Vintage Jewellery: Blast from the Past
2.8 k views | By Carla Caruso • Journalist
No longer just yesterday’s news, antique, recycled and vintage-inspired jewellery is attracting attention in the here and now. CARLA CARUSO reports.
There is something magical about a jewellery piece with a past; wearing one is almost like being able to travel back in time to a bygone era.Janel Morrissey, organiser of the Sydney Vintage Clothing, Jewellery and Textiles Show, says finding a vintage item for the wardrobe allows it come back to life. “I always wonder about the person who wore it first - what they did, what they looked like,” she explains. “It has a romantic side – it’s fascinating.”
Along with antique and vintage jewellery, the latter classed as being less than a century old, many jewellery designers today are also now incorporating recycled elements into new designs, from metals to vintage diamonds. Whether it’s the attraction of forming a nostalgic link with the past, or the message of environmental consciousness that the pieces promote, demand is definitely growing, according to Steven Milonas, a designer, gemmologist and sales consultant at Melbourne retailer The French Jewelbox, which specialises in antique, vintage and bespoke items. “I think it can be attributed to the luxury boom we’ve been through in recent years,” Miller says, “People have a more disposable income. There is a lot of mass-produced jewellery on the market at the moment, so people want to look more individual and unqiue.”
When it comes to this trend, consumers can pick and choose from a multitude of variations of the same theme – like those choosing to incorporate vintage and antique elements into new jewellery designs.
Sunshine Coast designer Renee Blackwell, who also works with ethnic beads and gemstones, recently launched a line of antique-button neck pendants. “These are very different from the vintage glass buttons I’ve been working with for a few years now,” she explains. “The antique buttons are all French, from the late 1800s and early turn of the century, and, instead of glass, they’re all metal – brass, bronze, copper, tin and pewter. Each button is set as a pendant in sterling silver.”
Blackwell also uses vintage French, German and Czechoslovakian buttons in her line of earrings, rings and pendants.
Renee Blackwell
Other brands to incorporate vintage elements into new designs include Adelaide’s Azalia Jewellery, whose pieces feature 1940s glass cabochons and vintage cameos, and Sydney’s Kristina Brenke Jewellery Design, which use vintage finds like French jet and enamel in items crafted from recycled sterling silver.
New York-based Archive Jewelry is a new line for Gold Coast e-boutique MarLey Rose, blending re-purposed architectural pieces, curios and found objects with eco-friendly bronze and brass castings, base-metal chains and crystal strands, all reminiscent of antique glass jewellery. Sydney e-boutique Sugared Accessories stocks both new and vintage jewellery collections – the latter having an emphasis on brightly-coloured, lucite bangles and rings from the 1960s.
Other designers are instead reinterpreting past designs for the modern day, giving new collections a nostalgic feel. Melbourne handmade jewellery label Joolz showcased its latest collection, A Grand Exit, at New York Fashion Week, including cameos in modern colour combinations such as stark black-and-white, and rings and bangles with rose petals embedded in the resin. “It’s that whole big, blooming roses, long, long strings of pearls and cameos look,” designer Airdrie Makim enthuses.
Makim also incorporates actual vintage elements into her new designs as well, like dice and playing cards. “Using a vintage playing card cut into a butterfly shape as a neck pendant is something no one’s ever seen before.” Celebrities to have worn the look include The Veronicas, Pink and Lily Allen.
Sydney designer Sarah-Jane Adams also borrows ideas from yesteryear in new designs. Adams’ 30-year experience in antique dealing led to her creating her own vintage-inspired wholesale label, SJ Jewels. “I think our new business is doing so well because we’re using concepts, ideas and styles that have been around for a long, long time, but we’re remaking them with a modern twist.”
The SJ Jewels director is particularly inspired by jewellery from 1870 to 1920, which adopts many genres. These include classic Victorian, the Arts and Crafts movement (floral, primitive or Celtic forms), Art Nouveau (free-flowing lines with asymmetrical, natural motifs), Art Deco (geometric designs), and Belle Époque (lighter, feminine, Edwardian items).
Anna Design Jewellery
Pieces in Adams’ range include jewellery inspired by the suffragette movement, in which women wore green, white and violet to signal their fight for the vote, “Dearest” love rings from the Victorian era (the word spelled out by the use of diamond, emerald, amethyst, ruby, sapphire and topaz), and Dauphine rings and pendants – the latter depicts a turtledove or lovebird with an arrow and a quiver to symbolise a piercing of the heart and, hence, the action of falling in love. It’s based on a design featured on the buckle of a pair of bracelets given to French Queen Marie-Antoinette in 1775 by her then fiancé, Louis XVI.
As mentioned earlier, an extension of the vintage trend is the use of recycled materials. The green movement is growing so quickly in the fashion world that former InStyle magazine journalist Matthew Paroz recently launched an online, eco-ethical fashion directory titled How Big Is Your Eco to make it easier for consumers to find green labels.
“We’ve become accustomed to having eco options from organic food to green energy, so we expect it from fashion too,” Paroz explains. In the jewellery world, several designers are heeding the message. Ben Manning, of Adelaide eco fashion and bridal jewellery line Utopian Creations, uses recycled metals like platinum, gold and palladium, as well as vintage and antique diamonds in his designs. Manning sources pure recycled metals from Sydney’s A&E Metal Merchants, as well as mixing his own metals, like copper from phone chargers.
The trend for items that borrow from the past shows no signs of waning. In fact, it’s one that jewellers could do well to tap into. Whether recycled, antique or just vintage-inspired, a hint of yesteryear can add a story to a piece that would otherwise be without one. It’s like poring through grandma’s jewel box and happening upon something exquisite – a treasure hunt.
Posted August 24, 2010