During the Twentieth Century, there has been a fundamental change in attitude towards in terms both of its design and its function. This century has become a period of revolution in jewellery design, and the history of how jewellery has changed reflects much of the social history of our times.

Art Nouveau 1875-1919
Art Nouveau literally means new art, a complex and innovative European artistic and design style of the last two decades of the 1800s and the first decade of the 1900s. It found expression in a wide range of art forms— architecture, interior design, furniture, posters, glass, pottery, textiles, and book illustration—and was characterized by its devotion to curving and undulating lines, often referred to as whiplash lines. Art Nouveau formed the bridge between the 19 and the 20th century. The term Art Nouveau is derived from La Maison de l'Art Nouveau, a shop opened by the dealer Siegfried Bing in Paris in 1896.

One of the major influences on Art Nouveau was the Symbolist Movement, which began in the 1880s. Imagery adopted by this group combined religious mysticism with eroticism. Art Nouveau combined inspiration from this source with some of the elements of Arts and Crafts philosophy; it is also highly varied and asymmetrical which reflected the political unease of the period. Art Nouveau, traces of which are discernible in the art of the Pre-Raphaelites and even in that of the 18th-century visionary poet William Blake. Art Nouveau concentrated on the treatment of surface decoration. It is also characterised by long curving lines based on sinuous plant forms, and an element of fantasy. It was primarily a decorative style and as such was used particularly effectively in metalwork, jewellery, and glassware, and in book illustration, where the influence of Japanese prints is often evident. Another ubiquitous presence is the femme fatale – the seductive nymph of Pre-Raphaelite paintings.

Two of the leading exponents of Art Nouveau were Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose shimmering Favrile-glass vases and stained-glass lampshades were fantasies of iridescence, and René Lalique (1860-1945) who was a French jeweller and glassmaker. He became a designer of jewellery for firms such as Boucheron, Vever, and Cartier, Breaking free from historical styles; he based his designs on plant, bird, and insect forms. Emphasizing design rather than the costliness of material, he used enamel, ivory, glass, and horn as often as semiprecious stones and gems. His work had a profound effect throughout Europe.

Art Nouveau in Britain
Jewellery in Britain at the turn of the century differed from the French because it was more backward looking and still owed much to the Arts and Crafts movement. The British decorative motifs featured primeval figures and floral tributes combined with interlace patterns of Celtic origin. These pieces were made in finely crafted silver enriched with polished stones and enamels. They took the form of belt or waste buckles, clasps, hatpins and pendants, reminiscent of the trappings of civic functions. Designers included Archibald Knox, Oliver Baker, Jessie King, Kate Fischer and John Paul Copper. Liberty employed many of these, a shop established in 1875 specialising in Oriental goods from the East Indies and Japan.

Other British jewellery designers of the time included Sybil Dunlop, Arthur and Georgina Gaskin, Henry Wilson, Harold Stabler and Omar Ramsden. Their work drew inspiration from the religious iconography of the Renaissance, from Medievelism and Scandinavian folk art.

Probably the most significant contribution to British Art Nouveau was the work produced by the Glasgow School of Art, led by the Architect and designer, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. He incorporated the essence of Art Nouveau’s curvilinear forms with traditional Celtic motifs.

America and Tiffany
Until the first decade of the twentieth century, most American jewellery was imported from European collections. The first large-scale production began at the turn of the century when corporations such as Gorham, Rhode Island, and Krementz, New Jersey began to manufacture Gallic imitations. The most outstanding and prestigious jewellery establishment at that time was Tiffany and Co. This company was founded in 1834 under the directorship of Louis Comfort Tiffany, a painter who studied in Paris. The company became involved in all branches of the decorative arts, including wrought iron and stained glass. In 1902, Tiffany opened an art jewellery department, which concentrated on the sort of Byzantine and Oriental pieces being promoted by its English counterpart, Liberty and Co. This was unusual at that time in America, where most jewellery designs were based on Gallic Art Nouveau. Tiffany began to experiment with new combinations of colours and materials and was the first to make jewellery out of lava glass. Other important names in the field included George Fourquet who commissioned Alphonse Mucha, a Czech painter and graphic artist, to design more jewellery for Bernhardt. Lucien Gaillard, Eugène Feuillârte, Henri, and Paul Vever of Le Maison Vever were other major figures of the time, as was Edward Colonna.

