As a cultural movement, Art Deco originated in Paris, around 1910, prior to the onset of World War I. However, neither did it immediately replace Art Nouveau, nor was it particularly a reaction against it. Many individuals and firms created fine pieces in both periods and styles; Lalique is a prime example. A significant event of this period is the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. The style’s name is adopted from a cut version of this fair’s title. The Art Deco style borrowed from the other Modernist movements of the time, such as Bauhaus, Cubism, Empire Neoclassicism and Futurism.
The return to opulence following the forced austerity of World War I included a radical depar-ture in design. Art Deco jewellery was characterized by linear forms and stylized and abstracted geometrie motifs. Technology had a powerful influence in this ‘machine age’, and angular and cylindrical shapes were combined to resemble the inner workings of machines. The indus-trial white metals of Pt, palladium and rhodium begin to take center stage as jewelry metals par excellence. Diamonds dominated fine jewelry and discoveries of new diamond sources in Africa expanded the supply. Stones were closely packed in minimal linear forms or geometrie patterns and set into delicate platinum or white-gold settings. While fine evening jewelry was almost exclusively white, bold colour combina-tions also existed where jewelry of the time was inspired by Indian Mughal jewelry, Chinese design motifs, and ‘primitive’ African art. The civilizations of ancient Egypt and the Aztecs were also to provide inspiradon. By establishing an exotic worldwide approach, Carrier and other Parisian firms, such as Van Cleef & Arpels, Boucheron and the House of Mauboussin, were at the forefront of An Deco design in jewelry.
Costume jewelry
Although costume jewelry grew out of the desire for the average person to have copies of the fine jewelry that was the preserve of the wealthy, it was to reach new high in the twentieth century. Even Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli (whose principal designer was Jean Schlumberger) encouraged their wealthy clients to wear extravagant and theatrical bijoux de fantaisie; excit-ing and imaginative jewelry not bound by the constrictions of precious stones and materials — essentially jewels of the imagination.
Jewelry since the 1960s
The rise of the individual artist—craftsman, trained at art schools, was to precipitate the dramatic change undertaken in jewelry beginning in the 1960s. Their approach was more oriented towards self-expression than commercial venture, in opposite to the main focus of the major international luxury jewelry houses of the time.
New materials were embraced, expected forms and functions were challenged and the bound-aries between jewelry, sculpture, clothing and performance art were explored. The materials used included newly developed materials, materials from other disciplines finding an outlet in jewelry and the use of knock off materials as a form of recycling. For example, paper is hardly a ‘new’ material, but paper jewelry could be con-sidered a new development. This prospect in the development of jewelry is still current and ideas from this time continue to inform the current contemporary jewelry practice.
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