Chanel Costume Jewelry

Chanel Costume Jewelry will delight the social historian, the jewelry collector, and all those who love fashion and jewelry. Christian Dior once remarked that Chanel revolutionized fashion "with a black pullover and ten rows of pearls".

With today's fashion designers adding fine jewelry to their runway collections, one-of-a-kind pieces of "Costume" jewelry and Designer Costume Jewelry has provided inspiration to the Haute Couture designers for nearly eight decades.

There have been so many great costume jewelry designers throughout Jewelry in Art History that trying to match jewelry designs with jewelry designers can be very tricky, especially for those new to collecting vintage costume jewelry. If that sounds like you, help is at hand, you will find a guide to Identifying costume jewelry by designer Here.

The new glamorous fashion jewelry was designed by skilled artisans to complement individual couture outfits and was used to complement the clothing worn on the runway and for photo shoots.

Chanel challenged conventions by mixing genuine and fake, and evening jewelry with daytime clothes. Unconventional was the signature trademark of Chanel Costume Jewelry.

Designed by a legend of french haute couture, Coco Chanel, (1883-1971) born Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel in Saumur, France.

The craze for costume jewelry began during the decadent age of jazz, when Chanel took jewelry that was previously meant only to be imitations of actual jewels, and changed them around, exaggerating these pieces so that they would never be mistaken for fine jewelry.

Fine, art deco jewelry was a major influence of the faux costume jewelry under Chanel and the handcrafted jewelry boxes, of fashionable women, by the late 1920s, held both fine jewelry and faux.

Chanel "imitations" were anything but copies, and worn outrageously, such as when flappers looped long strands of oversized pearls around their waif-like figures.

The richness of color and the size of these faux creations grew into exaggerated sculptural forms of astonishing beauty.

Costume jewelry, such as Chanel costume jewelry became a seedbed for design ideas, that look as fresh today, as when they were first created.

From Coco Chanel in the 1920s to Yves Saint Laurent in the 1970s to Lanvin today, Haute Couture costume jewelry has been an eye-catching accessory to enhance a designer's view of fashion.

Verdura and Chanels Costume Jewelry

From 1929 to 1937, the designer collaborated with Count Fulco di Verdura (not Vendura) who launched a series of extraordinary designs in rococo and baroque styles that included her signature Maltese cross cuff with multicolored stones; Chanel costume jewelry book pieces.

Many of her finest pieces from the mid-1920s to 1934 were designed by Fulco Santostefano della Cerda, Duke of Verdura (1895-1978) whose eccentric life in Sicily provided a wonderful source of inspiration.

Chanel loved 'fallalery, fakes and imitations' which included, gold toned chains, and "poured glass" jewelry by Maison Grioix. Baroque pearls, often feature in many of Chanel's historically inspired pieces, such as her Byzantine and Renaissance style crosses, earrings and, pearls - faux pearls, not cultured pearls, and lots of them!

The genius of Chanel, is that she managed to incorporate costume jewelry into her haute couture fashion philosophy.

At a time when fine jewelry defined a woman's status in society, Chanel removed the seriousness and daringly mixed it with pieces that were frankly - fake. "Jewelry isn't meant to make you look rich," she said. "It's meant to adorn you."

For her Chanel costume jewelry looks, she copied her favorite fine-jewelry pieces, which included colorful Renaissance-inspired designs, presented to her by Chanel's two most important lovers, the polo-playing English diplomat Arthur "Boy" Capel, one of her first investors, and the extremely wealthy, Bend'or, the Duke of Westminster.

Reference:

Phillips, C., From Antiquity to the Present, Thames & Hudson, London, 1996.

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