Italy vs. United States

The prototypes for Ponti’s design show his original intent. They are substantially larger than any flatware Reed & Barton produced. They were hand-made, and the shapes were not well-suited to available production methods. The shapes are visually satisfying, but not considered functionally; the knife would puzzle anyone trying to cut meat, and the bowl of the spoon relates more to the idea of triangular shapes than of human mouths. And, perhaps most importantly, they were a little too aggressively modern for the conservative Reed & Barton customer.

Diamond prototypes

RISD Special Collections

Promotional literature mentions that Diamond was “skillfully adapted to American preferences in sterling flatware by the Reed & Barton design staff.” John Prip, artist/craftsman in residence, under the supervision of design director Theodore Cayer, completely reworked Ponti’s design, arriving at a version that still looked enough like the original to be sold as a Ponti design, but also satisfy functional and manufacturing requirements without being too challenging for consumers. 

RISD Special Collections

This combination of famous designer and careful in-house revisions led to Reed & Barton’s most successful flatware pattern, introduced in 1958.

Diamond production

Old Colony History Museum

Expanding a Collection

Gio Ponti designed three items for Diamond; a fork, spoon, and knife. Yet the finished collection included a five-piece flatware set, dozens of additional flatware and serving items, and a complete coffee ant tea set. 

Ponti was not part of the design process that led to this expanded Diamond collection. John Prip designed the matching tea and coffee set, but today, the world generally considers this a Gio Ponti design because it stems from the original initiative. This lack of clarity is how design happens, and shows the difference between a celebrated designer hired to raise the profile of a company, and an in-house staff designer hired to produce items that would sell well.

Diamond coffeepot

Pierson Modern

Prip’s ability to understand and then expand the Ponti design sensibility is evidence of his extraordinary skill. Prip went on to create many of his own designs for Reed & Barton, including Lark, Dimension, Star, and Tapestry, which continued the commercial success of Diamond, and advanced the development of new, contemporary design at Reed & Barton.

Diamond teapot

Dallas Museum of Art

Lark, Dimension, Star, Tapestry

Midcentury Style

Diamond was unlike any design Reed & Barton had produced in the prior 100 years of making flatware. There is no decoration: no flowers or fluting or scrolls. Diamond is certainly still decorative, but it achieves its distinct aesthetic through smooth surfaces and subtle transitions from one angled surface to the next. This is partly a result of the preferences of its designers. But in the 1950s, all design was undergoing the same sort of change from decorated surfaces to decorative, smooth shapes.

Ornament is often used to hide defects and irregularities; advances in manufacturing and material use, many developed during WWII, allowed these simpler forms. The arrival of stainless steel, another war-time advance, neatly fit theses new designs, as it was too hard to be stamped into detailed patterns. 

Trajan

1892

Francis 1

1907

Francis 1

1907

Diamond

1958

Stainless flatware

Old Colony History Museum

Reed & Barton flatware introduced after Diamond (in sterling, in silver plate, and increasingly also in stainless steel) adopted this new, simpler aesthetic.

Sterling flatware

Seascape

1958

Etude

1958

One Rose

1962

Regency

1965

Taj Mahal

1969

Lovelock

1972

Lark

1960

Petit Fleur

1961

Cellini

1967

Diadem

1967

End of an Era

Throughout the 1940s and 50s, Reed & Barton aggressively marketed their silver flatware. The main target for these efforts was young women who might be getting married, helping to intentionally create and promote the idea that every young bride should have a silver service of her own. 

1947

1951

1951

1951

Acuity Management

A number of factors combined to move silver flatware out of the spotlight. The availability, ease of maintenance (along with the arrival of domestic dishwashers), durability, and price helped stainless steel eclipse silver. The price of silver fluctuated dramatically through the 1970s. When Diamond was introduced, it was at $1.29 an ounce. By 1970 it was up to $3.27 and then $6.76. The Silver Crisis of 1980 saw it shoot up to $49.45 an ounce. Although silver value did stabilize, its increasing use in electronic circuitry meant that the era of heavy sterling flatware like Diamond was over. Even Diamond was introduced in stainless as Diamante in 1979.

1949

Diamante stainless

1979

1961