Fleur de Lis Jewelry Hot Item
Brooke Erickson
February 14, 2006, 6:33 PM CST
METAIRIE — It’s Valentine’s day and there’s a new trend in the making.
Around New Orleans, heart-shaped jewelry is out.
Fleur de lis jewelry is in.
It’s always been a staple in New Orleans.
It represents this city.
But now, anything fleur de lis, won’t stay on shelves very long.
Today more than ever.
Had it not been for this lover’s holiday, you’d be lucky to find anything fleur de lis on the shelves.
But the owners at Sue’s Jewelry off Metairie Road had a feeling, it might be a hot item for Valentine’s day, so they stocked up. “Because of Hurricane Katrina of course, it’s representing our city, people want to make sure they’re showing representation,” said one of the store’s owners, Melissa Bonano.
Ever since the storm, Bonano says, she can’t keep the symbolic piece on the shelves.
Saying it makes up 80-85% of her sales. “I get in 100 bracelets at a time or more, and I sell them in a day,” Bonano said.
But it’s not just at Sue’s Jewelry.
It’s stores all over town.
Mignon Faget thought she’d have to file for bankruptcy after the storm.
She says it’s the fleur de lis that saved her 3 businesses.
She says sales have more than doubled in the last five and a half months. “I’ve sold a large number of Fleur de lis’, people are kinda wearing it as a badge of honor to show that New Orleans is here to stay,” said Faget. “I have my own, I wear a different one almost every day,” said Bonano in agreement with Faget.
There’s also a jeweler on the Northshore who can’t keep her post-katrina creation in stock.
Her name is Anne Dale.
She makes pendants that say, ‘I know what it means to love New Orleans,’ in a crescent.
It has a fleur de lis inside of the heart.
Since it’s inception in October, Dale says she’s sold more than 22,000 of them and the requests keep coming in. “People say I want the hurricane Katrina pin, or the HK pendant because that piece represents the disaster,” said Bonano, who sells the Dale pieces.
You can find some of those Anne Dale pieces in certain hospitals and stores here on the south shore.
She just came out with a ring that will be exclusive to her north shore store in Mandeville.
It says, ‘return to New Orleans, Louisiana.’
She wants to get the message out, not only to locals, but tourists too, to return to our city.
For more information on her jewelry, check out her two websites.
http://www.annedale.com or
http://www.iknowwhatitmeans.com
100% of the proceeds from Dales’ “I know what it means” pendant and pins go to charity.
