Was Juliana Really Only Made for Two Years? What Frank DeLizza Actually Said
Every so often, a statement makes the rounds in vintage jewelry discussions that sounds authoritative because it has been repeated so many times:
“Juliana was only made for two years. Everything else should properly be called DeLizza & Elster.”
Sometimes the statement goes even further, adding that this terminology was preferred by Frank DeLizza himself.
There is a problem with that explanation.
It takes one part of the history — the approximately two-year experiment with widespread Juliana hang tags and cards — and turns it into something Frank DeLizza never said: that the name Juliana applied only to jewelry produced during those two years.
Fortunately, we do not have to speculate about what happened.
Frank told the story himself.
Why the Juliana Name Was Created
In Memoirs of a Fashion Jewelry Manufacturer, Frank DeLizza explains on page 68 that DeLizza & Elster decided they should try to build name recognition with both stores and the buying public.
That was the reason for creating the name Juliana.
The name combined Julia, Frank’s mother, with Anna, the mother-in-law of his brother and business partner, Tony.
Frank even tells the charming story of a pair of decorative doves in the office on which his son Justin wrote the name “Juliana.”
So from the beginning, Juliana was not the name of a particular construction style, rhinestone combination, or narrowly defined collection of jewelry.
It was an attempt to give DeLizza & Elster’s jewelry a recognizable name.
— Frank DeLizza, Memoirs of a Fashion Jewelry Manufacturer, p. 68
Then Came the Hang Tags
On page 69, Frank explains what happened when they tried to put Juliana tags on the jewelry.
He says that he initially put the tags on every item in their sample line and began showing the line to wholesalers.
Some customers liked the idea. Frank specifically mentions Pakula.
Others did not.
In fact, some wholesalers objected strongly to receiving merchandise on Juliana cards or with Juliana tags attached. They wanted to sell the jewelry under their own name or without another identifying name attached to it.
That meant D&E could not simply tag everything Juliana.
Some orders were supposed to receive tags.
Others were specifically supposed to go out without them.
Frank describes the difficulty this caused at the factory. Tags had to be counted and placed with the correct trays of jewelry. Occasionally the wrong pieces were tagged. Some customers returned merchandise so D&E could remove the tags, while others charged D&E for the labor their own employees spent removing them.
— Frank DeLizza, Memoirs of a Fashion Jewelry Manufacturer, p. 69
That fact alone is important.
Even during the period when D&E was actively promoting the Juliana name, not all of the jewelry left the factory wearing Juliana tags.
Whether a piece was tagged could depend simply upon which customer ordered it.
Where the “Two Years” Comes From
This is the part of Frank’s story that has gradually been shortened into the familiar statement that “Juliana was only made for two years.”
But that is not what he wrote.
Frank says that the difficulties surrounding the tagging system went on for about two years, and that eventually he was forced to abandon the idea.
What did he abandon?
The effort to routinely tag the line.
He did not say DeLizza & Elster stopped making “Juliana jewelry” because some defined two-year Juliana production period had ended.
He was describing the failure of a branding and tagging program.
That distinction matters.
And the Juliana Tags Did Not Stop After Two Years
This may be the most overlooked part of Frank’s account.
Immediately after explaining that the general tagging experiment lasted about two years, Frank says that D&E continued using the Juliana tags and cards afterward when they worked with a few large retailers who believed having a name on the jewelry would help it sell.
In other words, even the hang tags themselves cannot be confined neatly to a two-year window.
Frank described this later use as bringing the Juliana name back in a much more limited way.
He also tells us just how many tags remained.
After DeLizza & Elster eventually closed, Frank estimated that he burned approximately 10,000 unused Juliana tags and cards in his fireplace.
— Frank DeLizza, Memoirs of a Fashion Jewelry Manufacturer, p. 69
So the historical picture is not:
Two years of Juliana jewelry, followed by DeLizza & Elster jewelry.
It is much more interesting than that.
D&E created the Juliana name as an effort to establish brand recognition.
They attempted to tag their line with it.
Some wholesale customers accepted the tags.
Others refused them.
Tagged and untagged jewelry therefore existed at the same time.
The broad tagging program became too difficult to administer and was abandoned after about two years.
But Juliana tags and cards continued to be used selectively afterward for retailers who wanted them.
That is Frank DeLizza’s own account on pages 68–69 of his memoir.
A Hang Tag Is Not a Manufacturing Boundary
This is where the collector conversation sometimes goes astray.
A paper hang tag tells us something extremely valuable about the history of an individual piece.
But a removable paper tag cannot reasonably be used to divide the entire body of DeLizza & Elster production into “Juliana” and “not Juliana” when Frank himself tells us that identical factory production could be tagged for one customer and deliberately left untagged for another.
The jewelry did not suddenly become different jewelry when someone in the factory attached — or did not attach — a paper tag.
And because the tags continued to be used selectively after the approximately two-year general experiment ended, the presence of a Juliana tag does not even establish the simple two-year dating rule that is so often repeated.
Juliana and DeLizza & Elster
Of course, DeLizza & Elster is the name of the company.
Calling the jewelry DeLizza & Elster, or D&E, is completely appropriate.
But that is very different from saying that calling documented DeLizza & Elster jewelry Juliana is somehow historically incorrect unless it can be proven to have carried a Juliana hang tag during a particular two-year period.
Frank’s own account does not support that conclusion.
Today, “Juliana” has become the collector name most widely associated with the jewelry produced by DeLizza & Elster, particularly the unsigned jewelry collectors have spent decades studying and documenting through construction, components, original tags, factory provenance, design records, and known examples.
That collector usage does not erase the company name DeLizza & Elster.
Nor does calling something DeLizza & Elster make the term Juliana wrong.
The two names tell different parts of the same history.
Why This Matters
Jewelry history becomes less accurate when a complicated story is reduced to a slogan.
“Juliana was only made for two years” sounds wonderfully simple.
But Frank DeLizza’s own story was not that simple.
What lasted about two years was the attempt to broadly attach Juliana tags and cards to the line.
The jewelry continued.
The name continued to be used.
The tags themselves continued to be used selectively.
And both tagged and untagged jewelry existed during the original tagging period.
That is why, when discussing Juliana jewelry today, I believe we should return to the primary source rather than repeating a rule Frank himself never established.
If someone tells you that Juliana existed for only two years, ask one simple question:
Are we talking about the jewelry — or are we talking about the hang-tag program?
Because according to Frank DeLizza himself, those are not the same thing.
Source
Frank DeLizza, Memoirs of a Fashion Jewelry Manufacturer, pp. 68–69.