Art Nouveau was a pivotal development in the history of art, particularly in architecture. By rejecting conventional style and redefining the relationship of art to industry, its practitioners helped prepare the way for the advent of modern art and architecture.

"Jugendstijl" in Germany
In Germany the equivalent of Art Nouveau was known as Jugendstijl, this became a major influence on the decorative arts by 1900. In 1907, the Deutscher Warbund was formed to promote an alliance between art and industry. It was a teaching institution started by van der Velde and Hermann Muthesius, partly inspired by British design developments. Its influence is particularly evident in the mass produced jewellery designs of the company of Theodor Farhnar in Pforzhiem, which was the centre of the German jewellery industry between 1900 and 1930.
Austria and the Werner Werkstätte

Josef Hoffman and key members of the group led the search for a new style at the beginning of the century. The Werner Werkstätte was established 1897. The main objective of this group of Viennese artists and designers was to improve the status of the decorative arts. They sought to move away from the dogma of mass production extolled by German theorists and American industrialists. These principles were closely allied to the British Arts and Crafts, and their designs had their stylistic roots in German Jugendstijl and French Art Nouveau.

Folk art in Scandinavia
The Nordic countries of Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway drew on the idealised democratic principles of craft production, searching for an aesthetic formula that was in keeping with their cultural traditions. Nevertheless, they recognised the need to invite industrial sponsorship, not only to maintain links with the market place, but also to provide financial support for the designers. Some of the best examples of this period include the work of the Danish silversmith, Georg Jensen.

The Tiffany Studios, New York: The American Arts and Crafts Movement
Tiffany & Co. produced a prolific amount of jewellery from the latter half of the 19th century, first inspired both by British Arts and Crafts and later by Continental Art Nouveau in the first decade of the Twentieth Century. He manufactured luxurious Byzantine inspired wares, utilising materials such as opals and amethysts reminiscent the jewellery at Liberty and Co. in England.

During this period, the Craftsman Magazine extolled the virtues of simplicity and practicality. These beliefs were to influence the work of another artist jeweller, Madeline Yale Wynn, who explored the artistic nature of different non-precious metals such as copper, pebbles and rock crystals, rather than the more usual preoccupations with the precious and semi precious metals and stones. This proved to be a much more enduring influence on future design that the Tiffany Studios. Other American craftsmen who practised within the Arts and Crafts arena included the silversmiths, Clemens Friedell, Janet Payne Bowles and Mildred Watkins, and the jewellers, Brainerd Bliss Thresher, Josephine Hartwell and Florence D. Koehler.

Charles Ashbee and the Guild of Handicraft
Charles Ashbee established the Guild of Handicraft in 1888 in order to develop techniques and aesthetics in jewellery, as well as in furniture and metalwork. Ashbee was one of the first designers in the Arts and Crafts Movement to experiment with jewellery. He produced a range of items at the Guild of Handicrafts, including brooches and belt buckles. Fine craftsmanship and ideologies of the medieval period inspired their work. It was essentially a reaction to the shoddy machine made goods that had been created by industrialisation in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Art Deco: 1920 - 1930
The economic and social pressures that immediately followed the First World War brought with them a new mood for a clean and rigorous clean cut look.

It was an innovative design style popular in the 1920s and 1930s. Its sleek, streamlined forms conveyed elegance and sophistication. It was the age of the Flapper, the Jazz and the Machine Age. Materials used ranged from rubies, gold, pearls to plastic, chrome and steel. Platinum was the new luxury metal used with opaque stones like coral, jade, onyx and lapis lazuli. Costume jewellery became even more popular and outrageous. Trend setting couturiers were Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapelli. Influences were Pharaonic Egypt, the Orient, tribal Africa, Cubism, Futurism, machines and graphic design. However, jewellery of the 1920’s and 30’s was in thrall to geometry, circles, arcs, squares, rectangles and triangles and so on. René Lalique, who created glass jewellery in the 1920’s and 30’s, moulded some of his pendants with romantic women; stylised African head formed by Chanel and others.

