Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

1918–1940
 Material Culture of Art and Design
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Jewellery in the Age of Modernism
1918–1940
Adornment and Beyond

Simon Bliss
 BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS
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Cover design by Irene Martinez Costa

Cover image: Coco Chanel, French couturier. Paris 1936. Colourized photo
© Boris Lipnitzki / Roger-Viollet / TopFoto

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bliss, Simon, author.
Title: Jewellery in the age of modernism 1918–1940 :
adornment and beyond / Simon Bliss.
Description: New York : Bloomsbury Visual Arts, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2018. |
Series: Material culture of art and design |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018038572 | ISBN 9781501326790 (hardback : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781501326813 (epdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Jewelry–History–20th century. | Art and society–History–20th century.
Classification: LCC NK7310 .B59 2018 | DDC 739.27/200904–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018038572

ISBN: HB: 978-1-5013-2679-0

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To Cath, Tim and Ollie
 Contents

List of Figures viii

Acknowledgements xiii

Introduction 1
1 Wearing (and Not Wearing) Jewellery in the 1920s 7
2 New Women: The Jewellery of Charlotte Perriand and Nancy Cunard 41
3 Modernism and Modernity 77
4 Representing Jewellery: Photography and Film 119
5 Displaying Jewellery 1920–1939 151
Conclusion 183

References 189
Index 201
 Figures

1.1 Still from Pathé film Jewels, 1928. © British Pathé Ltd. 8
1.2 Jewellery by Paul Brandt featured in L’Officiel de la mode, no. 87,
1928. © Les Editions Jalou ‘L’Officiel 1928’. 14
1.3 Jane Blanchot featured in L’Officiel de la mode, no. 82, 1928. © Les
Editions Jalou ‘L’Officiel 1928’. 16
1.4 Cole Porter in Venice, 1923. Image supplied by the Irving
S. Gilmore Music Library, Yale. © Cole Porter Trust. 20
1.5 Christian Schad, ‘Halbakt’, 1929. Medienzentrum, Antje Zeis-Loi /
Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal. Oil on canvas. 55.5 × 53.5 cm.
© Christian Schad Stiftung Aschaffenburg/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
and DACS, London, 2016. 32
1.6 Sara and Gerald Murphy at the “Automotive Ball”, Paris, 1924.
Sara and Gerald Murphy Papers. Yale Collection of American
Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. © Estate
of Honoria Murphy Donnelly/Licensed by VAGA, New York. 39
2.1 Charlotte Perriand’s Collier roulements à billes (ball-bearings
necklace), 1927. © Archives Charlotte Perriand. © ADAGP, Paris
and DACS, London, 2016. 42
2.2 Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret. LC4 chaise
longue, 1929. Le Corbusier: © FLC/ADAGP, Paris and DACS,
London, 2016. Jeanneret: © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016. 44
2.3 Bracelet in chromed metal and ebonite by Jean Fouquet, c. 1931.
Diameter 6.5 cm. Private Collection. Photo © Christie’s Images /
Bridgeman Images. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016. 45
2.4 Charlotte Perriand with architect Ernst Weissmann, 1927. ©
Archives Charlotte Perriand. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London,
2016. 51
2.5 Charlotte Perriand in the Savoy Alps, c. 1935. © Archives Charlotte
Perriand. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016. 54
2.6 Sadie Murdoch, ‘Mirrored Photomontage 2’, 2007. Courtesy of the
artist, the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK and the Roberto Polo
Gallery, Brussels, Belgium. 56
 Figures ix

2.7 Nancy Cunard photographed by Cecil Beaton for The Book of

Beauty, 1930. © The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s. 60
2.8 A selection of Nancy Cunard’s African bracelets from her Negro
anthology, 1934. Photograph by Raoul Ubac. © The British
Library Board (shelfmark L.R.41.b.12). © ADAGP, Paris and
DACS, London, 2016. Image used with kind permission of the
Literary Estate of Nancy Cunard. 67
2.9 Plate from George Basden’s 1921 work Among the Ibos of Nigeria. 69
2.10 Nancy Cunard photographed by Barbara Ker-Seymer, 1930.
Image used with kind permission of the Literary Estate of Nancy
Cunard. © Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin. 72
2.11 Front cover of Henry Crowder’s Henry Music, 1930. Design and
photography by Man Ray. © The British Library Board (shelfmark
H.2012). © Man Ray Trust/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London,
2016. Image used with kind permission of the Literary Estate of
Nancy Cunard. 74
3.1 Brooch in gold, rock crystal, tourmaline and pearls by Jean
Fouquet, c. 1937. Width 5.5 cm. © Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim.
Photo: Günther Meyer. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016. 85
3.2 Bracelet in gold with malachite and black lacquer by Jean
Fouquet, 1929. Height 2.5 cm, width 19 cm. © Victoria and Albert
Museum, London © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016. 86
3.3 Designs for graphic vignettes by Alfred Latour, 1929. From
Volume 1 of the Spécimen général des Fonderies Deberny et
Peignot, Paris, c. 1935. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Image used with kind permission of Claude Latour. 88
3.4 Brooch in platinum set with diamonds commemorating the
breaking of the world land speed record by Captain George
Eyston in 1937. Designer and maker unknown. Length 5.9 cm,
width 3.1 cm. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 89
3.5 Cigarette case by Gérard Sandoz, illustrated in Jean Fouquet’s
Bijoux et Orfèvrerie (Jewellery and Metalwork), 1930. Bibliothèque
des Arts décoratifs, Paris. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016. 90
3.6 Designs for jewellery by Paul Brandt, illustrated in Jean
Fouquet’s Bijoux et Orfèvrerie (Jewellery and Metalwork), 1930.
Bibliothèque des Arts décoratifs, Paris. 92
x Figures

3.7 Brooch in silver by Jean Després, c. 1929. Length 8 cm, width

2 cm. Image used with kind permission of the Musée de
l’Avallonnais, Avallon, France. 95
3.8 Brooch by Raymond Templier in white gold, brilliant-cut
diamonds, onyx and coral, c. 1930. Height 6.4 cm, width 2.3 cm.
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London. © ADAGP, Paris and
DACS, London, 2016. 99
3.9 Brooch by Raymond Templier in white gold, brilliant-cut
diamonds, onyx and coral, c. 1930 (reverse). Height 6.4 cm, width
2.3 cm. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. © ADAGP, Paris
and DACS, London, 2016. 100
3.10 Bracelet in silver and black lacquer by Raymond Templier,
c. 1930. Height 3.6 cm, diameter 6 cm. © Rheinisches Bildarchiv
Köln. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016. 101
3.11 Brooch in gold, silver, pearls, lacquer and faience by Jean Després,
c. 1935. Faience plaque by Jean Mayadon. Width 6.7 cm.
© Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim. Photo: Günther Meyer. 102
3.12 Tablet ring in silver by H. G. Murphy, 1930s. Image from Paul
Atterbury and John Benjamin’s The Jewellery and Silver of H. G.
Murphy. Image kindly supplied by John Benjamin. 104
3.13 Decorations for the Metal Party at the Bauhaus, Dessau,
9 February 1929. Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger
Museum, Gift of Howard Dearstyne, BR50.32.B. Photo: Imaging
Department. © President and Fellows of Harvard College. 110
3.14 Marianne Brandt, ‘Untitled [with Anna May Wong]’.
Photomontage, 1929. 67 cm × 50 cm. Harvard Art Museums/
Busch-Reisinger Museum, Purchase through the generosity
of the Friends of the Busch-Reisinger Museum and their
Acquisitions Committee, Richard and Priscilla Hunt, Elizabeth
C. Lyman, Mildred Rendl-Marcus and Sylvia de Cuevas, 2006.25.
Photo: Imaging Department. © President and Fellows of Harvard
College. © Artists Rights Society, New York. © DACS, 2016. 114
3.15 Marianne Brandt. Earring for the Metal Party at the Bauhaus on
9 February 1929. Gear wheel, small wheel and bell, nickel-plated
brass, celluloid sheet. Length 11 cm. Bauhaus-Archiv, Berlin.
© DACS, 2016. 115
 Figures xi

