![]() ![]() ![]() Small brooches continued to be worn in large numbers. Platinum and diamond brooches consummately complimented the fashion. Pastel delicate fabrics were highlighted by the haute couture and this new “white” jewelry suited it perfectly. In particular, Cartier encouraged his designers to wander the streets of Paris looking at seventeenth and eighteenth-century architecture for inspiration. Ornamental motifs from earlier centuries were available through pictorial records and eighteenth-century pattern books circulated freely beginning c.1850. The Court of Versailles was inspiration for the customers who desired aristocratically styled jewels. The “new” designs of the Edwardian Era had their roots firmly planted in eighteenth-century jewelry. Employing what was to become known as the “garland” style or style guirlande, jewelers who chose not to embrace Art Nouveau or the Arts and Crafts movement borrowed the fluidity of their lines and incorporated them into more traditional motifs thereby creating Edwardian jewelry. Jewelry went from large and ostentatious to ethereal and delicate almost overnight. The last decade of the nineteenth century, the fin de siècle, was a time when the rejection of the machine-made jewelry that had once been welcomed as an innovation, caused an about-face in fashion and design. To the rest of Europe, this period was characterized as La Belle Époque. When considering the stylistic elements of the Edwardian period, the era actually begins earlier, during the declining years of the reign of Queen Victoria, and ends a few years after Edward’s death with the onset of World War I. Jewelry was an important part of the lifestyle cultivated by this extremely wealthy upper class. After his coronation he continued to surround himself with fast-moving, nouveau riche plutocrats, spending the majority of his time engaged in various social endeavors. Even while he was still the Prince of Wales, Edward was infamous for being a playboy and a gambler. Edward was the lighthearted, luxury-loving antithesis of his mother. This is the final jewelry period appellation to be defined by a British monarch. ![]()
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