The art jewellers of Paris
Paris was of course the source and the trendsetter of Art Deco, which is itself named after the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Moderns held in Paris. The Swiss born designer, Jean Dunand (1877 – 1942) whose hammered metal, lacquered vases, furniture and screens were greatly indebted to non western styles, also designed a small but stunning body of jewellery. They were made largely of silver lacquered with red and black, Dunand’s dangling earrings and earclips, brooches and bracelets, assumed geometric shapes containing equally strong motifs – interwoven and superimposed lines, zigzags, openwork squares and triangles. Gérard Sandoz (b. 1902) came from a family of jewellers and began to design starkly geometric pieces for the Sandoz firm while he was still a teenager. His output is significant within the realms of the Art Deco period. Another gifted goldsmith was Jean Després (1889 – 1980), whose industrial-design training in the First World War is reflected in his strong pieces. His machine age aesthetic may be interpreted as unwieldy and masculine, but it was well suited to the Jazz Age, to the increasingly strong image of the liberated, at times androgynous women. Després/s modernist, industrial derived pieces are some of the most desirable for collectors of vintage jewellers of today. Raymond Templier (1891 – 1968) came from a family of Parisian jewellers. His designs were boldly geometric, but sported geometric stones, brooches with scattering of diamonds against dark platinum fields. He was especially fond of precious white metals such as platinum and silver, paired them with onyx and other dark stones in stunning pieces.

Paul Emile Brandt was a Swiss born jeweller who began working in the Art Nouveau but evolved into a highly admired Art Deco jeweller. His cocktail watches for instance, are richly bejewelled but strictly geometric. The Cartier firm, founded in 1847, reached dizzy heights of Art Deco splendour under the direction of Louis Cartier (1874 – 1945). His fascination with exotic motifs led to the creation of diamond, ruby and platinum earrings from which hung jade roundels carved with elephants, and a gold and enamel bangle with two carved-coral chimera heads facing each other in the centre. In the 1930’s figurative clips and brooches, featuring ornate blackmoor heads, even American Indian squaws and chiefs, were marketed by Cartier and spawned a whole wave of cheap imitations, especially in plastic and base metals. The glass jewellery of Réne Lalique and Gabriel Argy Rouseau deserves special mention. By the 1920’s the master goldsmith Lalique had become the premier glassmaker of France. He created some lovely glass jewellery; pendants, some inspired by openwork Japanese Swordguards, or tsubas, and moulded with stylized leaf or animal design. Others with insects and lovely female figures, all hanging from silk cord terminating in rich tassles. All glass rings, necklaces made up partly or wholly or wholly of hemispherical, zigzag, floral, foliate or round beads, and brooches on metal backs.

Motifs: from the sublime to the ridiculous
Art Deco style in other European countries was largely derivative, like the Italian G. Ravasco’s diamond studdied geometric creations or Theodor Fahmer’s later jewels. Some London jewellers, like Asprey and Mappin & Webb, produced Art Deco Style confections, but these are largely unsigned so the designers are unknown. Some British design jewellers however, like Sybil Dunlop, Harold Stabler and H.G. Murphy, known primarily for their Arts and Crafts pieces produced decidedly moderne jewels

Geoge Jensen’s firm in Copenhagen continued to produce silver jewllery in the Art Deco era adding sharp geometric forms to it’s repertoire of stylised motifs, these in turn were imitated by a host of European jewellrs.
The indigenous Mexican silver industry was highlighted in the Art Deco period by the talents of an American architect designer teacher, William Spratling, who settled in Taxco in 1929. He opened a shop dealing in traditional crafts and also started a school where he trained natives to work with silver and other substances. A whole community sprang up in Taxco around Spratling and his wife.

