Apologies, it’s costume but

How would you know? So far I have seen no evidence that you know much about jewellery outside the US.

You can't lead the world if it never reaches the rest of the world.
Leading the world in costume jewellery means the rest of the world knows about it and agrees that you are indeed a world leader in costume jewellery. They don't.
The simple reason for that is that tastes in other countries are different to the US, which is why US jewellery is largely of domestic interest.
I am sorry, but people in Europe generally think US jewellery is gaudy and tasteless. Just saying what I have heard for decades, I realize everyone has their own traditions and likes.
But it seems many Americans agree with the Europeans, because whenever I was in the US, people would be amazed at my jewellery and say "I so love European jewellery". Of course I wore costume on my travels, not the jewellery I usually wear, too cumbersome.
I personally think US costume jewellery has a typically local charm, but I wouldn't wear it. I am too European in my taste.

 

Absolutely.

 

@Ownedbybear I don't disagree with you on the English jewelry industries. They are mentioned in my article series, including specific jewelers, cities of production, should you wish to read it.

Being originally from Europe myself, Sweden, I have some basis for comparison regarding c.j. there, its popularity, prices, designs.

Having lived in England and France as well I saw examples of c.j., vintage and modern, in those three countries. Also pieces from Germany, Austria, Italy, others.

I am not trying to disrespect the importance of these or other countries to the industry. It is described in several other archived articles.

However, as I grew up and came of age in Europe I was keenly aware of a social stigma attached to costume jewelry, the snob factor.

Costume jewelry was viewed as being a cheap imitation of fine jewelry meant to deceive, and mainly worn by poor people who couldn't afford anything better. Only precious jewelry was respected as worth owning, wearing, hold on to for investment, a hedge for a rainy day.

This mindset prevailed especially among the people who least could afford precious jewelry but still were snobbish about it.

When I lived in London as a young student, I once bought a Tassie on Portobello Road.

To explain to all who may not know either, a Tassie is a molded, not carved, costume cameo. It is named for the man who invented the method of molding it, James Tassie. Portobello Road was then and may still be the largest fleamarket and antiques shops street in London.

I proudly showed off my 10-pence cameo brooch find to the lady of the house where I worked as an au pair.

She wrinkled her nose and told me to be careful where I choose to wear it.

I was astonished! What could be wrong with wearing a little cute costume cameo brooch when I went to school or out with friends?

She was quick to explain that a social stigma was attached to cameos. She elaborated:

When back in the mid-19th century cameos had become less fashionable among the elite, they were often forgotten in jewelry drawers of older grannies and aunts who had been fashionable wearing them when young.

Now the cameos hadn't been worn in years and were easy steals for younger men in the house. Pretty much penniless the young bucks drank their allowance at the ale house and had little left for anything else.

With hormones raging the boys sought company among the most vulnerable in the household, the young maids. And to entice a maid to go along with the naughtiness a little trinket would be offered. Such as a piece of jewelry from a granny's dresser, often a cameo, seldom missed.

But it was as always a small world. By the time the young bucks had made the rounds with the maids in the village, the cameo became the signature badge of those who had been naughty and reputations were ruined.

The innocent cameo brooch was now tarnished as the jewelry worn by the village harlots. Everyone knew from where it had come, and why. This only served to sink the poor cameo into further disuse and ill repute.

When young Queen Victoria started to embrace cameos as a fashion, mostly from her mother's stash, the cameo's reputation became somewhat restored to respectable.

But not with everyone. The old villagers still remembered the trinket cameos bestowed on the village girls for services rendered.

Even Queen Victoria, or the Tsarina Alexandra who adored cameos, were never completely able to restore the cameo to its initial glory of the late 18th century.

But people in their aristocratic circles, including them, were probably quite unaware of that and even if they knew, couldn't have cared less.

And what did I do? I put the Tassie in a drawer and left it there when I left England after my study time was over. I did not miss it.

 

@Any Jewelry I just read your input from a European viewpoint. The social stigma there about costume jewelry I just wrote about is very adequately addressed in your post, thank you!

 

I think your landlady was smoking something that wasn't tobacco. That's even more arrant nonsense. As witnessed by the fact that in the early 20th C and then into the post war years, there was the most wonderful shop on Museum Street called Cameo Corner. Ma bought a brooch there. It was not cheap.

Add in the fact that cameos were sold and set in good high carat gold in the 19th C, and were de rigeur souvenirs for those doing the Grand Tour. They were worn extensively by middle class and aristo ladies, as a simple search of contemporaneous photos will show. There's categorically no social stigma here about them, although they had gone a bit out of fashion in the last couple of decades. Back in again now.

The claim that costume was for the poor is also nonsense, as witnessed by where it was advertised in both the 19th and 20th C. And who wore it.

Tassie's work has high value. Describing it as moulded is not exactly complimentary to his craft.

@Bronwen

 

exactly

 

Liz, you must have known some odd people. The thing about odd people is that you can't take what they say as necessarily true or as being the general consensus.

