Art Deco Jewelry

Art  Deco Jewelry

Art  Deco Jewelry

Hollywood antiques 

Towards the end of the 1930s, Hollywood's popularization of historic eostume dramas began to have a dramatic effect on American costume jewelry design. Old-fashioned motifs such as hows, insects, and crowns that harked back to the 19th century were revived. Costume jewelry manufacturers re-worked nostalgic styles such as cameo pins, lockets on velvet ribbons, and pins decorated with pendent drops.

One costume jewelry firm in particular—Joseff of Hollywood—came to prominence with an exaggerated "antique" style. Founder Eugene Joseff was a leading supplier of costume jewelry to the major studios. His bold pieces were featured in films such as A Star Is Born and Gone with the Wind. In 1937 he launched a retail line to cater topopular demand for his jewelry. Joseff's pieces made a strong visual statement because they were made of rich matte gold metal. Joseff originally developed this attractive finish, known as "Russian gold," to reduce the reflective glare from gilt jewelry so it could be filmed more easily.

Art  Deco Jewelry

By the 1940s, American costume jewelry designers had largely abandoned Art Deco's dense sparkle of stones in favor of a warm yellow glow. The golden age of costume jewelry had arrived.

The all-white look

Typically, however, the Art Deco jewelry is closely identified with the "all-white" look of densely set sparkling diamonds. The latest setting techniques allowed jewelers of the day to pack stones so closely together the effect was like a glittering white carpet. This elegant look was occasionally set off with other materials such as onyx and coral.

Cutting techniques had improved enormously, and fancy new shapes such as square cuts and baguettes were eminently suited to fashionable geometric designs. Manufacturers of glass gems kept up with these latest developments in diamond faceting.

Art  Deco Jewelry

The best faceted glass gems came from manufacturer Daniel Swarovski in Austria, whose premises were near the river Rhine—which is how faux gems came to be known as rhinestones. In the 1890s, Swarovski invented a mechanized stone cutter. Until that time all glass gems had been cut by hand. The new invention made it possible for Swarovski to produce large quantities of fine-quality faceted glass gems with speed. By the 1920s the company was the main supplier of faceted glass gems to the costume jewelry trade.

To begin with, costume jewelers simply imitated trends in Art Deco diamond pieces. However, costume jewelry's popularity went from strength to strength during the interwar years, and manufacturers such as Eisenberg grew more confident, proudly producing pieces set with "rocks" frankly too large and too unusual in shape to be real.

 

Art  Deco Jewelry

Exotic jewels

Exotic goods, such as sumptuous jewels from far-off lands, were a major source of inspiration for Art Deco design. The taste for the exotic was fueled by a growth in adventurous holidays for the wealthy to Africa and India, and reached its height with the 1931 Exposition Coloniale in Paris. Black American Jazz Age musicians and the dancer Josephine Baker encouraged this fascination with tribal art and materials such as ivory. The results can be seen in pins inspired by tribal masks and carved faux ivory beads.

Art  Deco Jewelry

Makers of both precious and costume jewelry were notably struck by Moghul jew els. A key characteristic of these traditional Indian designs, known as "Tree of Life" jewels, was an abundant mix of carved, irregularly shaped rubies, emeralds, and sapphires. In turn, these opulent designs influenced the work of famous Parisian jew elers in the 1920s and 1930s.

Cartier and other illustrious firms combined colorful gems carved to resemble flowers and berries w ith faceted diamonds on bracelets, necklaces, and pins shaped like vases or baskets. These juicy-looking pieces were soon nicknamed tutti-frutti or fruit-salad jewelry. This attractive trend quickly spread to costume jewelry firms such as Trifari in the United States.

The discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922 ignited a worldwide fascination for all things ancient Egyptian. Imagery such as cobras, scarabs, sphinxes, and falcons became fashionable. These motifs, resurrected from ancient designs, were employed on jewelry set with faceted pastes. Jewelry designers frequently chose to mix ancicnt Egyptian themes with modern geometric forms, and often mimicked the inlaid gold pieces found in pharaohs' tombs in gilt, brass, and colorful enamels.

Art  Deco Jewelry

Fahrner's geometric designs

German manufacturer Fahrner produced some outstanding geometric Art Deco designs for costume jewelry. Based in Pforzheim, the center of the German jewelry industry, Fahrner had already developed a first-class reputation turning out good-quality silver jewelry in the Arts and Crafts style at the turn of the 20th century. 







By the 1920s, the company was producing stylish geometric bracelets, pendants, pins, and earrings. These silver pieces featured inexpensive stones such as blue chalcedony, onyx, and coral in unusual, cubic cabochon cuts. However, the hallmark of Fahrner's Art Deco designs was intricate marcasite detailing. Very popular throughout the interwar years, Fahrner's Art Deco pieces are still highly sought after today and have been widely reproduced.