VICTORIANA

A friend sent me The Independent newspaper's jewellery supplement from a few weeks ago. It was a review of the hottest jewellery designers of the moment. For the benefit of those of you who may not have had the pleasure, I would like to mention the designers whose work reached out to me on so many different levels.

At www.damsonjewellery.co.uk; Jo McDonald's beautiful 'blue bird pendant' of 18 carat gold with vivid blue enamelling; Hannah Louise Lamb's divine 'curve leaf mismatch' earrings, reminiscent of silhouette artistry; the wonderfully delicious organic texture of Rebecca Steiner's 'silver split pod' necklace. MMmm...

Moving on to www.violetmanners.com, designer Nisha Thirkell truly seduced me with her mouthwatering covetable delights and curios. An almost sexy creepiness of Burtonesque (as in Tim, the God),Victorian Gothic imagery. I adore the 'filigree brooch' with skull, watch face, jet glass buttons & golden leaves, and the similar '3 strand filigree necklace'.

I have always been attracted to silver or white metal jewellery, so I found myself surprisingly enthralled by the work of the brilliant designer Bjorn Weckstrom (www.lapponia.com), especially the utterly gorgeous 18 carat gold and citrine 'Prisma Ring'..The facets and cuts, the rough and the smooth reminded me of sculptors stone before and during the artistic process. A delicious chunk of finger candy.

So, it was the designs of Nisha Thirkell that got me into thinking about Victorian jewellery (1837-1901). I had always had the misconception that the Victorians were very stoical and sparse with their jewellery adornment. How wrong I was.

Personal adornment was a precise, well planned art of ornamentation, accessorizing fashions of the time as well as indicating wealth and social status.
The Victorians were the first to popularize diamonds as engagement rings. They brought back the Cameo, gave us (now highly collectible) portrait lockets & immaculately crafted woven hair jewellery, chains with lorgnettes, fob watches,souvenir/holiday jewellery (miniature jet animals with pin holes through which sepia prints of popular holiday destinations could miraculously be seen).

For the Victorians, death expectancy, due to high infant mortality, was common place, and so the passing of loved ones was commemorated with long mourning periods and silent memorial of life lost was demonstrated through the wearing of 'Mourning Jewellery' comprised of horn, hair, black enamelling, jet, vulcanite, bog oak, seed pearls & gutta percha (in-elastic natural latex from the Gutta Percha tree common to SE Asia).
Far from spartan and plain, the Victorians expressed great sentiment and romance through jewellery pieces packed with symbolism. No era better illustrates the phrase 'wearing your heart on your sleeve'.
Bibiography:

• www.morninggloryantiques.com/JewelChatVict.Jwl.html;
• www.royaldoultonantiques.com/jewelryvictorianmourning.htm;
• www.victoriana.com

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutta-percha