4.1 Jewellery by Gérard Sandoz; photographed by Thérèse Bonney, late

1920s. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Libraries, Washington, DC. ©
UC Regents, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. 122
4.2 Elsa Neuländer-Simon (known as Yva), ‘Hands Study’, c. 1929.
Gelatin silver print. 19.69 × 14.29 cm. San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art, Purchase. Photograph: Don Ross. 123
4.3 Florence Henri, advertising photograph for Lanvin perfume,
1929. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Florence Henri. ©
Galleria Martini e Ronchetti, Genoa. 127
4.4 Florence Henri, ‘Portrait Composition: Woman with Three
Bracelets’, 1929. Gelatin silver photograph, 29.3 × 22.2 cm.
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Purchased 1986. Florence
Henri © Galleria Martini e Ronchetti, Genoa. 130
4.5 Marianne Brandt, ‘Self-Portrait in the Studio with Jewellery for
the Metal Party, Bauhaus Dessau’, 1929. Gelatin silver print, 19.7 ×
13.7 cm. Bauhaus-Archiv, Berlin. © DACS, 2016. 132
4.6 Man Ray, ‘Necklace and Bracelet’, 1927. Gelatin silver print. 22.9 ×
17.6 cm. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. © Man Ray
Trust/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016. 135
4.7 Man Ray, Rayograph of horsehair necklace and bracelet by Elsa
Triolet, c. 1931. The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford,
REP.F.3193, facing p. 101. © Man Ray Trust/ADAGP, Paris and
DACS, London, 2016. 139
4.8 Pierre Alcover and Brigitte Helm in Marcel L’Herbier’s film
L’Argent, 1928. Screenshot. 146
4.9 Christl Ehlers in Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer’s film
Menschen am Sonntag, 1929. Screenshot. 148
5.1 Mannequin ‘Ruth’ from the E. Pollard and Co. Ltd catalogue
General Display Equipment, c. 1928. © The British Library Board
(shelfmark YD.2004.b.1041). Image used with kind permission of
www.pollardsinternational.com. 154
5.2 Mannequin from Siégel’s Album publicitaire, 1927. Bibliothèque
des Arts décoratifs, Paris. George Hoyningen-Huené/Vogue ©
Condé Nast. 156
5.3 Mannequin dressed by Agustin Espinosa for the Exposition
internationale du surréalisme, Paris, 1938. Photograph by Raoul
Ubac. The Image Works. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016. 160
xii Figures

5.4 Interior of the Morabito jewellery store, rue Sainte-Honoré, Paris,

from the E. Pollard and Co. Ltd catalogue, Everything for the
Jeweller Except Jewellery, c. 1935. © The British Library Board
(shelfmark YD.2004.b.1104). Image used with kind permission of
www.pollardsinternational.com. 166
5.5 (Lower right) Plan of arcade at the entrance to the T. Pickett Ltd
jewellery store, Portsmouth, UK, from the E. Pollard and Co. Ltd
catalogue, Everything for the Jeweller Except Jewellery, c. 1935. ©
The British Library Board (shelfmark YD.2004.b.1104). Image used
with kind permission of www.pollardsinternational.com. 168
5.6 Pavillon de bijouterie et orfèvrerie at the Exposition des Arts
décoratifs, Paris, 1925, designed by Eric Bagge. Bibliothèque des
Arts décoratifs, Paris, Collection Maciet. 172
5.7 Cover of the Supplément artistique of Figaro, 13 June 1929,
featuring Eric Bagge’s design for the jewellery exhibition at the
Musée Galliera. Bibliothèque des Arts décoratifs, Paris. © Le
Figaro / 13.06.1929. 174
 Acknowledgements

The idea for this book came from many years of teaching art and design history
to students of architecture, interior design and jewellery practice. My first debt
of gratitude is to those students of the latter subject area who were sufficiently
enthusiastic about their studies to have found the act of researching and writing
about jewellery (almost) as exciting and interesting as making it. My intention
was (and still is) to try and promote the exploration of connections between
jewellery and cultural circumstances in an effort to further uncover what such
objects might mean. In doing this I have always tried to cast my cultural net as
wide as possible, and so I thank all those who have been patient enough to sit
through and engage with various versions of the material presented in this book.
My research has been greatly assisted by the librarians at The British Library,
The National Art Library, and Goldsmiths’ Hall, London; The Bibliothèque
des Arts Décoratifs and the Cinémathèque Française, Paris; St. Peter’s Library,
University of Brighton; The Wolfson Library, University of Oxford and the
Bauhaus-archiv, Berlin. In addition, a number of museums, archives and galleries
have been especially helpful in the task of locating and supplying images. In
particular, I would like to mention the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas;
the Archives Charlotte Perriand, Paris; the Schmuckmuseum, Pforzheim; the
Musée de l’Avallonnais, Avallon; the Rheinisches Bildarchiv, Köln; the President
and Fellows of Harvard College, Cambridge, MA; The Bauhaus-archiv, Berlin;
the Smithsonian Libraries, Washington, DC; the Bodleian Libraries, University
of Oxford; The Cole Porter Trust; the Galleria Martini e Ronchetti, Genoa; the
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles;
The Irving S. Gilmore Music Library and the Yale Collection of American
Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
For personally granting me permission to reproduce photographs, I am very
grateful to the following individuals: Claude Latour of The Fondation Alfred
Latour, Robert Bell of The Literary Estate of Nancy Cunard, Lauren Cronley of
Optoplast (Pollards International), John Benjamin and Sadie Murdoch.
I would also like to thank Laure Haberschill of the Bibliothèque des Arts
Décoratifs for her help with locating books and photographs; Clare Phillips of
the Victoria and Albert Museum for her assistance with the Eyston brooch; Klaus
xiv Acknowledgements

Weber of the Bauhaus-archiv for allowing me to examine Marianne Brandt’s

costume for the Metal Party at first hand; and Sophia Tobin for assisting me at
Goldsmiths’ Hall.
Finally, special thanks go to Lara Rettondini for her encouragement and
linguistic assistance and, at Bloomsbury, to Margaret Michniewicz who helped
me so much in the early stages of this project. I am grateful, too, for the support
of colleagues at the University of Brighton and for allowing me some of the time,
space and funding required to complete this book.
I hope I have managed to produce something that reflects well on the talents
of all those who were kind enough to help me along the way. Needless to say, any
errors of fact, interpretation or translation are entirely my own.
 Introduction

