Victorian Jewellery – Queen Victoria’s influence on the fashion of the time

Queen Victoria (1819 – 1901) was a hugely popular and fashionable figure during the Victorian age. In all things, whatever she chose was quickly followed by her subjects wanting the same thing – Jewellery was no exception and whatever the Queen was seen wearing soon became the must have high fashion item of the day. When we look at Antique Jewellery today we can still see this influence in the abundance of particular types of jewellery and the dates at which they were most popular.

Snake Jewellery

From what I can find the first big influence the Queen’s Jewellery had on Victorian Society was when Prince Albert gave the young Queen an engagement ring in the form of a snake which was set with an emerald. Of course this would play to Victorian sentimentality and hidden meaning – the snake or serpent for “Eternity” and an Emerald for “Hope”. How very romantic. They married in 1840. The snake was popular in jewellery for the rest of the Victorian era – you can find ring and also bracelets , brooches and necklaces all with a snake or two. How about a stick pin with two snakes heads?

As wedding gifts Victoria and Albert exchanged wedding gifts. Victoria gave Albert a “collar of the Garter” and Albert gave Victoria a Sapphire and diamond brooch. Both the Garter motiff and the Diamond brooch became widely worn after this event although diamonds were not quite as abundant at that time as they became following the finding of diamonds in South Africa in the late 1860s.

Victoria and Albert both loved all things Scottish and during the 1840s spent a lot of time there eventually buying Balmoral Castle in 1848. This set a trend for all things Scottish and traditional Scottish Jewellery became widely worn. Much of this Scottish jewellery is made of silver or gold and set with Scottish agate hard stone panels and semi precious stones such as citrines. Much of this is of traditional design – a Scottish dirk or a kilt pin, you certainly can see the Celtic influence in many pieces.

Prince Albert died in 1861 and Queen Victoria’s mourning set the fashion for wearing black for long periods of time following the death of a loved one. Along with the black clothes came black jewellery . Victorian black mourning jewellery was made from Bog Oak, Gutta percha, black enamel and a favourite due to the way it could be carved and polished was Whitby Jet. Victorian mourning jewellery is big and bold quite different from the dainty mourning jewellery of the Georgian eras.

Victorian jet brooch

Queen Victoria celebrated a couple of important jubilee’s – 1887 and 1897 – you can fin brooches, medals, charms, fobs and stick pins all celebrating these big events in her life.

Towards the end of her life Victoria had a lesser influence on the fashion trends of her subjects. Mourning became less deep and as the fashions for clothing became lighter so did jewellery.  Take a look at your jewellery from the Victorian era – can you see the Queens influence?

Many of the pieces of jewellery that Queen Victoria influenced can still be found today – genuine antique Victorian Jewellery need not cost more than the modern jewellery of today so Happy Hunting.