Art deco jewellery

Art Deco Jewellery

Art deco jewellery

By the end of World War I, a bold new style had begun to permeate all areas of design. It was sparked by the stunning costumes and sets of the Ballets Russes, the dance company formed by impresario Sergei Diaghilev that made a huge impact when it arrived in Paris in 1909. In the 1960s, this style became known as Art Deco, its name derived from the international exhibition of decorative arts held in Paris in 1925 that helped spread this style.

Art Deco is most commonly associated with primary colors and strong geometric forms. Jewelers of the period produced dazzling pieces based on circles, squares, and triangles.

Art deco jewellery

Chanel's influence

More than any other fashion designer, Coco Chanel is credited with persuading women to dress in a more practical—almost masculine—style. During World War I, women had taken on new roles outside the home. This trend continued throughout the 1920s and 1930s, with women playing a more active part in politics, business, and sport. The flappers, with their short hair and short skirts, typified this newfound emancipation, and Chanel's clothes suited their new, more independent lifestyles.

Costume jewelry, especially long ropes of faux pearls, was an important element of Chanel's elegant, understated look. She did not copy trends in real jewelry: her costume jewels were undeniably fake, and she often mixed real and faux together. Apart from her signature pearls, she was known for her long gilt chains and richly colored "poured glass" jewelry with a vaguely Eastern flavor. Although only wealthy women could afford Chanel's couture pieces, the chic image she promoted encouraged many women to personalize their outfits with fake jewels.

Art deco jewellery

Bakelite jewelry

"Plastics" have been made since ancient times. The word can describe any material that can be molded, from tortoiseshell to chemical resins. The first synthetic plastic was invented in 1907. Called Bakelite after its inventor Leo Baekeland, its name has become a catch-all term for many early man   made materials.

Until the late 1920s, plastics were predominantly employed to imitate other materials,

such as the tortoiseshell and ivory used for hair combs and belt buckles. This was the period when phenolic resin plastics first became available. 




These improved plastics combined sturdiness with greater translucency, and could also be easily tinted in bright colors such as amber yellow, cherry red, jade green, and jet black. The low cost of these man made materials left designers and manufacturers free to experiment in whatever way they wanted. Costume jewelry firms were quick to spot that these innovative materials could he cast, shaped, and carved into exciting new forms of jewelry.

During the late 1920s and 1930s, this exciting new material inspired the creation of unprecedented designs. European costume jewelers working with plastics produced some daring and highly original pieces based on simple cubes and other geometric shapes.

Art deco jewellery

 These stark, abstract designs were relieved with metal accents made from brass or chrome, another modern material. The Europeans' contemporaries in the United States also produced striking geometric designs, but they preferred to use plastic by itself.

In the interwar years, it was fashionable to wear a lot of bangles, many of which were made of plastic that had been molded and carved in a wide variety of stylish designs.

Chunky hinged bangles which opened up into two halves were a noteworthy favorite.

Witty plastic novelties

Art deco jewellery

The rise of plastics coincided with the Wall Street stock market crash of 1929 and the terrible economic depression that followed. While people had less disposable income, they were still willing to spend small sums on cheery novelties, such as inexpensive plastic jewelry that offered some diversion from current uncertainties and hardship.

During the Depression many costume jewelry firms produced an array of fun and witty plastic pieces inspired by modern phenomena such as jazz music, and new forms of adventure, such as travel by automobile, ship, or airplane.



 Figural pins shaped like caricature jazz musicians, hotel bellhops, and sailors in bell-bottoms were popular. So were cute pins that looked like all types of animals, from cats and Scottie dogs to parrots and swordfish. The Brazilian performer Carmen Miranda sparked a craze for tropical-style plastic neck-chains and pins decorated with dangling fruit charms.

 

The American influence

French designers, particularly Coco Chanel, may have made costume jewelry stylish, but the overwhelming majority of plastic pieces were manufactured in the United States, which by the 1930s was much more industrially advanced than Europe. As a consequence, Americans produced and wore more plastic bangles, pins, and necklaces than Europeans.

Art deco jewellery

The plastic industry wasn't the only American business of the 1930s to benefit from a general desire for inexpensive diversions: visiting the cinema to see the latest Hollywood films was another popular form of escapism. As the decade unfolded, movie stars and their glamorous outfits began to make a huge impact on fashion.screen.

Women copied their gowns and the way they attached chic clips to their dresses, coats, hats, and shoes. Mass-market manufacturers rushed to copy the costume jewelry worn by famous actresses such as Jean Harlow and Joan Crawford in major motion pictures. Leading costume jewelry firms such as Trifari added to their reputations by producing exclusive designs for the stars of stage and screen.