Art Deco Jewellery

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Summary: Berlin chic of the 1930's
Review: Probably the dawn of art deco fashion jewelry was the 16-28 May 1927 machine-age exposition in New York. This exposition showed how modern technology could be fused with the arts, bringing German bauhaus design to America's attention.

The prior year, 1926, saw the release of the silent film "Metropolis," Fritz Lang's anxious vision of a world demanding conformity in which "the masses" are controlled by machines and their owners. This film's art direction makes use of many art deco design elements which find their way into mainstream costume jewelry design. Geometric shapes and simplicity dominate costume jewelry in which new, inexpensive materials, such as bakelite and corolite could be incorporated, adding translucent and opaque color.

Fashion jewelry components in the 1930's were manufactured primarily in Bohemia so, when Jewish owners lost their factories in 1938, art deco costume jewelry also vanished from the fashion scene. This book gathers -- and preserves in photographs -- much of art deco jewelry's beauty within its pages.