Vintage Costume Jewelry

Vintage Costume jewelry with a flair for Couture. 

 Discover Your Accessory Expression! ™

“A good piece of jewelry has a permanent interest and value.” Lillian Purdy Goldsborough 

What is vintage jewelry.

What is vintage jewelry and why do collectors love it so much.  Is it the art form or is it because the jewelry  connects us to a deeper understanding of our past.  I propose that it is both and more.  Vintage costume jewelry for many, serves as a means of adornment to enhance our beauty or our  style.  It picks up our spirits and has us FEEL different about ourselves.  Vintage costume jewelry has a magical way of releasing endorphins that transform our spirits and can turn the "bitchiest" of moods  into one of bliss.  That feeling of transformation is magical.  It can be sweet and  ethereal or supremely powerful and bold.   

Vintage costume jewelry almost always comes with a past.   A past that tells the history of society, of laws, of suffering, of love, of sacrifice and  of heartbreak.   It connects generations both present and gone.

 We can study the materials of a vintage piece of jewelry and directly correlate them to an era.  Many pieces of jewelry for example  were made differently due to the restrictions of priority metals during WWII and for a time thereafter.   Industries struggled and adapted to the laws of the time, which meant for some companies,  jewelry was not made of metal, but of cork, wood, and even macaroni.    

Vintage jewelry can be a feast for the eyes with zero practicality in being worn and be equally satisfying to own.  Many a collector has a closet full of vintage jewels never worn,  but merely adored.    Whatever  vintage jewelry means to you, however you care to define it,  it has been,  and always will be a fascination to study for generations of collectors to come.  We will always find joy in that little brass pin or that to die for couture Gripoix bib.   So let me leave you with this one last question…. Have you discovered your accessory expression? 

About Vintage Jewelry?

The age of an item or collectible to be considered "vintage" varies from item to item.  There is no specified period of time associated with the word "vintage" so this often poses a perplexing question.  Is it contemporary or is it vintage? 

With regard to costume jewelry,  most people would agree that a piece aged 15 years would adequately qualify as vintage.  At  THE JEWELRY STYLIST,  we look at the jewelry styles of each decade and from there take note of  the design changes in relationship to today's fashion.   Because the style of most fashion accessories from the early 1990's are distinct from the jewelry fashions of today,  we would classified the designs from the early 1990's on our website as vintage.   In making this determination, we also take into consideration additional factors such as materials, and methods of manufacture which contribute to the overall aesthetic of the jewelry piece. 

With that said, a piece of jewelry manufactured today in the style of the early 1990's would NOT qualify as vintage by the mere fact of its actual manufacture date.  This is important as many pieces sold as "real vintage" are actually being manufactured today.

Often the consumer is being charged a premium for that "vintage" piece of jewelry.  We tend to see this in designs characteristic of the 1920's through the 1970's--the "Golden Years" of vintage fashion jewelry. 

Now with the styles of the 1980's becoming popular again we will most likely see a surge of both the "Punk Rocker - New Wave" jewelry and "Dynasty" style jewelry  hitting the market which has actually been newly manufactured.  The challenge for the consumer will be to determine what is actually the authentic vintage pieces. 

We here at THE JEWELRY STYLIST hope to provide you with some resources to help you make your purchase of vintage costume jewelry a successful one!

The Jewelry Stylist

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Vintage Jewelry Collect

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Phone: 707-751-1665
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