Several significant jewellery manufacturers like New York’s Oscar Heyman & Brothers, the Bonner Manufacturing Company and Walter P. McTeigue, Inc, provided Saks Fifth Avenue and other exclusive department stores with their creations. Even the mail order Sears, Roebuck catalogue featured moderne jewellery.

The motifs of Art Deco jewellery range from the sublime to the ridiculous: from stunning geometric configurations of paste to silly cherries dangling from a wooden bar. The former has borrowed its subject from deluxe jewellery of the time, but the latter, a joke, has come about more or less on its own. Animals and people inhabit the world of 1920s and 30s costume jewellery, from gentle playful fawns and playful plastic Scotty dogs to paste, turquoise and Marchasite Chinamen and elegant, gilt metal cloche hatted vamps. Flowers in every possible colour, combinations and variety sprouted on gilt metal or silver brooches and pendants, their paste petals glittering shamelessly.

The Twenties and Thirties 1919 – 1930
The end of the First World War marked the start of the popularity of costume jewellery. Fine jewellery at the time had unpleasant associations with being frivolous and unpatriotic. The new fashion for women was casual as well as sporty, and was not very well suited to the formality of precious gemstones. The Art Nouveau movement had already prompted a change in perception towards jewellery, focusing attention on aesthetic rather than monetary value. In the postwar period, the major couturiers took this one stage further by initiating the trend for entirely non-precious jewellery.

Popirot, Chanel and the fashion accessory
Paul Poiret had initiated the interest of the couturiers in costume jewellery before the war, when he produced theatrical jewellery for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe in 1910. The bold, vivid Eastern silhouettes associated with this influential ballet were in stark contrast to the Art Nouveau styles of the time. Poiret later developed his range of costume jewellery further. He commissioned the fine jeweller Rene Boivin, Gripoix, the artist Paul Iribe to accesorise his collections for the European department stores as early as 1913. They produced the silk tassle jewellery studded with semi precious that typifies Poiret’s style. Other couturiers such as Chanel, Shiaparelli, Premet and Drescoll followed Poiret’s lead.

Fashion magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue were at first cautious about the idea, as they relied heavily on advertising revenue from the fine jewellery houses such as Cartier. However, they overcame their trepidation and began to feature the new costume jewellery in the mid 1920’s. Other magazines throughout Europe and particularly America took up the theme and costume spread rapidly internationally.

The couturiers revelled in intricate detail and elaboration, particularly embroidered beadwork and garnitures, which reflected current fashions and the use of sequins that adorned eveningwear. One of the most flamboyant and innovative of fashion designers was Coco Chanel who coined the term ‘junk’ jewellery

Twenties fashion dictated a new range of ornaments. As well as the3 bob haircut, there were the dropped waistlines, rising and falling hemlines, and décolleté necklines and backless dresses, requiring a new range of jewellery styles. Costume jewellery expanded accordingly to include clips, liberty pins (to hold up corsetless lingerie), and free flowing sautoirs associated with the dropped waistline.

American and mass-produced jewellery
America was well placed to apply the new manufacturing techniques to the jewellery field, and where Paris led the trend for costume jewellery, it was America that chiefly propagated it. Less hide bound by craft traditions than the European countries, and less inhibited by old bureaucracies and stylistic inertia, America was undergoing full-scale industrialisation. In the jewellery field America simply ceased to import or copy European role models and began to experiment with new technologies and materials of its own, to the extent that jewellery manufacture rapidly became a major industry. Companies along the length of the East Coast, from New York City to Providence, Rhode Island such as Napier and Co., were involved in jewellery production. Lightness and simplicity were the qualities aspired to. New materials came into their own, particularly plastics.

