What Is Vintage Costume Jewelry?

New Vintage Jewelry Finds at The Jewelry Stylist

Vintage Costume Jewelry is beloved of collectors both for the beauty of its art form and how it connects us to our past. For many, Vintage costume jewelry is an essential piece of our style. As an accessory, a beautiful piece of costume jewelry can make our outfit pop! Or, we might choose our outfit as a background to show off a particular piece of vintage artwork wrought, not in paint, but it rhinestones and vermeil!

Costume jewelry serves as a means of adornment to enhance our beauty and style. It color and sparkle can pick up our spirits and FEEL better 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 can be almost magical. Sometimes it is sweet and ethereal – other times supremely powerful and bold.

Vintage costume jewelry also connects us to our cultural past. A piece of jewelry might reflect the history of society, of laws, of suffering, of love, of sacrifice and of heartbreak. It connects us to generations both present and past. Many a collector has a closet full of vintage jewels never worn, merely adored.

The materials of a vintage piece of jewelry often help us understand and pinpoint the era which gave birth to it. For example, many pieces of jewelry 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 some companies made jewelry, not of metal, but of cork, wood, and even macaroni.

However, you care to define it, and whatever you choose to love about it, costume jewelry has been, and always will be a fascination to study for generations of collectors to come. There exists endless joy to be found 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?