Since the late 1960s, many individual designers and makers of jewellery have
been consistently demonstrating that jewellery and other objects of personal
adornment have few limits in terms of scale, materiality and wearability. In the
late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the emergence of ‘contemporary
jewellery’ has produced a vast array of interesting, exciting and sometimes
baffling approaches to the adornment of the body. For the student, there are
now a growing number of exhibitions, books, periodicals and online sources
that critique the role of jewellery in contemporary culture. Indeed, the advent of
post-modern culture (and other cultural positions that claim to have supplanted
it) has had its effect on jewellery as much as on other aspects of design and visual
culture in recent years.
However, those who wish to consider the cultural and critical context of
modern jewellery in the early part of the twentieth century are less well served.
In particular, the position of the decorative arts in relation to the culture of
modernism still remains relatively underexplored and jewellery fares particularly
badly. As far as the 1920s and 1930s is concerned, the general tendency to label
developments in modern jewellery (and sometimes any other kind of jewellery
made during this period) as ‘art deco’ severely limits the possibility of a much
wider understanding of the relationship between jewellery, adornment and what
lies beyond. This book, therefore, is not overly concerned with identifying styles
and approaches that have already been very well described by others. Rather,
it attempts, in its five chapters, to consider how the culture of modernism in
Europe and America made its impact felt on jewellery through an examination
of issues of gender, identity, modernity, materiality, representation, consumption
and display.
While acknowledging that both ‘modernism’ and ‘modernity’ are, respectively,
imprecise and loaded terms, this book adopts perspectives from a variety of
historical and contemporary sources to try to suggest new ways of examining the
2 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

jewellery culture of the interwar years. Since the French jewellery industry, so
closely allied to the other luxury trades, was to a large extent the major stylistic
innovator, and Paris the main centre of avant-garde culture, many of the key
examples discussed are French. However, objects, ideas, images and events are
considered from a range of other countries, including Germany, Great Britain
and the United States. However we may wish to define it, modernist culture
certainly had international as well as national characteristics.
For those who know something of the history of modern jewellery, there are
some familiar names here, and some well-known examples of their works are
illustrated. But there is also discussion of some less familiar ideas and works
which attempt to shed light on the neglected relationship between jewellery
and the culture of modernism in, arguably, the period of the latter’s most
exciting and dramatic development. The book aims to show, then, that the
impact of modernism on jewellery and accessories in the interwar period was
not just a matter of the superficial absorption of a range of influences on the
part of designers and producers. There are wider cultural forces at work which
affected the way jewellery was worn and consumed and which, in some way,
affected all types of jewellery at all levels of the market. But, above all, it is the
debates about the form, function and meaning of jewellery in a period of rapid
social, economic and cultural change that characterize the main arguments
put forward in this book. Ultimately, it constitutes a challenge to the view that
jewellery and accessories have only a minor role to play in the histories of
modernism.
In order to study jewellery and accessories of this (or indeed any) period, it
is often necessary to be mildly promiscuous in the adoption of methodologies.
In examining objects that are, for example, both personal and social, worthless
and valuable, in or out of fashion, enduring and ephemeral, dumb or intelligent,
mass-produced or individually crafted, traditional or avant-garde, the researcher
must have recourse to a variety of approaches. This account is no exception.
In the introduction to the book The Gendered Object, Pat Kirkham and Judy
Attfield make the following suggestion to those writing about objects: ‘Further
and broader considerations of design would benefit from studies which do not
prioritise the object (thing) over the subject (person/s) or vice versa. Though
rendering the process of study and research more complex, this nevertheless
makes it more possible to observe the ways in which people construct their
identities through object-relations’ (1996, 10). Although a generation has passed
since these remarks, the emphasis on studying objects through the way they
 Introduction 3

contribute to the formation of identity remains highly significant and provides

a unique way to introduce discussions of the personal into a wider study of
jewellery and accessories as cultural artefacts. Perhaps few other subjects can
benefit more from this kind of approach than jewellery due to its ability to
engender discussions about both individual and collective identities through
an examination of material and cultural circumstances. Jean Arnold, writing
more recently, puts this well: ‘Material objects, then, mean more than calculable
monetary value; rather they exist as shared signs for established cultural values
and as reservoirs of emotion brought on by individual experiences of those values’
(2011, 148). In this respect, Bill Brown’s crucial contention is also worth noting
that it is the ‘work’ that objects perform that is the most important element in
an object’s life. Brown added that it is the ‘subject-object relations in particular
temporal and spatial contexts’ that are most worthy of study (2001, 7). Using
these approaches, we can take our study of jewellery beyond the examination
of the physical object. Considering jewellery as image or as literary device, for
example, can constitute an equally valuable way of assessing its relationship
with, in this case, the culture of modernism. This book has been conceived and
written in that spirit.
Chapter 1 presents evidence for the changing attitudes to wearing and
thinking about jewellery in the 1920s. It shows that along with greater social
freedoms for women, and the appearance of the ‘new woman’ in particular, came
a re-examination of how and when jewellery should be worn and what it meant
to the wearer. The relationship between jewellery and fashion is important here.
In magazines and journals such as Vogue or La femme de France, jewellery and
fashion were often written about in the same context, and jewellery was often
promoted on the magazines’ covers. However, jewellery was also featured in
publications (such as Art et décoration) that were more concerned with decorative
arts and architecture, thus highlighting the dilemma of jewellery as adornment
or ornament. Evidence from an examination of these sources presents jewellery
and jewellery-wearing as primarily a concern of women, but not totally to the
exclusion of men. The irony remains that most of the major jewellers cited in
this book were men, while their products were either purchased by men for
women or, as was increasingly the case, by women for themselves. As part of the
creation of a parure (a matching set of jewels), jewellery was seen as an essential
way to project a private, public or professional persona. Jewellery for men did
exist, of course, but its low-key characteristics are significant indicators of the
requirement for men, still, to dress very properly and usually soberly in the
4 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

period covered by this book. The chapter also directly addresses the question
of whether the absence of jewellery in certain types of interwar portraiture
points to a politics of gender. Also of importance to the argument here is the
relationship between jewellery and accessories, for both women and men.
Chapter 2 presents two case studies of well-known ‘new women’ and their
jewellery collections: Charlotte Perriand and Nancy Cunard. Their contrasting
tastes and motivations are explored as a way of examining the role of jewellery in
the formation of identity. Although the contexts in which these two women lived
and worked were different, the role jewellery played in both their personal and
professional lives was very important. As these two highly influential women
went about their lives, they carried with them an identity partly formed by their
jewellery-wearing choices. Both were passionate about the modern world and
their place within it, their jewellery connecting them to major intellectual and
political circumstances in interwar Europe and America.
Chapter 3 directly addresses the issue of marginalization of ornament and
adornment in the discourses of modernist culture. In design, much of the
intellectual drift in the 1920s and 1930s was directed against ornament. But
ornament and adornment were quietly thriving in this period as much as in
any other. However, the nature of adornment was changing, and this chapter
reviews the impact of avant-garde art, architecture and design on jewellery of
the period in order to understand whether it is possible to speak of a ‘modernist’
jewellery practice. Here, the works of European jewellers are examined in terms
of their links with avant-garde art and design culture along with an account of
the relationship between jewellery and wider considerations of the condition
of modernity. In addition, the place of metal in modernist aesthetic theory is
examined in relation to jewellery-wearing and body adornment at the Bauhaus.
The latter’s influence on modernist culture is profound, but even this institution
produced notable examples of ornament and body adornment, often in
surprising ways.
It is clear that jewellery occupies a significant but often overlooked position
in relation to modernist forms of visual representation in interwar culture. This
is examined in Chapter 4. In the visual arts, jewellery and related accessories
can be seen as being consciously used to reinforce radical techniques of visual
representation, discourses of commodity culture and notions of identity as well
as forming part of the personal pre-occupations and obsessions of individual
artists and designers. In all of these contexts, jewellery takes on new meanings.
Rather than merely taking its place as an accidental object on the receiving end of
 Introduction 5

different strategies of representation, jewellery can be seen to become the subject

of, or at the very least a significant agent in, critical discourses about adornment,
identity, value and the techniques of visual representation. An examination of
selected works of photography and film is used to explore these themes.
Display is an important aspect of the history of jewellery in all periods,
whether on or, in this case, off the body. Chapter 5 considers the role of display,
display equipment and spaces in the promotion and consumption of jewellery in
the 1920s and 1930s. This takes the form of an examination of some of the design
strategies used to promote and exhibit jewellery in the public realm. Through
discussion of the shop mannequin (used by hard-nosed retailers and surrealists
alike to provoke interest in adornment), retail spaces, exhibition design, display
techniques, events and publications, it focuses on how jewellery and accessories
were consumed as images as well as objects in the growing democratization of
jewellery consumption. In relation to the development of twentieth-century
jewellery, literary theorist and philosopher Roland Barthes had identified this
trend in a famous essay from the early 1960s, but it was another French author of
numerous texts on the decorative arts, Henri Clouzot, who declared in 1929 that
large-scale jewellery exhibitions had the potential to be as important as a motor
show in cultural, commercial and social life.
 1

