When Queen Victoria Came To The Throne In 1837 Jewellery Was Romantic And Nationalistic
Although jewellery had been made by multiple methods of production for centuries, mid Victorian mass production meant that standards were lowered and Victorian women rebelled against this lowering of quality. Many wore no jewellery at all, or bought from the artist craftsman jewelers who emerged at much the same time.
To win back these demanding customers some jewelers like Tiffany & Co began to make fine jewellery of such high standard that they soon opened shops in main cities of Europe.
With the death of Queen Victoria’s husband Albert, there was a huge fashion for mourning jewellery. Jet from Northern England was set into mourning pieces. All types of material that were black were used and almost all included a lock of the dead loved one’s hair.
In the 1870′s mourning jewellery was replaced by the Arts and Crafts movement. It was a reaction to the mass production of the industrial revolution and was led by William Morris and John Ruskin who promoted simple designs based on floral, primitive or Celtic forms worked as wallpapers, furniture and jewellery.
The polished stones used in Arts and Crafts jewellery gave jewellery a simpler, hand made look and feel to items. Major players in this movement were Liberty of London and Rene Mackintosh of Glasgow both of whose designs remain famous today…
By 1900, Arts and Crafts was replaced by Art Nouveau, a more ostentatious version started in France.
Art Nouveau jewellery follows curving organic lines of romantic and imaginary dreaminess. The Frenchman René Lalique was the master goldsmith of the era of Art Nouveau producing exquisite one off pieces which are still highly valued today.
In the 1900′s pearls were fashionable again, but still very expensive. This led to the first production of “cultured” pearls. Real pearls made by placing a small bead into an oyster shell. The bead coated itself with nacre (mother of pearl), creating a pearl. This process was led by Kokichi Mikimoto of Japan.
The next big trend was costume jewellery. In the 1930′s Designers Coco Chanel (1883-1971) and Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973) encouraged clients to use costume jewellery and to mix it with genuine gem pieces they already owned. Both designers offered imagination and fun and both often sported fabulous fakes.
By the 1940s and 1950s American culture dominated Europe. Hollywood set the fashion. People wanted to look like their screen idols. With metals rationed throughout the 1940′s fine jewellery production ground to a halt, and the wholesale silver jewelry which was flourishing in America, became seen as a real alternative to fine jewellery.
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