I am sorry your Swedish relatives were like that, however, there is no general European social stigma attached to costume jewellery. As we explained before, Europe is the birthplace of costume jewellery, and it is generally worn.

As for social stigmas in general, they differ from country to country. Some European countries value old class systems, and some are more egalitarian. My own country, The Netherlands, is internationally known to have one of the most, if not the most, egalitarian societies in the world. In my own family, costume and fine jewellery were mixed, most would wear gold, silver and costume all at the same time.

I wouldn't have a clue where, as I never said anything about European costume, except that I wear it.
If you read what I said, it was that Europeans generally think US costume jewellery is gaudy and tasteless (compared to their appreciation of Eur cj). That has nothing to do with social anything, but everything with different traditions and perceptions of beauty.

The fact that Europeans generally prefer European costume jewellery to US costume, does not mean there is a social stigma attached to costume in general.
And the fact that US costume jewellery is not to the European taste in general has nothing to do with social differences. After all, they do wear European costume jewellery.

I hate to break it to you, Liz, but tastes, preferences and perceptions of beauty are different from culture to culture. Calling someone a snob just because they are from a different part of the world with a different taste is very odd imo.

 

@Bronwen I believe you may reading too quickly as you refer to details I have not mentioned.

I did not address precious cameos as unworthy of attention. They have always been valuable and sought after, and many degrees of fineness exist.

I mentioned Tassies were molded, not carved. They are in a different category, considered costume jewelry. That they are collectible today is a different subject which I am not addressing here. The Tassie I bought for 10 pence in 1958 was considered costume junk by the Portobello Road vendor who accepted my money.

The "land lady" was not a land lady. She was the head of the household where I worked as au pair during my study years in London.

She was also a university professor of history and I was inclined to believe that she knew something about that of which she spoke when she shared an intimate moment of English history with me. For my protection, as it were. I was grateful.

You point out that the cameos of the Grand Tour of Europe, Italy, with its fine carved cameos were brought back as souvenirs by those who could afford these tours.

Again, I don't dispute that slice of history, I am quite aware of it. But I was not talking about them, it's another chapter.

The earliest real hey day of fine carved cameos to buy from jewelers in Europe for the fine ladies of the aristocracy was in the late 18th (eighteenth) and early 19th (nineteenth) century.

By the time Victoria ascended to the throne in the mid-19th century, the fine cameos were largely forgotten and all Europe that ruled fashion was in a diamond trance.

Queen Victoria considered diamonds gaudy so brought fine cameos back into fashion by wearing her mother's. The cameo thus achieved a renewed status as fashionable and respectable.

I have never claimed that "costume was for the poor...". I wrote that it was perceived, looked upon if you will, as a poor people's fashion by those who embraced the snob factor.

As with everything else in the world, there are ultimate degrees to everything.

To claim that European jewelry is finer than American jewelry is a broad sweep claim that cannot be justified.

What degree of design, material, workmanship, and ultimate price of anything are we talking about?

We don't compare a Rolls Royce with a Ford, do we? Because we know that they are of different qualities.

Thus, should we compare the finest Trifari or Eisenberg top of the line costume jewelry, some examples of which have sold for astronomical sums as vintage, with a simple line of European jewelry, such as the MADE IN WEST GERMANY-stamped jewelry so ubiquitous after WW II, we are being unfair.

There is no comparison between them so it can't be made. I have seen exquisite pieces of European and American costume jewelry and I have seen junk from both sides of the Atlantic.

Let's therefore not generalize that one country's production if finer than another's, it's not right and unfair to both.

 

@Any Jewelry Where did I mention Swedish relatives? Never said anything about my relatives. Mine never thought about c.j. one way or the other.

I just read your other post. I just don't get it: Why are you trying to pit one country's production against another? I have not disrespected any country in the production of anything. That tastes differ from country to country does not need pointing out.

Hey, tastes differ from my neighbor's to mine! We're not talking about who likes fried fish as opposed to grilled, do we?

So if I was thoroughly misunderstood by and offended my fellow Europeans in this forum when I claimed that the American costume jewelry was a world leader in the industry, I apologize. I still maintain that it is true having read about the daily numbers of pieces the RI industry was capable of producing in its hey day of the early 1950's.

The following little quote bears somewhat on the previous statement:

A Soviet minister once responded in an interview on American television when asked about the number of missiles in his country compared to the U.S. missile numbers, "They may not be as new as the American missiles, but we have more. There is a certain quality to quantity."

Not that I agree that it matters who has more of something, or less. It's quality that should matter. She hopes!

 

Which is quite usual in Europe, in spite of what you say.

 

Tassies were no more "costume" than cut steel, black paste or pinchbeck. You do realise he was commissioned by Catherine II of Russia?

As to that imaginary social history, it's just that. Imaginary.

 

@Ownedbybear How's that? Catherine II of Russia could magically convert cut steel, black paste and pinchbeck, even Tassies, to precious jewelry? She must have rewritten the definition of costume jewelry. Probably only in the Russias of her time. Nowhere else are these looked upon as fine or precious jewelry.

 

You need to study some proper history. It would help you to revise your writing and your website.

