David Webb was born in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1925, and discovered his love of design as an apprentice silversmith with his uncle. Dreams of the city took him to New York, where he found a job in Greenwich Village and a patron in the form of the wealthy socialite Antoinette Quilleret. In 1945, they opened a store together. Webb’s innovative modern designs quickly captured the attention of the social elite and, by 1948, he had bought out Quilleret and established his own company, David Webb Inc. By the 1950s and 1960s, movie stars and fashion icons including Elizabeth Taylor, Jacqueline Kennedy and Diana Vreeland could be seen wearing his bracelets, brooches, rings and necklaces — jewels fashioned in hammered gold, black enamel and colourful gemstones, many in the shape of exotic animals.