This July 4th we celebrate our Declaration of Independence. It was written by rebels against king George III 236 years ago. That's a long time; but how different were the Americans of that time from us? In part, the answer may be found in descriptions of the jewelry they wore.
The well dressed man present at the signing of the Declaration very probably wore cuff links and decorative buckles, very often of silver, to hold his knee breeches firmly around his upper calf. Instead of a necktie, he wore a stock at his neck and it was secured by a buckle, preferably of silver; and were he a real ‘dandy’ of the era he might well have had steel buckles on his shoes set with ‘paste’ gems. The buttons on his clothes may have been stone, silver, gold, pinchbeck (an alloy of copper and zinc resembling gold) or pewter; and all of these wonderful metal and stone bits would have been provided by a jeweler. A wealthy man, such as George Washington, would own a piece of high tech, a pocket watch. Usually this would have been made in England; but interestingly enough, the watch Washington purchased in 1775 seems to have been made in Switzerland or made by a Swiss, Jean-Henri Mairet, who had been working in London at the time the watch was made (1770). Were he just a bit more inclined to wear jewelry, he might well have had a ring, very possibly with a seal (made of stone, gold or silver), a cameo or intaglio or a gemstone such as an agate.
Women offered much more opportunity for the jeweler’s arts. In addition to buttons, shoe buckles and rings, necklaces of gold and silver beads were a must for well dressed women, to say nothing of earrings, bracelets, decorative girdle buckles and stay hooks and buckles In 1776 girdles were belts and were often worn for decoration alone, not to secure clothing nor to improve a woman’s ‘shape’; stays, however, were designed to ‘shape’ the feminine form. In the 19th century fashionistas appropriated the word used to describe a belt, ‘girdle’, to describe what had previously been called a stay. The jeweler came into the picture as the purveyor of bejeweled buckles for girdles and bejeweled hooks and buckles to tighten stays. A wealthy woman might have had diamonds on her many pieces of jewelry, including stay buckles and stay hooks, but as large diamonds were quite rare and expensive, it was likely that her diamonds would be small and used to accent her jewelry, quite likely intermingled with paste gems. Oh how things have changed and yet remain familiar. At this year’s Las Vegas Jewelry Show Kathy and I found very few buckles being shown; on the other hand all of the other types of jewelry found in the America of 200 years ago were there in abundance, as were personal luxury accoutrements unknown at the time.
Men’s jewelry has been (sadly for jewelers) simplified. Watches have become cheap and abundant. Cuff links are still to be seen and in Las Vegas they ranged from precious metal and gems to contemporary icons such as computer chips and baseball memorabilia. Interestingly enough, it’s possible that one of the signers of the Declaration wore Roman coin cuff links; and you can buy similar links today. Buckles, but sadly reduced in importance to belt buckles only, can still be found; but rings abound. ‘New’ accoutrements for men we found in Las Vegas included writing instruments, hand crafted money clips and something a blacksmith might have made in 1776, hand crafted pocket knives. Naturally, we have it all.
There is a little more deja vu to women’s jewelry. With the exception of ‘stay’ accessories, the types of jewelry offered for women have remained largely as it was, with one major change. Gemstones have become much more readily available (come check out our new ‘take’ on mother’s rings) and diamonds in particular are far more accessible than they were in 1776. Silver has become much more available than it was then; so we brought back a remarkable collection of Italian designed silver jewelry that is breathtaking in its sophisticated concept, execution and great prices. And though pinchbeck is gone, we have another new collection in bronze (a different gold look-alike), silver and gemstones designed in an imaginative tribute to antiquity, and again, remarkable for its reasonable pricing.
The desire for jewelry and the persistence of jewelry concepts make it clear that if a piece of jewelry is well conceived and executed it will endure; for this reason we insist that the jewelry we present to you has been crafted to the highest standards. If you share our passion for great jewelry, check us out on line at hurstsberwynjewelers.com, then phone us at 708.788.0880 for an appointment. We’re Hursts’ Berwyn Jewelers, not a common jeweler.
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