Wearing (and Not Wearing)

Jewellery in the 1920s

On 29 August 1928 the British Pathé company issued a short silent film entitled
Jewels, introduced by the intertitle ‘Joys in Gems for Milady’ (Pathé 1928). The
film was shot as a cameo in the form of three tableaux vivants featuring models
wearing what appears to be antique jewellery. All three models are dressed in the
fashionable clothes of the late 1920s. In the first scene, the model is seated on a
stool and very deliberately draws on a cigarette and slowly blows out the smoke.
Her raised left hand in which she holds the cigarette shows off the bracelet,
the low neckline allows her necklace to be easily visible and, at the end of the
shot, she turns her head slowly to reveal the pendant earrings. The scene is shot
against a background split into two halves; on the right a William Morris style
wallpaper and on the left what appears to be the back of a screen with crossed
supports forming an asymmetrical geometric pattern (Figure 1.1).
This footage was probably meant to be spliced into a much longer piece of
film, probably a newsreel. As such, it will have invited the audience to reflect on
the fashions of the day, the freedoms associated with smoking (particularly new
for women at this time) and, crucially, the role of jewellery in completing an
outfit. We are to presume from the use of the word ‘milady’ in the intertitle that
the model is playing the part of an aristocrat in an effort to associate the wearing
of jewellery not only as something that comes naturally to the upper classes, but
that wearing it is in itself a pleasure. Her pose and body language reinforce this
idea. She is also performing the role of a modern woman who is up-to-date in
her choice of clothing and accessories and, through her physical position situated
between the reassuringly traditional wallpaper and the modern fragments of a
set from a film studio, appears at ease with both the past and the present. It is not
the individual pieces of jewellery that make this an image of a modern woman
(the jewellery itself does not appear to be particularly modern or modernist) but
8 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 1.1 Still from Pathé film Jewels, 1928. © British Pathé Ltd.

the way it takes centre stage in the ensemble. Dress, coiffure, pose of the model
and the setting all contribute to an attitude to jewellery wearing that, by the end
of the 1920s, would have been familiar to a cinema-going audience.
In the decade following the First World War, a number of changes occurred
in attitudes to wearing and thinking about jewellery. In France, Britain and
America greater freedoms for women, partly brought about by the war itself, by
the introduction of universal suffrage and by the prospect (however distant) of
greater sexual equality, prompted a re-examination of how and when jewellery
should be worn, what it meant to the wearer and what it should be made of. What
makes these discussions interesting is not that they are peculiar to the 1920s
(they are not) but that they took place against a backdrop of social, economic
and cultural change that was increasingly an international phenomenon.
Furthermore, the impact of modernist culture and technological progress meant
that the consumer of jewellery was increasingly targeted as someone who was
meant to be in tune with their time, aware of the latest developments in style,
taste and modes of behaviour in dress and adornment. This included, in the case
 Wearing (and Not Wearing) Jewellery 9

of women, taking more control over their jewellery buying and having greater
flexibility in their jewellery wearing.
The phenomenon of the ‘new woman’, normally discussed in relation to
literature, dress and changing social mores, can be usefully examined in relation
to the wearing of jewellery in the 1920s. In particular, it is worth considering
how jewellery was ‘performed’ by the new women of the 1920s. An examination
of contemporary magazines, consumer guides, designers’ work and literary
sources of the period reveal a shifting set of attitudes to the wearing of jewellery.
In a decade conventionally defined by excess (the ‘Jazz Age’; les années folles; the
‘Roaring Twenties’; and so on) there are also some more subtle forces at work
and it is useful to consider the strategies of jewellery wearing on the part of
women and men of the 1920s and the relationship between this and the politics
of gender.

The garçonne and the modern woman

The representation of the new woman has been extensively discussed in recent
years from a variety of perspectives, social, political, sexual and cultural and
attention has recently been drawn to this as a global phenomenon (Otto and Rocco
2012). Although initially a manifestation of the late nineteenth century, her image
in fashion, advertising, film, painting and a variety of literary forms was, from the
middle of the 1920s, ubiquitous. Always controversial, as well as being an object
of ridicule and often the subject of satire, she is also known by the pejorative
term ‘flapper’ or, in French, garçonne. French novelist Victor Margueritte’s 1922
novel La Garçonne originated the term, used with subsequent abandon to loosely
describe any young, rebellious, androgynous, fashionably dressed and coiffured
woman. Although opinion remains divided on Margueritte’s feminist credentials,
the novel’s depiction of the protagonist Monique Lerbier’s sexual experimentation
and overt challenge to existing social mores provoked such controversy that the
author’s Légion d’honneur was withdrawn by the French government. The impact
of the garçonne on post-war cultural life in France has been thoroughly assessed
(Roberts 1994; Bard 1998) but Linda Nochlin has produced one of the best
concise characterizations of the new woman:

In general, the New Woman, wherever she might be, was a beacon to the
adventurous and a threat to the upholders of traditional values. To female
10 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

youth, the New Woman offered a paradigm of liberation and agency: liberation
from corsets, long hair, and bulky skirts; bodily freedom through participation
in sports and dance; and equally important, liberation in the even more
encumbering realm of ideology. (Nochlin 2011, viii–ix)
The ‘liberation’ referred to by Nochlin was achieved not just through changes
in clothing and fashion. Along with the fairly swift rejection of pre-war attire,
which included all the common physical restrictions mentioned above, came a
new attitude to jewellery and accessories.
The role of the accessory is important in any attempt to describe the new
relationship between adornment and the body that came about in the 1920s.
Even if sometimes classified as a secondary item, the accessory wields power as
part of a wider set of relationships set up by its configuration with a particular
mode of dress. As Cristina Giorcelli has argued, the accessory occupies a position
of ‘decentred centrality’ in its ability to ‘crown’ an outfit, yet also indicate status,
social class, formality or informality. Furthermore ‘whether the accessory is an
absolute sine qua non (like shoes) or a non-essential item (like a brooch), it has
ended up becoming the quintessence of fashion and market forces’ (Giorcelli
2011, 4). The author cites Jacques Derrida’s account of Kant’s discussion of
parerga (decorative, ornamental embellishments in Greek art and architecture)
in which these ‘accessories’ are considered as something extra, peripheral and
yet important to the overall understanding of the relationship between interior
and exterior in a building. Hence ‘neither inside nor outside, neither superfluous
or necessary, the accessory is thus almost indispensible, particularly to any
investigation into identity through dress’ (4).
A clear train of thought emerges in the 1920s that sought to directly link
jewellery with dress. Indeed, this seems to have been a dedicated strategy for
many jewellery designers concerned with a demonstrably modern outlook.
French jeweller Georges Fouquet looked back at the work of his firm from the
1920s and commented that jewellery should always be chosen to compliment
the wearer’s outfit. This way, an unthinking approach to accessorizing could be
avoided (Fouquet 1942, 93–4). He goes further, to describe a precise relationship
between jewel and wearer: ‘The quality of a jewel is not only in manufacturing,
it is also in its artistic value, it is not enough that it is pretty in itself, seen in
isolation, it is necessary that its destination harmonizes with the context in
which it is called to live . . . And this context is the woman who wears it, this is
the dress on which it is hung, the neck on which it is suspended, the head on
which it rests’ (96).
 Wearing (and Not Wearing) Jewellery 11

