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DESIGN FOR BEAUTY
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elaborately draped with lace and braid embellishments, Cartier produced the breastpin.
England
never was the equal of France in diamond jewelry design, although
during the latter part of the eighteenth and the early part of the
nineteenth century the art of creating special costume jewelry enjoyed
something of a renaissance; especially under the fashion impulse of the
elite at Bath and other "properly Royal" watering places. It was the
fashion for thoseivho "belonged" to look depreciatingly upon any ready
stock and insist that nothing but "made-to-order" items would quite
suffice for a person of such exquisite taste. Thus the designers
enjoyed quite a boom for a while.
Nevertheless,
much of the inspiration came from France until the trouble with
Napoleon. At that time the love of the magnificent of the Imperial
French Court naturally influenced the design details of French
fashions. Consequently jewels, to go with such styles, had to be in
harmony. But to have reproduced in England the fabulous splendor of the
Imperial French Court would have been considered craft treason to the
minds of Englishmen and Englishwomen at that period. So the ingenious
but conservative jewel smiths hit upon the idea of modifying
superficial magnificence with dignified beauty.
This
immediately became popular and, curiously enough, was taken up by
French designers. Soon many jewels were designed on simple lines—frets,
crescents, stars, and similar patterns, mainly to display the diamonds
with which they were set, while others attempted to imitate flowers,
although with sadly inartistic results.
Lucien
Falize in Paris and Giuliano in London were among the few jewelers who
revived the Renaissance style both in design and in technique. Their
productions in
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