Jewelry Lovers

It was during the sixties that jewelry first ceased to be perceived as being solely for women. Jody Shields describes the way that the avant-garde idea of jewelry for men percolated through to the fashion market.

‘Fashion-conscious men tossed aside neckties in favour of necklaces. With that action, the man on the street joined the ranks of hipster-style revolutionaries like Richard Burton and the Earl of Snowdon. In 1968 the earl wore a gold eagle on a gold chain, plus a copper wrist bracelet. Pierre Cardin offered aluminium and silver pendant necklaces set with uncut diamonds for $1000. In the costume jewelry line, there were necklaces for men dangling disks, bells, abstract shapes, crosses with enamel and fake stones, zodiac symbols and the peace sign. Hippies put ceramic or ivory beads on a ribbon, string, or strip of leather.’

In the music and film industries it became standard practice for men to adorn themselves with a necklace as a symbol of ‘more advanced and sensitive states . . . as a counter-cultural gesture’ (Jane Mulvagh). This did not always go down well in the trade. Tiffany refused to sell necklaces to men, seeing them as an undesirable sign of effeminacy.

Pop Art

The plain, bold, geometric style of Pop Art and Op Art which flourished in the 1960s found their way quickly into jewelry design. Clear or black and white constructions were produced in plastic and dyed woods. Man-made materials, particularly moulded plastics such as Plexiglas (ICI Perspex) and vinyl, were prominently used in costume jewelry. Paco Rabanne stamped chainmail shapes out of Perspex, while Charles Jourdan gave his shoes ice-cube shaped Perspex heels, and other decorations in the same material.

Pop Art embraced the highly varied imagery of popular culture. It was in essence anti-functional and ephemeral, reflecting a new ethical code of expendability. The sixties fashion, in direct contrast with today’s conservationi^st trend, was for disposability. Taking up this theme, Rayner Banham said in 1963: ‘The aesthetics of pop depend on a massive initial impact and small sustaining powers, and are therefore at their poppiest in products whose sole object is to be consumed.’

The Perspex and paper jewelry made by the British designer, Wendy Ramshaw, in this period were extremely popular and the market was soon saturated with copies of her ideas. She made cheap, disposable paper jewelry which came in kit form, as accessories for paper clothes. Much of it was printed with sixties’ ephemera such as Union Jacks, psychedelia and day-glo colours. Ramshaw’s own philosophy is that ‘any material is viable as long as it is used for the right purposes. For instance, if one works with paper, it is important to accept that it will by its nature, deteriorate and is therefore expendable.’

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Jewelry for Men