In 1928 Roger Nalys, regular contributor to L’Officiel de la couture et de la

mode de Paris, commented that French jeweller Raymond Templier always
considered his pieces as having a strong relationship with dress. Although his
view of what constitutes an accessory is at odds with Giorcelli’s contemporary
reading, Nalys suggests that Templier ‘never thinks of a jewel isolated in space’,
but that he places it ‘in its proper frame: fashion, and makes of it what it ought to
be; not an accessory but an essential element in the actual feminine silhouette,
sober and neat for day-wear, imponderable and sumptuous at night’ (Nalys
1928a, 50). Fouquet and Nalys are keen to stress that one of France’s biggest
exports in the 1920s (particularly to the United States) was fashion, if not the
whole idea of style. For them, jewellery had a key role to play in exporting the
idea of Paris as a place where a coherent look could be either physically bought
or consumed in mediated form.
The decade also saw a demonstrably clear pattern of contrasting what was
worn for the day and for the evening. Though not new in itself, this practice was
given a different emphasis that would have been alien to many pre-war practices.
In an article in The New York Sun in January 1929, columnist Dorothy Dayton
in an interview with Franco-American fashion designer Yvonne Davidson
makes the point that ignoring the difference between practical day-wear and
evening-wear was becoming unacceptable. At the start of the year that was
to see the Wall Street Crash, she writes, ‘It is rather like a punch in the face
of the proletariat, and women of wealth these days are too sensitive and too
understanding to flaunt themselves. No well bred woman wears her jewels or
her sables or too ornamental clothes in the daytime these days’ (Dayton 1929,
22). This is a sentiment endorsed by contemporary entertainer Josephine Baker.
In an interview for La femme de France, Baker refers to a shoulder piece made
for her by Jean Després in 1931: ‘She was delighted with the idea of wearing a
piece of jewelry made by one of the great designers. “Something that’s not over
the top”, she specified however, “[because] in town I hardly wear any jewelry, and
then only simple things” ’ (Gabardi 2009, 55).
In her book Civilisation without Sexes, Mary Louise Roberts is clear about
how fashion had changed in the early 1920s. Accessories were no exception: ‘In
the somber spirit of the war years, the old ornamental frou-frous and decorative
accessories were put away, and neutral colours adopted . . . Even after the war,
large jewelry or ornaments of any kind that drew attention to itself remained
out of fashion’ (Roberts 1994, 68). Although this situation was not as clear-cut
as Roberts suggests, there were indeed practical reasons for rethinking how to
12 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

accessorize. Women were undertaking more active pursuits in the day as well as
in the evening, or at least there were a growing number of options for activity
available. Dressing differently for a more active life was a necessary consequence
of changes in behaviour and constituted a significant challenge to the norms
of pre-war society. Christine Bard notes that the garçonne occupied a flexible
position in relation to dress and accessories by being ‘androgynous by day, ultra-
feminine by night’ while also pointing out that she was ‘forever associated with
luxury accessories and décor at the heart of a time heavy with snobbery and
consumerism’ (Bard 1998, 42).
Evidence of these attitudes appears in an image published in the American
popular magazine Motion Picture Classic. Clara Bow, star of the 1927 film It
(which gave rise to the phrase ‘It girl’), has her flapper’s outfit subjected to a kind
of trial by consumption (it would not look out of place in a contemporary low-
rent gossip feature) the writer delivering on the piece’s title ‘what it costs to be a
well dressed flapper’. Adopting a mocking tone, the author points out the price of
each garment and accessory (including Bow’s three strings of pearls) concluding
that ‘it costs about as much to dress a modern girl in a genuinely modish flapper
outfit [here $346.50] as it does to equip completely a reasonably well-furnished
three-room flat’ (Pierce 1927, 44). The piece also declares that men will never be
able to understand how ‘simplicity is one of the most expensive effects a designer
can achieve’ (44). In the same magazine a year earlier, a similar article ‘what it
costs to be a well dressed auto’ exhibited much less concern about the expense
that must be incurred to appropriately accessorize a roadster (Dow 1926, 43).
Using statistics published by the US government in 1928, it is possible to put
the apparent costs of Bow’s outfit into perspective. A carpenter, for example,
working a forty-four-hour week would take home around $250 a month in 1927
(Davis and Stewart 1928, 4–6). Bow was modelling an outfit that (through its
simplicity, but not exclusively so) had become a direct affront to the norms of
feminine attire that were still adhered to by many men and, indeed, considered
a threat to the conventional relationships between the sexes. For example, Mary
Louise Roberts writes of some extreme conservative reactions to the adoption
of the ‘bob’ in France, noting that it became a volatile political issue in the 1920s
and the issue of modern fashions for women was a favourite subject of many
contemporary satirists (Roberts 1993).
In order to complete the look adopted by the likes of Clara Bow, stock
jewellery was produced which was more in sympathy with the fashions of the
day. Further, the fashion for short hair immediately affected jewellery design,
 Wearing (and Not Wearing) Jewellery 13

lessening the desire for the usual array of hair ornaments which had been
popular in the belle époque (Philips 2003, 274). Similarly, the cloche hat gave
rise to a new approach to jewellery for hats, good examples being produced by
Paris jeweller Paul Brandt as illustrated in L’Officiel in 1928 (Figure 1.2). These
pieces were often directly modernist in inspiration with their geometric forms
adapting well to the new, rational form of headwear.
In this spirit, Paul Brandt also produced a range of ‘bijoux sport’ (exhibited
at the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs in 1929) ‘with restrained designs in silver,
gold and lacquer, to be worn during the day with tailored suits or driving
clothes’ (Mouillefarine and Ristelhueber 2005, 108). This is clearly related to
the appearance of activity-specific clothing for women, ranging from work-
wear to evening-wear and points in between. The new lines and cuts of clothing
made any required changes of outfits for women a quicker and less complicated
affair, a situation best observed in the ranges of sportswear available for women,
including trousers and skirts that made rapid and more agile movement possible.
However, not all fashion enthusiasts approved of the necessity to adopt
activity-specific attire. Romanian-born French stage and screen actress Elvire
Popesco, interviewed in 1927, took the view that:

I do not understand that a woman must be dressed in a special way in her car,
the expression ‘car costume’ has always seemed absurd to me. A car is, in my
opinion, neither a distraction nor a goal but a means of transport. Also, when a
woman goes out, I think she only has to worry about where the car is going to
take her. (Prade 1927, 13)

