Neil Lane Showcases His Historic Collection of Jewels for the First Time in New Book and Exhibit (Exclusive) Michelle LeeSeptember 30, 2025 at 7:00 AM 0 Amazon; Lendon Flanagan Neil Lane debuts new book and Toledo Museum of Art exhibit "Radiance and Reverie" Neil Lane is showing his historic curatio...
- - Neil Lane Showcases His Historic Collection of Jewels for the First Time in New Book and Exhibit (Exclusive)
Michelle LeeSeptember 30, 2025 at 7:00 AM
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Amazon; Lendon Flanagan
Neil Lane debuts new book and Toledo Museum of Art exhibit "Radiance and Reverie" -
Neil Lane is showing his historic curation of jewelry in a new exhibit at the Toledo Art Museum called "Radiance and Reverie: Jewels from the Collection of Neil Lane"
The showcase, which includes jewels from 1850 all the way up to antique Hollywood relics revived through modern-day celebrity red carpet fashion, is presented and storied in a book of the same name
In an interview with PEOPLE, Lane reflects on his career and what led him to his latest project
When opportunity comes knocking, Neil Lane is always prepared to answer.
"I think being an Aquarius, I worked off a 'What's next?' mantra," the celebrity jewelry designer tells PEOPLE while reflecting on his decades-long career. "Everything was a step for me, everything was an opportunity for me."
The native New Yorker, who is now an Angeleno, credits his Brooklyn upbringing for his "sense of moxie," because even though he was "totally petrified" of forging his own path, "at the same time, I was fearless," he says. "I still feel like that today."
It's this mindset that led Lane down his current path: releasing a new book called Radiance and Reverie: Jewels from the Collection of Neil Lane, which accompanies a namesake exhibition at the Toledo Museum of Art that will display his historic collection of jewelry for the first time ever.
Courtesy Neil Lane
Neil Lane at his booth at the Antiquarius Center
"It's a myriad of things, It's treasures, it's my mind's reeling with jewels that I've seen in my lifetime — the desire to have them, to own them, to touch them," he describes of the pieces in the book, published by Rizzoli Electa, edited by Emily Stoehrer and Diane C. Wright and featuring essays by Marion Fasel, Mayukh Sen and Claudine Seroussi Bretagne, who bring the stories of Lane's curation to life.
Like the showcase (running from Oct. 18, 2025, through Jan. 18, 2026), the book includes imagery of Lane's relics collected from the Victorian era, the Art Deco period (an influence on many of Lane's designs to this day) and the era of Old Hollywood. "The jewels, they mean so much to me," he says.
Precious pieces made by Cartier, Castellani, Paul Flato, Jean Fouquet, Marcus & Co., Louis C. Tiffany, Tiffany & Co. and Van Cleef & Arpels are featured alongside one-of-a-kind items, including a 19th-century silver and gold necklace boasting antique diamonds weighing 50 carats that was later loaned by Lane to Jennifer Garner for the 2013 Oscars.
Earning a spot in the pages is also Mae West's 1930s platinum 150-carat aquamarine and diamond pendant brooch, as well as a pear-shaped diamond ring that is believed to have been presented as an engagement ring to actress Jean Harlow. This ring later, in part, inspired Lane's first ring design for The Bachelor.
Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images Jennifer Garner wearing Lane's 19th-century diamond necklace at the 2013 Oscars
Radiance and Reverie concludes with an interview with Lane, who talks about pivoting to jewels from his career as an artist by turning trash on the street into treasure. In the book, he writes of this time in his life, saying he would take "discarded things" and bring them back to his parents' garage.
"I'd come home from school, do some artwork, have dinner, and then I'd go out with a flashlight, a couple packs of cigarettes, and gloves," he writes of his process of finding these treasures that he looked to sell.
Courtesy Neil Lane
A 1933 engagement ring believed to have belonged to actress Jean Harlow
Soon, Lane, who made one of his first official sales from collecting on Depression-era glass at a Flatbush Avenue flea market, felt an "urge to keep some of the things," which he eventually did.
In the book, he recalls paying $12,000 for a necklace exhibited in 1907 and that won a Gaillard medal. He'd come close to making a profit off of it, "but I still couldn't sell it and I still have it, more than 40 years later," he explains.
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Courtesy Neil Lane
Neil Lane selling at a Manhattan flea market
The section then recounts Lane's counter work at Beverly Boulevard's Antiquarius Center, a gig that opened up a whole new world of A-list clientele that made him a go-to for Hollywood's bling inquiries. "That counter became my kingdom, a little dominion," he tells PEOPLE, then reflecting how he brought his trained eye workshopped in Paris right to the West Coast.
"All those years of studying, putting my nose in the windows and handing beautiful jewels, and then learning about Art Deco jewelry and certain names and makers... everything I learned in Paris, I could now share with the people that were coming to Antiquarius." And by people, Lane means stars such as Ellen Barkin, Kate Hudson, Renée Zellweger, Reese Witherspoon, Lady Gaga and Madonna, to whom Lane loaned Mae West's diamond bracelet for her 2003 "Hollywood" music video.
Lane lastly reflects on bringing his Hollywood Diamond Collection to DeBeers ("I thought, 'Well, maybe I'd be good for them' and the heavens intervened), then becoming the crown jewel of Bachelor Nation (he's been making engagement rings for the franchise for nearly 20 years).
"They wanted a real person, a designer, someone human the Bachelor could talk to," he shares. "I was helping the young guys to make the biggest decision they'd ever made in their lives."
Looking ahead, Lane will do what he's always done — stay true to himself. "I'm not reinventing myself," he says, but he will be trusting what he universe has in store when opportunity comes his way.
Lane's book, Radiance and Reverie: Jewels from the Collection of Neil Lane, is available in hardcover now.
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