Plastic jewellery
The widespread introduction of synthetic plastics during the 1920s marked the beginning of jewellery that was affordable to the masses. Plastic was not particularly cheap and did not have couturier name attached to enhance its price. Plastic was ideally suited to machine production and to the new clean cut geometric Art Deco styles. Plastic could be easily moulded into sharply defined shapes and it offered the possibility of ‘Mathematical precision and purity of finish’. As soon as plastics became available manufacturers started to produce large quantities of beads, bangle bracelets, and moulded pins with a variety of different finishes from mottled to pearlised effects.
Bakelite was light, warm, and virtually indestructible and extremely wells suited to the imitation of a number of different substances. From the 1920s onwards it could be produced in more sophisticated colours. It was not just an inferior imitation of natural materials, but had many unique qualities.

The Thirties
In the 1930s, the glamour and extravagance of the twenties gave way to increasing economic hardship and to the Depression. There was a swing back to more traditional jewellery. These designs represented reassurance in a financially insecure society, and could be regarded as a reasonably secure investment

A return to convention
The thirties was a period highlighted by a return to a more conservative attitude towards jewellery and the status associated with it. There was renewed interest in ‘good taste’ and morally acceptable styles. The thirties are characterised by a soft streamlined look. Curved feminine fashions superseded the hard-edged lines of Art Deco. In terms of jewellery fashion, clips were particularly popular and were considered an essential part of a woman’s dress. The fashion for diamonds was at its height, and flower sprays and bouquet jewellery with gilded finishes was a favourite design.

Dadaism and Surrealism
In sharp contrast to this return to safe forms of design were the avante garde contemporary art movements, known as Dadaism and Surrealism. These movements had a considerable effect on the world of jewellery. Designers like Schiaparelli Chanel’s fashion rival used these ideas. A number of the Dadaism and Surrealist artist themselves experimented with jewellery design including Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, Jean Clement and Jean Arp.
Surrealism reached its peak in the Paris Exhibition of 1936 with a range of bizarre items on display, from lantern lit jewellery to glassless spectacles. They were admired by the social and fashionable elite of this period including Mea West and Mrs. Reginald Fellows.

The Second World War and after 1939 – 1949
Many European Jewellers found themselves involved in the war effort. Their workshops and tools were used for the production of bullets, surgical steel equipment and radio components. There was a shortage of gold and silver bullion and other materials, as well as labour shortages. Even costume jewellery was not widely available. Many of the centres were bombed including Birmingham and Pforzhiem. Manufacturers turned out large quantities of regimental badges; there was also a renewed interest in Victoriana, notably Whitby jet mourning jewellery and Berlin iron jewellery.

The postwar period
In Britain and the rest of Europe, the consequences of the war were to last many years, as shortages of manpower and materials continued and the painstaking work of reconstruction took place, much of it financed by America. Many of the technologies and scientific advances made during the war were adapted for peacetime use. Automated manufacturing techniques, the development of new plastics and the emergence of microchip technology were all to have profound effects.

The war brought with it a greater distribution of wealth and increased economic independence for women. Many women had worked during one or both wars and, there were those who wanted and needed to return to work. Fashions became more casual and a choice of ready to wear clothes increased greatly.

The influence of design
There was a new appreciation of the importance of design as a means of selling products in an increasingly commercial world. This message began to play an increasingly important part in new international markets that manufacturers had to compete in. Rapid industrial growth brought with it a wave of new design practices and debates. A major design influence was the Bauhaus. The discovery of new plastics was to have a major influence on designs of the post war period. The most important to emerge were PVC (vinyl), Melamine, Polythene, Polystyrene and Nylon. The development of metal alloys and numerous acrylic plastics and injection-moulded plastics increased the variety of plastics on the market.

The Jewellery trade
With the introduction of mass production techniques, the jewellery trade was able to respond quickly to changing fashions. Established houses such as Boucheron, Van Cleef and Arpels, Lacloche and Cartier continued to thrive in the immediate post war years. American jewellers and New York branches of Parisian houses such as Paul Flato, Vedura, Traebert and Hoeffer flourished too. This was a period when costume jewellers felt free to experiment with base metals, silver gilt and paste and when the artist jeweller came back into prominence.

