Patently Obvious?

Here at Displayarama we take retail store display products very seriously and we love to chat with our customers about their experiences and ours - we learn a lot that way! Our customers will often comment on the range and depth of our knowledge when we are talking about the advantages or disadvantages of a particular type of store fixture. Store owners, more often than not, are able to turn our knowledge and advice to their advantage in the form of increased sales or profitability.

Not only do we learn from our customers but we also learn from our suppliers, from attending conferences and exhibitions, and doing our own basic research. Every now and again we come across something that is not so much useful but just plain interesting or amusing, here is a good example.

You may be as surprised as we were to learn that there is a connection between our jewelry display items and this strange looking patent on the right. All will be revealed at the end but first a little history.

U.S. patent D114,199 for a Display Article Holder was granted to Frederick W. Rettenmeyer on the 11th April 1939. He was the assignor to the Napier Company of Meriden, Connecticut and describes his invention in very few words. He simply says "Fig.1 is a perspective view of a display article holder showing my new design and Fig.2 is a top plan view of the same". There is nothing about the size of the display or any details of its construction or even what kind of articles were to be displayed.

We do however know about the assignee, the Napier Company. This extraordinary company began in 1875 as Whitney and Rice based in North Attleboros Massachusetts manufacturing gilt men's watch chains. In 1882 the company changed hands and became Carpenter and Bliss and shortly afterwards E.A. Bliss and Co., Inc. The company expanded rapidly during the 1880s and moved to Meriden Connecticut in 1890. In 1920 James Napier became president and the company adopted the name Napier - Bliss Co. In 1922, the name was changed to simply the Napier Company.

James Napier was greatly influenced by European manufacturers and even had an office in Paris to keep an eye on the new fashion trends. Under his influence the company shifted emphasis from gilt and silver products to the production of modern jewelry. Napier regarded their jewelry as 'fashion' rather than 'costume' and fashion jewelry was thought of within the industry at the time to be of superior quality and certainly more prestigious than costume jewelry.

His designers traveled to London, Florence and Paris in search of inspiration and Napier presented five collections a year, manufacturing for high end boutiques (Ref: Melinda L. Abbott personal interview). Almost all of the jewelry was made in quantities of less than five hundred pieces per design and is now highly prized by collectors.

The company excelled from the 1920’s to the late 1950’s and into the early 1960’s until James Napier retired at which time the company began to slowly fall into decline. In 1974 cast white metal and model making took over from hand made pieces and the company went from bad to worse finally being sold to Victoria & Co. Ltd in March 1999. Unfortunately the company’s manufacturing facility in Meriden was closed at the same time.

Napier is now owned and operated under the corporate umbrella of Jones Apparel Group New York, along with other well known brands like Anne Klein, Bandolino and Nine West and its jewelry is still being manufactured and distributed today. The company has become amazingly successful again, this time selling mass produced fashion accessories, mostly gold and silver plated chains, necklaces, bracelets and earrings.

So we are fairly sure that in 1939 Rettenmeyer's patent ‘display article holder' was showing off to advantage the Napier company's latest fashion jewelry, probably at the five annual presentations of their collection.

And here is the connection, nearly seventy years later our very own jewelry display units are doing the same thing for Napier jewelry in our customers stores all over the US. Our displays are more contemporary but so is the jewelry, we are sure James Napier would have approved!