Jewelry Lovers

The most sophisticated and chic Art Deco jewelry of the period was made in France, using combinations of materials such as coral and jade, and Japanese-inspired black enamel and marcasite. The most outstanding of the French artist-jewelers included Georges Fouquet, Raymond Templier, Gerard Sandoz, Jean Despres and Jean Dunand. There were also a number of excellent copyists who took up the modern fashion.

Another French offshoot of the Art Deco style was a vogue for the “barbaric”, inspired by the work of ancient goldsmiths. Designs in the barbaric style featured Islamic and Near Eastern patterns and mosaics. The Paris dancer, Josephine Baker, and society woman, Nancy Cunard, were the principal promoters of this style, wearing wide, plastic and lacquered bangles by Jean Dunand.

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The world of the twenties was changed dramatically from that of the prewar period. New technologies and materials developed during the war had changed the very nature of the manufacturing industries. The fashion industry in particular took off, and it was catering for women whose role had been changed by the war. No longer were they content to lead formal, restricted lives confined largely to their households. The modern woman wanted sporty, casual, outdoor fashions. In all areas of design, a radical change took place. New bold, streamlined, standardized forms were created and immediately popularized throughout Europe and the United States. The fashion was for abstract, futuristic designs using simple geometric shapes, the circle, triangle and square, in innumerable stylized forms and optical illusions.

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The Tiffany Studios, New York: The American Arts and Crafts Movement

‘Tiffany & Co, produced a prolific amount of jewelry from the latter half of the nineteenth century, first inspired both by British Arts and Crafts and later by Continental Art Nouveau in the first decade of the twentieth century. Louis Comfort Tiffany had been trained as an artist and in collaboration with Julia Munson he managed the jewelry department from 1903. He manufactured luxurious Byzantine-inspired wares, utilizing materials such as opals and amethysts reminiscent of the jewelry at Liberty & Co. in England.

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Austria and the Wiener Werkstätte

In Austria, the search for a new style at the beginning of the century was led by Josef Hoffman and key members of the Succession group, founded in 1897. The main objective of this group of Viennese artists and designers was to improve the status of the decorative arts. Members of the group were employed as teachers in the Vienna Museum of Applied Arts from 1899. A breakaway faction, including the painters Gustav Klimt, Olbrich, Moser and Hoffman, established the Wiener Werkstätte in 1903-4. This was a small colony of artists who wished to promote the individual creativity of the designer, in keeping with the beliefs of Van der Velde. They sought to move away from the dogma of mass- production extolled by German theorists and American industrialists. Their principles were closely allied to the British Arts and Crafts, and their designs had their stylistic roots in German Jugendstijl and French Art Nouveau.

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Until the first decade of the twentieth century most American jewelry was imported from European collections. The first large- scale home production began at the turn of the century when corporations such as Gorham, Rhode Island, and Krementz, New Jersey started to manufacture Gallic imitations. The most outstanding and prestigious jewelry establishment in America at this time was Tiffany and Co. This company had been founded in 1834, under the directorship of Louis Comfort Tiffany, a painter who had studied in Paris.

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Jewelry in Britain at the turn of the century differed from the French because it was more backward-looking and still owed much to the Arts and Crafts. The British decorative motifs featured primeval figures and floral tributes combined with interlace patterns of Celtic origin. These pieces were made in finely crafted silver enriched with polished stones and enamels. They took the form of belt or waist buckles, clasps, hatpins and pendants, reminiscent of the trappings of civic functions. Designers included Archibald Knox, Oliver Baker, Jessie King, Kate Fischer and John Paul

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Art Nouveau jewelry had its origins in the work of French goldsmiths, whose creations were the inspiration for other European craftsmen and women. Most influential among the French artist-jewelers was the glass-maker Rene Lalique. He had a profound impact throughout Europe and America, starting when he opened a shop in Paris in 1885. He showed his work at the Salon du Champ Mars gallery in 1895 and again at the Paris exhibition of 1900. He has become particularly renowned for the pieces he made for the actress Sarah Bernhardt. They were a bold and extravagant celebration of mythology, combining engraved and stained glass in a theatrical style appropriate to the world of the actress.

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Making badges and brooches out of clay is slightly more difficult than the basic techniques used for making beads. However, by using simple modelling techniques anything from strikingly modern designs to more traditionally elegant pieces can be made.

To make the Jewelry Badges

First find your motif. For first projects it is better to stick to simple shapes such as squares and ovals as the more irregular shapes are likely to have a weak point.

Take as much modelling clay as you require and roll it out, using a rolling pin or a clean bottle, to about 6mm (tin) thick. Don’t make it thinner or it is likely to curl when drying or chip afterwards. Cut out the shape desired.

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Whereas some costume jewellers of the late 20th century are happy to exploit artificial materials to create a contrived and sophisticated look, the dawn of a growing awareness of the value of natural products — like wood, paper and leather – means that strong references to all that is natural are now influential too.

Inseparable from this is the irreverence shown toward tradition by the jewellers. Like the artists of the 20th century, their main motivating and inspirational force is the desire to create something new and challenging, rather than a need to slot themselves into the pattern of how things have always been done in the past.

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The design sources of many of the jewellers whose work is illustrated are as diverse as can be, but their inspirations derive from four broad categories: the materials they use; historical influences; looking at what is around them with an open mind; or a strong commitment to a concept that they want to encapsulate in their jewellery design.

Material inspirations

Time and again, jewellers will state that their main inspiration stems from the material with which they are working. Often, the jewellery will be based on their realization of how, to their mind, beautiful that material is — be it warty burr wood, like that used to such good effect by Hayley Smith or twisted wire, such as that used in the creations of Mary Farrell.

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