Vintage Costume Jewellery from the Edwardian Era and the 1910s

Vintage costume Jewellery from the Art Nouveau, Arts and Crafts and the romanticism of the Edwardian times

The Edwardian Era began in early 1901 following the death of Queen Victoria and lasted until Edward VII’s death in 1910. The feel and style of the era carried on up through the first world war in  1914 to 1918 and so the costume jewellery from the Edwardian era through the 1910s all has a similar feel and style and it is often difficult to tell where in this timescale a piece dated from.

Vintage  Jewellery from the Edwardian era has a much lighter feel than that of the Victorian Era. Gone is the heavy black mourning. Clothing is lighter and so is the jewellery. We see more dainty, romantic and floral motifs in whiter colours to suite the cloths. As in the Victorian Era the Monarchy continued to set the fashions and trends but their jewellery was precious rather than costume.

Edwardian Brooch

Costume Jewellery became more and more available for the less well off but it was not necessarily a slavish copy of the high fashion. It started to become more of an art form with diamante being made for the first time by Swarovski in Austria. These gradually took over from the paste stones used to imitate diamonds in Victorian jewellery. Pearls were a must have and imitation pearls were introduced as the prices of real ones were high. The famous Mikimoto began production of his cultured pearls in the1890s. Obviously both the diamante and faux pearls had the fashionable white colours . You can find lots of vintage costume jewellery brooches set with early diamant and faux pearls

Shortly after the Edwardian era Coco Chanel started to design costume jewellery making copies of precious jewellery although here main influence on fashion was after the first world war . Some early American names in costume jewellery opened their businesses with both Trifari and Coro starting out at this time.

The arts movements had their influence on costume jewellery: Art nouveau with its bold colours and curvaceous lines at the beginning of the 1900s . Lalique made jewellery incorporating lots of moulded glass. Other art nouveau costume jewellery materials include enamel, copper, brass, celuloid and horn.

The arts and crafts movement followed on and brought back simple celtic and medieval themes. Much arts and crafts jewellery is made from hammered pewter and set with pottery cabochon stones made by the best art pottery marker of the time. 

arts and crafts pin

Production of fancy goods including costume jewellery diminished greatly during times of war and so there was little advance in this are between 1914 and 1918.  By the time the country had recovered from this war the style of the Edwardian and 1910s had been swept away to be replaced by the bright and bold art deco of the 1920s.