Jewellery design
After the war jewellery design continued to develop despite the economic difficulties. Forties jewellery is characterised by its chunkiness and use of contrast. The interest in machinery is reflected in the designs. People still had limited financial resources so, small quantities of gold were wrought into designs to create an impression of things being bigger than the really were. Designs were much more fluid than Art Deco and often included pleats and drapes simulating fabric. Invisible settings were used in which small-cut rubies were placed. Unusual motifs such as clowns, ballerinas and cats were often used. Cartier built up a taste for exotic fauna, in particular the wild cats designed by Jeanne Tousaint. These animals became the ‘luxurious but poignant symbols of the Duchess of Windsor’ and were perfected by Cartier during the forties and fifties.

Fine Art Jewellery
Many fine artists continued to see jewellery making as an important part of their work. They continued to discover imaginative and creative forms. An important Italian artist who contributed to jewellery design was Bruno Martinazzi. He experimented with layered gold and texture. Other painters and sculptors who took an interest in jewellery were Braque, Tanguy, Man Ray, Dubuffet, Picasso, Fontana, Giacometti, and Alexander Calder.

Costume jewellery
The costume jewellery market was fostered after the war by the decreasing supplies of natural materials and the introduction of new plastics. Aspreys produced a highly successful brooch in ‘washable plastic’ but overall attitudes towards new materials was more conservative that in France and America. Parisians loved ‘faux gems’ and many French couturiers encouraged the use of bold essentially classic designs. Christian Dior, who created the ‘New look’ in 1947, developed the theatrical qualities of costume jewellery.

Contemporary jewellery: 1960 to today
In the last 30 years or so, the Western world has experienced unprecedented technological advances, with immense social change following in their wake. Although jewellery as a decorative art has never been in the vanguard of cultural change, many contemporary jewellers have reflected social change by using their ingenuity and expertise to explore the medium and even question its values.

Continuing tradition
The most famous names in the jewellery world such as Cartier, Bulgari, Boucheron, Asprey and Tiffany have remained faithful to their exclusive clientele and continued to produce jewellery in the ‘grand manner’. The established companies still devise sumptuous designs in precious metals and exquisite gemstones as status symbols and investments. Many of these customers have been from the Middle East where tradition still demands the formal display of wealth and rank.

In England, the 1960s brought a new generation of artists-jewellers, as well as a new self-made wealthy clientele. There was a great demand for a different kind of jeweller: less formal, more modern and an expression of the affluent decade.

In 1961, the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths held an influential milestone exhibition that revealed the potential of modern jewellery as a medium for artistic self-expression. The 1960s jeweller was epitomised by Andrew Grima, his work was self consciously modern, aiming to break with the past. Many of his works were based on objets Trouves. He managed to capture the texture of leaves, trigs and bark in precious metals. As well as Grima, there were other jewellers like John Donald, Gillian Packard, and David Thomas developed contemporary designs using new images celebrating scientific achievement.

In New York, Jean Schlumberger reigned supreme over Tiffany in the 1960s, and he too was responsible for shifting the emphasis away from valuable stones and towards "artistic" content in design. Schlumberger’s subject matter was almost always organic, sometimes heraldic, always luscious and startling, reflecting the curiosities and marvels of nature. He loved colour and dared to mix sapphires and emeralds, amethysts and aquamarines, spinels, turquoises with generous lashings of yellow gold and brilliant enamels.

Theories of the Bauhaus continued to influence many art education establishments and designers throughout Europe. They encouraged the search for a universal, rational, simple beauty – a "democracy" of form. The rigours of the Bauhaus teaching with its desire to define forms in a minimal way are still held as fundamental by many designers.

Jewellery as art
The art world in the 1940s and 50s was dominated by the American Abstract expressionists. Artists saw themselves as pioneers, liberating the world from the bonds of tradition. These ideas pervaded the whole world of art and design, and found expression in what were called Studio Crafts. This usually demanded a single individual being responsible for both designing and making unique hand made pieces.

In Germany and France the apprenticeship system remained strong, and the skills of the jewellery were respected as such. German colleges still teach rigorous technical courses as well as fine art. Many teachers are noted jewellers in their own right. Herman Jünger at the Munich Acadamie der bildenden künste, Fredrich Becker in Düsseldorf and Reinhold Reiling in Pforzhiem.

