Gabrielle Chanel once said that a woman should mix fake and real jewels. “The point of jewellery isn’t to make a woman look rich but to adorn her; not the same thing.” The designer blew the doors open in the 1920s for costume jewellery to ascend as fashionable (and socially acceptable) accessories. Today, that influence is stronger than ever. Nearly every luxury fashion brand has a hand in the costume jewellery space. In fact, according to a report by Straits Research, the global market for ersatz baubles, valued at US$40.98 billion in 2022, is estimated to grow to US$79.22 billion by 2031. The hunger for costume jewellery is at a high.
The revived house of Schiaparelli under the artistic direction of Daniel Roseberry can be said to be a driver of this renaissance. He describes bijoux as “essential to the maison’s identity”. Indeed, the house is known as much for its daring couture creations as for its surrealist hardware. Eyes, nose and lips have become a signature—hammered and wrought in gold-plated bronze with a vintage effect.
The latest season’s designs from Schiaparelli include gilded lilies, strings of oyster shells, door knocker earrings, key holes, and hammered cuffs with shearling inlays. In his collection notes, Roseberry acknowledges his clientele’s demand for powerful and distinctive design. “‘Quiet’ doesn’t work for our women,” he explains.
That’s really the charm of costume jewellery. Since it is not made entirely from precious metals and gemstones, creativity is not prohibited by costs. Kenneth Jay Lane, the New York designer of costume jewellery, was a great proponent and icon of the art. Sometimes nicknamed derisively as the ‘Fabergé of fakes’, he was nonetheless prolifically successful with high-society clients such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, and royalty like princesses Margaret and Diana—all women with redoubtable collections of the real deal.
In an interview with the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art, he talks about the freedom of costume jewellery compared to fine. The investment, for example, goes into finessing materials such as humble resin to recreate the colour, lustre and effect of precious gems like emeralds. Whereas working with even one small diamond would drive the price up enormously and put a material constraint on a designer’s creativity and imagination.
There’s also the fact that the term ‘costume jewellery’ did not arise purely from artifice. In fact, ‘costume’ likely came from the French, which has a meaning closer to ‘outfit’. These jewels, in their truest sense, were imagined and intended to be fashion objects that accompanied and dressed up one’s ensemble.
That is perhaps why fashion brands today, with their ever-expanding ambitions to style their clients’ lifestyles from head to toe, have such an interest in the world of fantasy jewels. The most established name in the game is Chanel. The designer popularised and laid the foundations back in her day, and the house today continues to riff on its signatures such as extravagant ropes of faux pearls, Maltese crosses and chunky cuffs. It’s made possible because of the craftsmanship of the many métiers d’art that it has supported. Contrary to what you might imagine, a great deal of artisanship goes into costume jewellery. There’s a wide world of craft just for the creation of the faux gemstones, such as Swarovski’s impossibly vast collection of crystals, or the poured glass pâte de verre techniques used by Parisian ateliers like Gripoix.
And that’s to say nothing of sculptural metalworking. One of the most significant is the goldsmith workshop Goossens, considered a lodestar of fashion jewellery for mid-century Parisian couturiers, which began working with Chanel in 1953. Its founder, Robert Goossens, introduced the designer to the Byzantine style, and the atelier continues, to this day, to create jewellery for Chanel as part of the Le19M collective of maisons d’art.
Of course, Chanel isn’t the only fashion designer to collaborate on jewellery. Alexander McQueen had a famously close working relationship with the jeweller Shaun Leane, who played a critical role in bringing many of McQueen’s most memorable designs to life. Elsa Schiaparelli herself worked with artists such as Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau to create jewellery.
It’s not just a fact of history. New designers and brands are continuing in this tradition and joining the fold. Take Loewe’s spring/summer 2024 collection, which included a partnership with Lynda Benglis. As a response to the collection’s theme of silhouette and shape, the artist created a range of knotted and twisted jewellery. Intended as wearable sculpture, these were made from materials such as gold, sterling silver, crystal, aluminium and enamel; knotted, pleated, poured and extruded to create their gestural forms. They are distinctly Benglis, but sit entirely within the realm of craft obsession that Anderson has nurtured at Loewe.
As for Peter Do, the introduction of jewellery is perhaps just one more signal of the young designer’s growing ambitions. Do partnered with Swedish brand All Blues to introduce an 11-piece capsule collection of sterling silver jewellery. The tie-up came as a result of years of conversations around shared ideas of minimalist reduction and wearability. All Blues used a recurring line motif in Do’s designs—sliced tailoring, razor-sharp silhouettes and an actual line tattoo on his forearm—and translated them into engravings with a simple, sensual minimalism. “Jewellery is always extremely personal to me,” says Do of the collection. “I hope people will love, wear, live, play, cherish and pass these down as heirlooms.”