Unfortunately, Popesco remained silent on the subject of jewellery. But the

article in which this interview appeared contains a number of photographs of
well-known Parisiennes and their cars in which it is tempting to suggest that
they are showing them off as they would their jewels or, rather, as accessories.
None of the women appear to be wearing very much jewellery at all. Those
outfits of the time that are directly inspired by modernism (such as those by
Sonia Delaunay, also famously modelled next to cars) tend to completely eschew
jewellery. Perhaps, as Wendy Steiner has pointed out, this is because ‘modernists
vilified aesthetic pleasure, defining the sublime aspirations of art as unrelated
or antipathetic to the pleasures of feminine allure, charm, comfort’ (2009, 45).
In 1925, modernist architect Le Corbusier (a strong advocate of modern,
functional dress for women) asserted in The Decorative Art of Today that
‘glitter is going under’, a view entirely in keeping with his puritanical design
14 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 1.2 Jewellery by Paul Brandt featured in L’Officiel de la mode, no. 87, 1928.
© Les Editions Jalou ‘L’Officiel 1928’.
 Wearing (and Not Wearing) Jewellery 15

philosophy (1987, xxv). There is little evidence, though, that a modernist-

inspired total rejection of the wearing of jewellery (or even of glittering surfaces)
was widespread. Surviving photographs tell us that wearing jewellery was not
anathema to the ‘new women’ of the Bauhaus. Indeed, it could enhance a wearer’s
modernist credentials – as photographs by Florence Henri and Marianne Brandt
demonstrate (see Chapter 4).
It was not unknown for celebrated modern women to be depicted in their work
clothes while wearing jewellery. Good examples can be seen in photographs from
1928 of French sculptor Jane Blanchot and American aviator Amelia Earhart. In
the latter, Earhart is shown before her 1928 transatlantic flight. An image shows
her in the cockpit of her plane not only clearly at ease with her technological
surroundings, but also able to (literally) hold on to her femininity by entwining
a simple string of pearls in her fingers. As Kristen Lubben puts it, this pose was
probably adopted ‘as an expedient image with which to convey the aviatrix as
a daring and technologically adept – but genteel – “lady flyer”. It presents her
as both “machine savvy” and feminine’ (2011, 301). Furthermore, as Prudence
Black writes in relation to Amy Johnson, ‘it was the aviatrix who symbolized
more than anyone else the kind of modernist subject it was possible to be. She
was a key figure in creating an “image” of a growing international modernism
as an historical and cultural formation’ (2009, 71). Johnson apparently emerged
from the cockpit after her flight from Croydon to Darwin in 1930 in a terrible
mess but with her blouse still fastened at the neck with her mother’s swastika
brooch (Indian design).
Less well known, but equally significant, the image of Jane Blanchot seeks
to radically feminize the image of the working sculptor (interestingly, Blanchot
was also a noted designer of clothes and accessories). In the pages of L’Officiel
Blanchot is pictured in a sculptor’s overalls, traditionally a practical and not
particularly flattering garment (Figure 1.3). It is open at the neck, revealing
a simple string of pearls. Below Blanchot’s portrait, her latest work S’évader
(escape) is shown along with a text interpreting it as either a statement of
feminism (woman struggling to throw off the male yoke) or, as the author of the
adjoining commentary prefers, an expression of the struggle to escape the sad
material realities of life (Nalys 1928b, 52). The image of Blanchot is of a confident,
modern woman who maintains her femininity in her working environment. In
combination with her fashionable coiffure, the discreet pearl necklace has an
important part to play in the construction of this image of a confident, successful
and professional woman.
16 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 1.3 Jane Blanchot featured in L’Officiel de la mode, no. 82, 1928. © Les Editions
Jalou ‘L’Officiel 1928’.
 Wearing (and Not Wearing) Jewellery 17

As Elisabeth G. Sledziewski has written, jewellery can be regarded as

‘a metonymical sign of the female subject’ where ‘being, appearing and
transcendence’ converge (2011, 301). This is a useful way of thinking about these
images because, although carefully posed, the working context of both women
demands signs of femininity to complete the subject as female. Here, adornment
in the form of jewellery helps to perform that function.
Psychoanalytical perspectives emerged in the late 1920s concerning the uses of
adornment by women. British psychoanalyst Joan Riviere’s paper ‘Womanliness
as a Masquerade’ (1929) postulates, among other things, that in the professional
sphere the more feminine women appear the more likely they are to ‘assuage
their male colleagues, who fear their prerogative is imperiled’ (Blessing 1997,
10). Riviere’s theory was based on an analysis of professional female subjects
for whom ‘femininity is constituted in dissembling or the masking of women’s
masculinity by burying it beneath a veil of decoration’ (10). This explained how
women were able to work alongside men at a time when their ‘sphere’ was still
conventionally determined. As long as their femininity was on display, men
would not feel unduly threatened by them. Stephen Heath, in his commentary
on Riviere’s paper, refers to Nietzsche’s view (expressed in the latter’s 1886 work
‘Beyond Good and Evil’) that the ‘threat’ coming from modern women (that they
want, and want things of men) is expressed through self-adornment. According to
Heath, Nietzsche doubts that women can really want, but refers to her own quest
for self-enlightenment as a form of self-adornment; ‘the intellectual woman, the
feminist (the two are synonymous for Nietzsche), is a lie, a self-adorner, but then
woman is a lie, adornment is her truth’ (Heath 1986, 51). For Nietzsche, the act of
adornment through drawing attention to appearance and enhancing ‘beauty’ was
simply that, an act. It is a view that may have influenced the formation of Riviere’s
Freudian analysis of the masquerade, yet it is one that recalls that particular brand
of misogyny peculiar to the culture of the late nineteenth century. Indeed, in the
fin-de-siècle, the figure of the femme fatale (usually heavily adorned with jewels)
played a major part in visual and literary representations of women.
In the interwar period, it is interesting to see how the modern woman
increasingly uses objects other than conventional pieces of jewellery as forms of
body adornment. Sophie Rycroft’s study of professional woman photographers in
Berlin in the late 1920s and early 1930s has shown that being depicted with high-
end cameras constituted a particular method of self-presentation for the likes of
Lotte Jacobi, Eva Besnyö and Marianne Breslauer, although Rycroft argues that the
self-portraits of these photographers ‘do not reveal the identity of the photographer,
18 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

but in fact point towards how identities are constructed’ (2013, 96). Rycroft’s study
concentrates on how women photographers used images of themselves with
professional photographic equipment (rather than cheaper, more widely available
cameras) to create a pictorial construction of professional identity. There is a sense
in some of these photographs that the ‘wearing’ of the camera (an increasingly
common trope of modernist photography) might rival fashion and jewellery as
a means of constructing a modern identity. These machines are worn on straps
around the neck, they have moving apertures, circular, standardized metallic
components and, above all, they are instruments of precision. Seeing these devices
as replacements for jewellery is, I hope, not too far-fetched as it is to recognize that
they constitute a different form of adornment. They ‘complete’ the image of the
photographer at work, but in a different way to the image of the sculptor and the
aviator who wish to combine their professional identities with more conventional
accessorizing. Rycroft argues that in contrast to the way that small portable cameras
were increasingly being advertised as modern ways to accessorize (through the
image of the ‘Kodak Girl’, for example) the emphasis on being shown with high-
end ‘kit’ was an important way for women to be taken seriously as professionals
who were using exactly the same equipment as men. In some cases the camera as
accessory came under the direct scrutiny of the modernist lens.
A photograph of Eva Besnyö by the Hungarian photographer Jozsef Pécsi
taken at the turn of the decade shows the subject with her portable camera
around her neck, dressed for the beach with swimming cap and costume, but
totally absorbed by what she sees through the viewfinder. All the accessories on
display here serve to portray Besnyö as a modern woman – the simplicity of her
clothing, her belt, ring and rubber swimming cap. She holds the camera with
purpose, framing the shot so that her apparatus becomes part of her modern
persona. She is accessorized in a way that suppresses traditional notions of
femininity and suggests a new relationship between woman and machine
where the materials of the portable mechanical device (Bakelite, precision metal
components, ground glass) become, in the form of the portable camera, a very
clear form of modern adornment.

