West Meets All
TYPIFIED BY SUEDE FRINGE, cowboy boots, and silver and turquoise jewelry, classic Western style is always in. Sometimes it’s extra in, also inspiring designs of Western influence that aren’t quite so typical. This is one of those times, as jewelry style expert Deborah Yonick details in Trends, page 22. But the American West and Southwest in particular have an extra special and perennial connection with jewelry. The region owes its permanent ties to this community as an historic and current source of silver, gold, copper, a long list of gems that are popular or rare, and outstanding crystal and fossil specimens for collectors and scientists. As much as anything else, mining drove U.S. history and development westward. It’s no coincidence, then, that in our world “Tucson” has become short for the…