Tennis Jewelry, Played in Tennis Jewelry

It started, as most things in this house start, with me saying something I believed was reasonable.

I told Danielle her jewelry was too excessive to play tennis in. The necklace, the bracelet, the emerald. On a court. I made the point once, calmly, and considered the matter closed.

The matter was not closed.

The rebuttal

What followed is now on film. The First Lady, in a navy double-breasted suit and heels, on a blue hard court at an Open of our own imagining, hitting forehands under the arena lights. Tennis necklace on. Tennis bracelet on. Emerald on. Nothing removed for the occasion, because nothing, in her view, needed to be.

A man with a microphone met her on court and asked the question any sensible broadcaster would ask: "So you're an unknown unranked player. How did we get here?"

Her answer, in full: "This one is from my husband, who said my jewelry was too excessive to play tennis in. So I flew up here from Atlanta real quick."

Real quick. To an Open. To make a point to one man, who was not, at that moment, holding the microphone.

I have been married long enough to recognize a closing argument when I see one. This was a closing argument with a crowd.

Where the name comes from

Here is the part that keeps me humble. The argument was not new. Tennis already had it, at the real thing.

Before it was a tennis bracelet, it was a line bracelet: one row of stones, set one after another, nothing interrupting the line. Then, as the story is usually told, at the 1987 US Open, Chris Evert's diamond line bracelet came loose during a match. She asked for play to stop while it was found. Play stopped. The bracelet was found. And from then on, hardly anyone called it a line bracelet again.

Look at that sequence. A woman wears her diamonds to play tennis. The diamonds go into the record under the sport's name. In time the necklace took the name too, the same unbroken line worn at the collar instead of the wrist.

So when Danielle carried her jewelry onto a court to settle a point with her husband, she was not starting an argument. She was finishing one that tennis started.

What the line is

Right then. Have a butcher's at the bracelet. Cushion-cut stones, each in its own claw setting, sitting shoulder to shoulder around the wrist. That is the whole design. No pendant stealing attention, no clasp pretending to be a feature. The line is the point.

That is why it suits a court as well as it suits a dinner table, or a Tuesday. It doesn't announce itself. It just sits there being right, which is more than can be said for my original position.

The necklace she wore takes the same idea and builds it out, tiers of pear and marquise stones falling from the line, with drop earrings to match. Proper, and not shy about it.

And the emerald. Danielle wears a Colombian emerald set in gold. Emerald is her color. It went to the Open too. Of course it did.

You're not going to catch Danielle out ah door with her two long hand. You were never going to catch her on a court that way either.

The box

The Princess and the Young Master watched from the box in matching navy blazers, hands folded, faces set. Someone behind them applauded. The two of them kept their hands exactly where they were, and gave the proceedings their full, unsmiling attention. Respect is respect.

By the end the First Lady had the microphone, a towel over one shoulder like a player who has done the work, and the stands lit up with phone lights behind her. I had my answer.

So I'll concede it here, on the record. The jewelry was not too excessive to play tennis in. It was named for it. That's the whole story.

The full film is on our YouTube channel. The pieces, and the conversation about something made for you, start at alexlexington.com/indulge, where custom work begins with a consultation.