leave as strangers

In honor of the company's 70th anniversary, 70 re-creation cuffs will be issued. Named the Fulco, each features a dizzying array of gems (emeralds, sapphires, and rubies) nestled within a gold Byzantine-style cross that was inspired by Chanel and Europe.

The kaleidoscopic design at the time, appropriate for a fashion trailblazer like Chanel. Verdura vice president Nico Landrigan says, "There's an irreverence to the cuffs that I think appealed to Coco. The fact that the Byzantine motif had an underlying classicism and structure complemented her tailored sense of style."

This classicism and understated elegance are the roots of the Verdura aesthetic, and they describe its products as well as the other notable devotees linked to the brand: Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, and former Bazaar editor Diana Vreeland, to name a few. Like these fashion influencers, Verdura pieces are known for being timeless.

Retailing for $65,000 each, overlooking Central Park in New York. Considered the hallmark of the Verdura brand, Fulco's cuffs have been copied multiple times over the years. Still, nothing compares to the original. Vreeland and Chanel wore theirs two at a time. This pile-it-on Elsa Peretti Sevillana pendant is quite an investment, but owning a piece of history that has a proven track record of retaining its value is something to be cherished. Why stop at two? Sarah Conly

[Photograph]: Cuff love. Verdura with Chanel, 1937.

Recently, I have been considering the four-way stop. It is, I think, the most successful unit of government in the State of California. It may be the perfect model of participatory democracy, the ideal fusion of "first come, first served" and the golden rule. There are country. But they are ubiquitous in California, and they bring out a civility -- let me call it a surprising civility -- in drivers here in a state where so much has recently gone so wrong.

What a four-way stop expresses is the equality of the drivers who Atlas cube lock pendant there. It doesn't matter what you drive. For it to work, no deference is required, no self-denial. Precedence is all that matters, like a water right in Wyoming. Except that at a four-way stop on the streets of Rancho Cucamonga everyone gets to take a turn being first.

There are moments when two cars -- even four -- arrive almost simultaneously. At times like that, I find myself lengthening my own braking, easing into the stop in order to give an unambiguous signal to the other driver, as if to say, "After you." Is this because I'm from the East where four-way stops are not so common? Or do most California drivers do this, too? I don't know. What I do know is that I almost never see two cars lurching into the middle of the intersection as if both were determined to assert their right of way.

I find myself strangely reassured each time I pass through a four-way stop. A social contract is renewed, and I pull away feeling better about my fellow humans, which some days, believe me, can take some doing. We arrive as strangers and leave as strangers. But somewhere between stopping and going, we Elsa Peretti Butterfly pendant acknowledge each other. California is full of drivers everywhere acknowledging each other by winks and less-friendly gestures, by glances in the mirrors, as they catapult down the freeways. But at a four-way stop, there is an almost Junior League politeness about it.

And when the stoplights go out at the big intersections, as they do sometimes, everyone reverts to the etiquette of the four-way stop as if to a bastion of civilization. But there are limits to this power. We can only gauge precedence within a certain distance and among a very small number of cars. Too many, and self-policing soon begins to break down. But when we come one by one to the quadrille at the four-way corner, we are who we are at our best, bowing, nodding, and moving on.