American work is characterised by its freedom from traditional restraint, the influence of the North and South American can be detected. The bold expressiveness can be seen in the work of many jewellers such as Robert Ebendorf, William Harper, Mary Lee Hu, Richard Mawdsley, Stanley Lechtzin, Earl Pardon and many more. Many of America’s leading jewellers are also teachers who pass on their experience and enthusiasm to new generations of artist jewellers.

With the breaking down of the traditional barriers between different art disciplines, an increasing number of jewellers have been presenting their work as art. In England, David Watkins of the Royal College or Art first trained as a jeweller and then turned to jewellery. His work has usually been exhibited in galleries with an artist’s eye and attitude guiding its considered presentation. David Courts and Bill Hackett work mainly to commission in precious materials. Their designs are characterised by a sleek sensuality, their themes often taken from unusual often-macabre aspects of nature: a frog’s skeleton or a crayfish for example.

Several German jewellers work was moving towards the ‘artistic’ in the early 1970s. They were known for their attention to detail, presented their work as ‘pictures’. Ulrike Bahrs and Norbert Murrie produced pictorial pieces that served either as jewellery or as graphical images. Gerd Rothman presented stickpins in a frame with a painted background. Gijs Bakker and Robert Smit from Holland and Claus Bury from Germany showed an affinity with conceptual art as they were just as much concerned with showing their ideas as showing a finished product.
New Concepts, New materials, new techniques

There was significant change in the fashions designed and worn by young people reflecting the boom years and the sexual revolution of the 1960s, which was taking place in the West. A notable English jeweller was Gerda Flockinger. Her work exhibited irreverence for the traditional treatment of metals. She melted the surface of her jewellery to exploit the natural texture that was created. She fused wire and shapes cut from sheet metal, setting semi precious stones into the finished form so that they appeared like intriguing decorative blisters. Patricia Tormey slammed molten gold between layers of textured charcoal and dropped it into a tray of lentils. In the mid-60s a small group of British jewellers Wendy Ramshaw, David Watkins and Caroline Broadhead, took a new interest in abstraction. In a brief return to the Bauhaus principles of design, they considered the relationship between form and function. His training as a sculptor inevitably influenced Watkins work. His jewellery pieces are architectonic in form, and stand independently as works of art.

One of the least heralded but important jewellers of the 60s and 70s is Stuart Devlin: silversmith, goldsmith, jeweller and sculptor, designer of coins, commemorative medallions, trophies, furniture, and interiors. Among his many accolades, Mr. Devlin holds a Royal Warrant and Appointment as Goldsmith and Jeweller to Her Majesty the Queen of England. In 1967, he began designing jewellery and, over the next decade, became well known in London's West End. In 1982, he was granted the Royal Warrant of Appointment as Goldsmith and Jeweller to Her Majesty the Queen.

In Holland, traditionally trained jewellers Gijs Bakker and Emmy van Leersum turned the very notion of jewellery on its head when they experimented with simple forms that became both clothing and jewellery.

Austria is now beginning to establish its own style. Students began to experiment with jewellery as a mode of self-expression. Wolf Wennrick, Helge Larsen and Darani Lewers have been the key figures in this development, while Frank Bauer, Anne Bronsworth, Susan Cohn, Rowenta Gough, Peter Tully and Lyn Tune are just a few of the of the new generation of Austrian jewellers producing increasingly interesting results.

In the 1970s the Austrians, Pierre Degan, Fritz Maierhofer and the Englishman Roger Morris captured imagery from space hardware and microtechnology in jewellery. They used metal and coloured plastics in combination, with finishes that were reminiscent of machine made products.

The idealistic notion that "good" and innovative" design could be made available to all was taken up by various jewellers. However manufacturers had remained steadfastly resistant to taking risks, so this remained an ideal rather than a reality. Innovative jewellers also create their own elitism. Despite this, there is little doubt that innovators have influenced the more commercial end of the jewellery market.