Literary types

In fashion magazines, less emphasis was placed on depicting women in

professional circumstances and yet there were ways in which accessories were
 Wearing (and Not Wearing) Jewellery 19

used to identify the modern woman as more liberated than her forebears.
Magazines such as L’Officiel juxtaposed drawings and photography to this end.
Its illustrators consistently employed a kind of visual shorthand of a simple
pearl choker as a kind of instantly recognizable sign of the modern fashionable
woman, typically with either accompanying bob or cloche hat. For many
women, the string of pearls came to represent a practical way of remaining
fashionable whatever the activity and this comes across clearly in some of the
literature of the period. In a scene set in the late 1920s, the fictional character
Nicole Diver wears them on a Riviera beach in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1934 novel
Tender Is the Night: ‘Her bathing suit was pulled off her shoulders and her back,
a ruddy, orange brown, set off by a string of creamy pearls, shone in the sun. Her
face was hard and lovely and pitiful’ (Fitzgerald 1998, 14). The pearls indicate
both Nicole’s affluence (which is considerable) but also her need to accessorize
and maintain her position within a particular social milieu while, importantly,
maintaining the body beautiful. This combination of body maintenance
and attendant accessorizing is, as Richard Godden writes, a ‘curious site of
narcissism and self-denigration that encourages tourists to replace their own
bodies with commodity selves’ (1998, xxv). Here the potency of the pearl has a
direct relationship with modern capital, in itself hard and pitiful.
In Tender Is the Night, Fitzgerald based the characters of Dick and Nicole
Diver on the real life inhabitants of the Villa America on the French Riviera
at Cap d’Antibes, Sara and Gerald Murphy. The beach scene with Nicole was
probably observed at first hand by Fitzgerald himself, as he and his wife Zelda
were regular guests at the villa. A surviving photograph shows Sara Murphy in
more or less the same pose as Nicole in the novel. Sara’s penchant for wearing
her pearls in reverse when on the beach is clearly shown here. The Murphys
and their entourage are often credited with inventing the Riviera as a summer
destination, or at the very least reversing the trend whereby people wintered
there and left in the summer. For Sara Murphy, the wearing of pearls could be as
casual or formal as the occasion demanded. Picasso, a regular visitor to the Villa
America in the 1920s, produced a number of sketches of nudes in classical poses
wearing strings of pearls on the beach. It is likely that these depictions were
inspired by Sara Murphy, although by all accounts Gerald was more often to be
seen naked at the beach and on his boat (Rothschild 2007).
Gerald and Sara Murphy were close friends of Cole and Linda Porter. Both
shared extravagant tastes and spent time together on the Riviera and at Venice.
Cole Porter appears in a photograph (taken at Venice) from the early 1920s
20 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

wearing Sara Murphy’s pearls and Gerald Murphy’s skullcap apparently as a way
of paying homage to the couple (Figure 1.4). Although a playful image, it does
show how transferable, flexible and adaptable a string of pearls can be and how
strongly these accessories were identified with the Murphys. Modern dandies
like Cole Porter and Gerald Murphy were attracted to fashion and accessories,
but were concerned with creating a strong sense of style in a specifically modern
context.
French novelist and fashion writer Colette’s keen interest in the significance
of style in relation to jewellery can be seen in one of her works that appeared
at the end of the period covered by this book. In Gigi (written in 1944 but set
in 1899) a famous exchange between Gilberte (‘Gigi’) and her aunt Alicia takes
place on the subject of which type of jewellery Gigi is likely to receive as gifts
from men. When Gigi asks ‘what is an artistic jewel?’, her aunt replies:

It all depends. A mermaid in gold, with eyes of chrysoprase. An Egyptian scarab.

A large engraved amethyst. A not very heavy bracelet said to have been chased
by a master-hand. A lyre or star, mounted as a brooch. A studded tortoise. In
a word, all of them frightful. Never wear baroque pearls, not even as hat-pins.
Beware above all things, of family jewels! (Colette 1953, 36)

Gilberte is being trained for a career as a courtesan and it is clear that

knowing how to wear ‘gifted’ jewellery effectively without staining her

Figure 1.4 Cole Porter in Venice, 1923. Image supplied by the Irving S. Gilmore Music
Library, Yale. © Cole Porter Trust.
 Wearing (and Not Wearing) Jewellery 21

reputation is a key skill. Avoiding the large ostentatious pieces is crucial.

For men, giving a ‘monster jewel’ is a sign of poor taste and it is clear that,
to ensure a lengthy and successful career, Gilberte is expected to understand
the rules of what and what not to select from the jewel box. Gilberte is
fascinated by her aunt’s collection of stones, but she cannot understand why
the list of ‘artistic jewels’ is so patently off limits. Colette represents these fin-
de-siècle jewels as awkward, garish novelties that may have a high material
value, but hardly any artistic merit. The ‘family jewels’ are the worst kind
because they are worn out of a sense of duty rather than any sense of style.
Aunt Alicia recommends wearing simple, cheap jewellery instead of these
extravagant pieces, emphasizing that this can be explained away by affording
them sentimental value.
By contrast, in Colette’s story The Cat, first published in 1933 but firmly set
in the culture of 1920s Paris, the two protagonists (young newly-weds Camille
and Alain) have very different ways of dealing with jewellery and accessories.
Camille, a modern girl of nineteen portrayed as something of an unwelcome,
brash presence in Alain’s hitherto peaceful life, wears a spectacular diamond
engagement ring. As Colette puts it ‘the brand-new diamond on her left hand
broke the light into a thousand coloured splinters’ (1953, 81). Here the jewel is
used as a metaphor for the way that Camille bursts in on Alain’s peaceful and
comfortable existence at his parents’ home. On the other hand, Alain, a reluctant
groom in a marriage arrangement designed to be useful for his family’s business
interests, keeps a small collection of objects in a secret drawer. These include
several small items of jewellery which are sentimental keepsakes, including
‘a signet ring, an agate charm attached to his father’s watch chain . . . a First
Communicant’s mother-of-pearl rosary and a thin broken bracelet, the souvenir
of a tempestuous young mistress who had passed swiftly and noisily out of his
life’ (69). For Camille, jewellery is all about display and, naturally enough, she
is proud to show off her new diamond. Alain’s secret hoard, which he cannot
decide whether to keep or throw away, has no aesthetic quality but is one of the
ways in which he connects himself emotionally to the past at a time when his
future looks quite unappealing. Although the couple are ultimately estranged
by events surrounding Alain’s preference for the company of his beloved cat
over that of his new wife, Colette uses objects (and a keen awareness of fashion)
to help provide a contrast between Camille’s interest in public display (which
includes her own body, clothed and unclothed) and Alain’s desire for a quieter,
more private existence.
22 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

For Colette, jewellery can also be a way of exploring generational differences

and relationships between the sexes. An expensive string of pearls becomes
a contested item in a not entirely playful exchange between the middle-aged
courtesan Léa and her much younger male lover Chéri in Colette’s novel of the
same name, published in 1920. The book opens thus: ‘Give it me, Léa, give me
your pearl necklace! Do you hear me Léa? Give me your pearls! . . . Why won’t
you let me have your necklace? It looks every bit as well on me as on you – even
better!’ (Colette 2001, 1). In the ensuing playful struggle, Chéri briefly claims
his prize, before surrendering them up to Léa, who immediately puts them on.
They are a gift from one of her older and richer lovers, but the advancing years
have not been kind to her and she regrets that, as she checks herself out in a hand
mirror, the fine pearls make her look like ‘a market gardener’s wife in Normandy’
(4). By contrast, Chéri is at ease with modern fashions, is lithe and carries himself
with effortless style to the extent that he is able to do greater justice to the pearls
than the courtesan who is more than twice his age.
This spat is a presentiment of doom for their relationship as it becomes more
and more clear that Léa and Chéri cannot successfully live together. The pearls
might work as a way of distinguishing the differences between the two lovers,
but they also highlight growing ambiguities about relationships between the
sexes in the immediate post-war world. This period not only saw the rise of the
new woman, but also experiments in cross-dressing on the part of both sexes.
Ironically, Chéri’s success at wearing the pearls (very different from Cole Porter’s
exhibitionism) shows him entering a new world where it becomes possible for
gender to become subservient to style. For Léa’s generation, Colette makes it
clear that this world is denied.

