Hobe Jewelry

Hobe   Jewelry


With "Jewels of Legendary Splendor" as its slogan, William Hobe's company

Hobe   Jewelry

made jewelry for film and theater, becoming a favorite of legendary director and producer Cecil B. DeMille.

Hobe was founded in Paris in the mid-19th century. Jacques Hobc was a master goldsmith and jeweler at the French court. However, with the advent of industrialization and mass production, Hobe began to produce costume jewelry with the same meticulous care he had previously devoted to making precious pieces.

Hobe   Jewelry

In the mid-1920s, Hobe's grandson William emigrated to New York City. He began selling theatrical costumes and soon received a commission to make costumes and jewelry for the Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway, initiating the Hobe Jewelry company's long association with the stage.

In 1927. William Hobe set up Hobe Cie in the United States, continuing the family firm's costume jewelry production. I lis antique- style jewelry became en vogue after Gone with the Wind\ with its huge, romantic ballgowns, arriv ed on the silver screen in 1939.

Hobe   Jewelry

Building on his ancestral interest in working with semi-precious and precious stones, William Hobe researched historical European jewelry. Consequently, from the mid-1920s until the 1950s, his designs and use of semi-precious materials set him apart from his contemporaries. Chrysoprase, lapis, garnet, amethyst, jade, and agate were combined with pearls and carved ivory panels, making his pieces, then as now, more expensive than typical costume jewelry.




 Vermeil silver pieces with hand-worked filigree created a romantic

Hobe   Jewelry

feel popular in the 1930s and 1940s. Superb early pieces include carved cinnabar and ivory Oriental work and portrait miniatures, as well as highly prized reproductions of 16th- and 17th-century European precious jewelry.

Hobe is best known for floral pins designed as large bouquets, using a variety of semi-precious stones and quality pastes, and silver plate, vermeil, or platinum settings. His bouquet pins were popular in the 1930s and 1940s, selling in top-end stores, and arc highly collectible today.

By the 1950s, Hobe Jewelry rivaled Joseff of Hollywood as the jewelry supplier to the stars, including Bctte Davis and Ava Gardner. His reputation with the public was consolidated by extravagant advertising campaigns using Hollywood's most beautiful actresses and top models.

Hobe   Jewelry

Hobe succumbed to the more contemporary mood for glamor, and began using paste and base metals in glitzy designs in the vein of Kramer and Weiss. However, the designs were innovative and the pieces well made, so there is still high demand for this later work among collectors today, despite the cheaper materials. Additionally,




 I lobe maintained the quality of its craftsmanship and output by using only designs created by family members and designer Lou Vici, who worked for the company for 40 years from the 1930s onward.

The Hobe Jewelry company remained in the family until the late 1990s, when it was sold. Today, it still produces signed pieces rev isiting earlier designs.