweller never
let it go to his head. "s

“Getting up froin his
workbench} ficcks of gold in
eyebrows,

jeweller’s

rouge on his hands, tip of a
fingernail half filed off, to
sell a young couple their

modest first engagement
ring always gave him as
much satisfaction as the big
ticket sales,” writes Max
Wyman in the biographical
picture book, Toni Cavelti:
A Jeweller’s Life.

Richly illustrated text tells
the story of Cavelti’s arrival
in Vancouver, his early strug-
gle to establish himself in his
trade and his subsequent
fame and fortune as one of
the best in the business.

More than 100 colour

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Through the modernist
movement of Vancouver in
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the disco years of the °70s
the high-flying ’80s and the
minimalist 90s, the jew-
eller’s designs always exhibit
inimitable style that is dis-
tinctly Cavelti.

Toni Carelti: A Jeweller’s
Life is a fitting wibute to the
jeweller’s art.

—— Layne Christensen

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