Catherine commissioned Tassie to produce this: later owned by our Queen Mary.



Antique cut steel is worn by the Swedish Royal Family, amongst others, including the Dutch Royal Family. And our own Price Regent who also wore black dot paste. Have you never heard of the Napoleonic Tiara?

This, probably Napoleonic, is currently being offered for a bit over £800. Napoleon Bonaparte gave an entire parure to his second wife.

 

I just bought a cut steel bead purse this morning, as a matter of fact. I'm still keeping my eyes peeled for Vauxhall glass, something Americans don't often see. Cameos were out of style here for ages; I've never heard of them being more than old-fashioned. My grandmother was a maid in New York during WWI; she got recipes from the cooks but no jewelry from young gentlemen that I know of. My mom has her cameo; it belonged to my great-grandmother.

 

I have seen cameos still in their Cameo Corner box. They have been very fine ones.

Napoleon & his court started the fashion for cameos that spread to other royal houses & then outward to other strata of society. The Swedish royal family treasure the tiara they have that was originally Napoleonic. If you had any pretension to being au courant you had a cameo. You cannot just lump every relief carving into the category 'cameo' & assign the same value to them all. They are not all shell & the quality of the work varies from exquisite to why-would-you-want-that?

I do not have time or inclination to read everything that has now been posted to this thread, so have not seen the evident slight to cameos. There is no way I can be convinced that this signed hardstone cameo set in gold ornamented with pearls, diamonds & enamel is not fine jewellery.



The general quality of shell cameos fell off greatly in the later 19th; cameos of that sort, even if they did sometimes get set in gold, I would not call fine jewellery. It is all in the quality of the work & the material used as a secondary consideration. This is shell, but in my opinion the level of workmanship makes it fine jewellery.


(Note the central cameo in the Swedish cameo tiara.)

This cameo in blackened silver is one of the most valuable in my collection, in part because it is signed by an engraver who did not produce a large body of work.

Catherine was the one who really put Tassie on the map after she ordered a complete set of his thousands of impression in his top of the line material, glass, plus a custom cameo encrusted cabinet to hold them. It is still in the Hermitage.

I don't think Tassie would object to having his productions characterized as molded, but his molds produced exceptionally sharp images. The molds were made from impressions of the gems in the great collections of his time (many later bought up by Catherine). The most expensive were made in glass of the same color as the original stone, then the hard white glass he called 'enamel', sulfur, & plaster. They were collected like crazy. This craze was contemporaneous with the passion for cameos, which by & large used imagery taken from the engraved gems, available to carvers of cameos by way of the impressions.

 

@Ownedbybear Revising MY sources? I point to them in my articles, linked, do look. And just because some royal personages wore non-fine jewelry it did not make it precious, or intrinsically valuable. The perceived value as in collectible is different as everyone here knows.

Cut steel jewelry was a product born from the need for precious metals and hard cash to pay for the German war efforts. The fancy ladies of Berlin sported cut steel jewelry to brag about how they had supported the war to pay for weapons in WW I when they donated their precious jewelry for it. Their fine jewels, gold rings, diamonds, were "traded" for cut steel jewelry as a token of thanks from the German government.

That Napoleon gave his second wife cut steel jewelry surprises me. Wasn't she an Austrian princess? Are you sure it was Napoleon I and not Napoleon III? I recognize the classic "bee", a symbol of N I's reign, but still would like to see a direct reference to him owning it if you have one?

 

@Bronwen

...and precious materials as gold and silver. That is my whole point, thanks B!

 

You do know that cut steel jewellery predates WW1 by well over three centuries? That Napoleonic cut steel tiara isn't twentieth century. Indeed, one of the finest makers was one Matthew Boulton but I suspect you've not heard of him.

As to "intrinsic" worth, butterscotch amber sells for eight times gold. Steel cost way more than silver at one point, as did aluminium. On Jupiter, diamonds are worthless. You can pick shells up on a beach.

 

Intrinsic worth here only refers to what any given material can be sold/traded for in the marketplace at a given time.

Such worths are thus established by market evaluation. Which as you point out about Jupiter, is largely dependent on where it is to be found and who is there or not. Although fictitious I still like this illustration:

When Robinson Crusoe woke up on the beach of the desert island he stumbled on a huge rock of gold. He was ecstatic! Until he remembered where he found himself. And shucked it into the ocean.

 

Well there you have it folks, another day, another lesson. Madeline Albright wrote a book “Read My Pins”. She describes her pins and what their meaning was to her. What I liked most about her and her taste in jewelry was that she wore American costume to meet in a palace with a world leader. But also, was known to adorn pieces of Europe’s finest houses out to dinner in town. She could get away with silly creatures in the finest gemstones set in platinum and glass costume in plated pot metal to a Popeye pin. My point is I was on a cruise once and almost flushed a pearl bracelet, and the fact that I retrieved it didn’t mean it was real but it had meaning as a gift. The Beauty is in thrill of acquiring keepers, sharing on Antiquers and keeping my nieces thinking that I wouldn’t wear costume and fine together.