Jewellery for men
It was during the 60s that jewellery was no longer perceived as being solely for women. The fashion conscious man wore necklaces instead of neckties. He joined the ranks of hipster style revolutionaries like Richard Burton and The Earl of Snowdon. In the costume jewellery line there were necklaces for men with dangling disks, bells, abstract shapes, crosses with enamel and fake stones, zodiac symbols and the peace sign.

Pop Art
The bold geometric style of Pop art And Op art that flourished in the 60s quickly found its way into jewellery. Materials such as plastics, particularly Plexiglas (ICI Perspex) and vinyl were predominantly used in costume jewellery Paco Raban stamped chain mail shapes out of Perspex, while Charles Jourdan gave his shoes ice cube shaped high heels. Pop art embraced the highly varied imagery of popular culture. It was in essence anti functional and ephemeral, reflecting a new code of expendability. The Sixties fashion was for disposability. The paper and Perspex jewellery of Wendy Ramshaw of this period was very popular. She made cheap disposable paper jewellery that came in kit form. Much of it was printed with 60s ephemera such as Union Jacks, Phychedelia and Day Glo colours.

The style and Post Modernism
Today’s jewellers are again reflecting cultural trends, using the pluralism associated with Post Modern culture to widen their scope. The political aspects of jewellery have diminished. Decoration without and added meaning is acceptable again. A greater element of fun has also crept into body ornament. The Englishman Geoff Roberts, formerly a student of sculpture and printmaking, works with plastic and brightly coloured metal foil to produce deliberately cheap jewellery that is essentially a combination of fun and fantasy. The Swiss Otto Kunzli, who studied under Hermann Junger in Munich, uses a more satirical wit with such things as large three-dimensional brooches covered in "tasteless" wallpaper. In addition, fine artist Peter Chang has hit the headlines with his large, brightly coloured bangles in vacuum - formed plastic. Only time will tell if they will endure.

Ethnic revivals
During the 70s and 80s there was renewed interest in Asia and the Far East. This led to a return to natural materials such as bone, ivory and Indian Metalwork. Western jewellers were influenced by the varied assortment of goods being imported from Asia. Leather thonged jewellery hung with dyed feathers typified the ethnic style of the period.
British artist – jewellers

Artist – jewellers in Britain in the seventies gained two new means of by which to promote their work. One was the opening of an important retail outlet, Electrum in London. The other was the establishment of the Crafts Advisory Council. This was set up in 1971 to promote and develop the importance of British Crafts. Before this, jewellers had to rely on editorials in fashion magazines such as Honey, Vogue, Harpers and Queen to establish their work.

Australia
Australian jewellery design has benefited from the intimate collaboration between artist craftsmen on an international basis in recent years. Many European designers have travelled to Australia, conducting workshops and exhibiting their work. A number of innovative Australian designers have emerged from this initial contact, Helge Larsen, Peter Tully, Rowena Gough, Dirani Lewers and Jenny Toynbee, some of whom have trained in Germany, are foremost amongst them.

America
An important development for the artist jeweller in America was the opening of the specialist retail outlet, Sculpture to wear (later Artwear) in New York. Designers who exhibited at Artwear were constantly being approached by fashion designers for their work. American designers in the Seventies were less concerned than their European counterparts with traditional constraints. Designers drew on American Indian arty, assemblage art and expressionism. The criterion for having work included in the Artwear gallery was that "the artist pioneered the art of jewellery making, using materials in an unexpected and novel way".

That ideal sums up the new creative spirit that has entered jewellery design in the Twentieth century. Companies like Cartier, Asprey, Garrards and Tiffany are still producing time–honoured designs using precious metals and gemstones. Their pieces represent traditional values, which will always retain an importance, and they offer secure investment for the future. However, it is in the work of artist-jewellers such as those described in this essay that we find the expression of new ideas and new attitudes towards jewellery that have arisen during the course of this century. It is in this sphere of jewellery design that the boundaries of modern inventiveness and contemporary social comment will continue to be extended.