Strategies of adornment

Fashion magazines of the 1920s dispensed plenty of advice on choosing jewellery

and accessories. A common theme was that it was important to adopt the right
tone or, as L’Officiel pointed out, good taste and wealth could be combined in
jewellery wearing to produce the right ‘note’, considered particularly important
in the era of what some regarded as severe and sober trends in women’s clothing.
Notwithstanding this supposed new sobriety, L’Officiel also felt able to argue
that materials such as diamonds are perfectly able to play their part in the more
abstract compositions of modern jewellery, because material value is still an
 Wearing (and Not Wearing) Jewellery 23

important element (Nalys 1928c, 54). Although costume jewellery was becoming
increasingly popular at all levels of the market, it is clear that most of the major
modern jewellery houses of Paris were still geared to the production of items
that featured precious materials – albeit often in combination with materials of
a lesser value.
Addressing the problem of ostentation, La femme de France columnist
Beauregard wrote that ‘we are a very long way from the years when women
covered themselves in jewellery’ and noted that the protocols for wearing
jewellery during the day should be ‘Practical restraint in the morning. Elegance
for lunching and for the afternoon. Luxury at night’ (1927, 24). This is further
reinforced by the Gazette de bon ton, which noted that ‘the young sporty
androgynes transform themselves in the evening, by the miracle of the pearl,
into sirens and fairy tale princesses’ (Bard 1998, 37). So jewellery plays a role
in the idea of day to night transformation through dress, here expressed with
all the attendant lunar symbolism associated with the pearl. Beauregard also
noted, not unusually for the quite conservative La femme de France, that the
only acceptable fakes in jewellery were imitation pearls. Everything else should
be genuine but worn sparingly, avoiding mixing up different stones and colours.
Large pieces were acceptable, but should only be worn singly or in combination
with simpler items like pearls. The modern woman should carefully match her
dress and her jewellery. Expressed by Beauregard as ‘L’intelligence de la parure’
(the intelligence of adornment) this sensibility is key to understanding changing
attitudes to jewellery wearing in the 1920s. As Vogue was also keen to point
out: ‘Never in all the long history of feminine fashions, has jewellery been more
important in the mode and never has it been worn more intelligently or with
more art than at the present time . . . for the modern woman now wears her
jewels as an integral part of her costume’ (‘Fashion: The Wearing of the Jewel’,
1927, 83). Although recommending restraint in jewellery wearing during the
day, this article clearly states that evenings are the time when this ensemble
approach to adornment, where jewellery and clothing are worn in concert,
can come into its own. Vogue also insists that cost alone is no justification for
the wearing of a piece of jewellery and that the consumer should refrain from
buying pieces which cannot easily become part of an ensemble to be worn with
‘the somewhat severe mode of the present time’ (83).
Christine Bard has pointed out that jewellery had an important role to
play in the feminization of the Adonis-like silhouette of the garçonne and this
gave rise to a new form of femininity. Furthermore, ‘The unencumbered neck
24 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

and nape serves to emphasize large earrings. On bare arms glisten numerous
rigid bracelets fitting tightly like a slave’s. Simple dresses are covered with
fantastic jewellery, brooches, chains that emphasize the movement of the body’
(Bard 1998, 37). Indeed, large (and long) pieces of jewellery could emphasize
particular parts of the body and it’s movement. The ‘jazz age’ would not be as
easily recognizable without its wild dancing and the role of jewellery in this is
important. Bard writes that the image of the garçonne dancing with her pearls
swinging around her is ‘probably one of the strongest representations of women’s
emancipation’ (2001, 115).
Two such images appeared in the mid-1920s. In the first, an illustration
from Vogue from 1 October 1925, shows a Chanel outfit consisting of a tight
fitting slip dress with floating chiffon panels demonstrating how the layered
look could contribute to the demonstration of movement. A very long string
of pearls swings freely from the model’s back as she walks away (Evans 2013,
131). Utilizing accessories such as jewellery for the upper arm and back helped
in the construction of a ‘Look’ that was modern in its allowance for freedom of
movement but also modern in its ability to combine this freedom with, as Bard
might put it, an ultra-feminine display. In the second, an image of a dancing
young American flapper (often open to caricature as wild and untamed in
popular literature) appears on the front cover of a 1926 edition of the humour
magazine Life drawn by John Held Jr, her pearls swinging alarmingly around
her neck. In a later edition, the artist depicts the same girl (bare armed, heavily
bangled and collared) as a college student casually lighting a cigarette with her
burning graduation certificate.
Held Jr’s 1920s covers for this magazine often feature this same flapper girl,
caricaturing her as a loose, manipulative, acquisitive and reckless individual.
Samuel Hopkins Adams in the foreword to his 1923 bestseller Flaming Youth
describes the flapper as ‘restless and seductive, greedy, discontented, unrestrained,
a little morbid, more than a little selfish’ (Mackrell 2013, 8). In Held Jr’s illustration
these character traits are actually accentuated through the depiction of her
seemingly casual approach to accessorizing (jewellery, head ornaments, rolled
down stockings, cigarette holder) and, in virtually every image, undergoing a
variety of wardrobe malfunctions. As Estelle Freedman observed, the fact of
women’s suffrage did not greatly affect the way that men wrote about women
in the 1920s; ‘women had by choice, the accounts suggested, rejected political
emancipation and found sexual freedom’ (1974, 379). Although the subject of
parody, Held Jr’s flapper girl seems very much to have been conceived in this
 Wearing (and Not Wearing) Jewellery 25

spirit. Even though the association of jewellery and accessories with expressions
of sexual freedom may not be a straightforward one, the exposing of certain
parts of the body created by modern ‘flapper’ fashions was certainly exploited by
new strategies of adornment which were able to contribute to eroticizing parts of
the body that had, for some time in Western fashion, been hidden from view. It
was just as easy to customize a string of pearls, real or fake, to hang backwards as
it was to purchase a set of bracelets that would cover parts of the newly exposed
upper and lower arms.
As already indicated, the modern girl of polite society was often taken to
task over her choice of fashions. A male correspondent (‘Him’) writing in Vogue
for 1 November 1924 describes a fashionable Newport society gathering and
observes that contemporary fashions were at odds with the party setting: ‘though
a beautiful woman always looks beautiful, she is not quite up to the picture of
such surroundings in a “chemise dress” of crêpe with a huge string of pearls
that may or may not be real’. The correspondent notes the move towards relative
simplicity in dress (even noticeable at this lavish Gatsbyesque party) lamenting,
rather conservatively, that ‘no one was dressed for the part’ (‘As Seen by Him’,
1924, 71).
Advice of the older generation for the jewellery wearing habits of their children
appears in Vogue for 1 August 1926. Like Gigi’s aunt Alicia, the correspondent
values good taste above all – advising the choosing of a wristwatch, a ‘slave
bracelet’ and a single ring but cautions against earrings which may make a girl’s
face look ‘bedizened’. Pearls are, once more, the key to elegance ‘but if the pearls
were large ones in a close choker, they would be in bad taste’. Ironically, this is
the ubiquitous look chosen by the fashion illustrators of the day for their models.
The dowdy and stay-at-home Lady Ursula, performing a mute role as an antidote
to the Bright Young Things in Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies of 1930, wears ‘a tight
little collar of pearls around her throat’ as if this was the height of ordinariness
(Waugh 2000, 108). Perhaps by the end of the decade this had become the case.
For the consumer, Thérèse Bonney and Louise Bonney’s A Shopping Guide
to Paris of 1929 provided advice on the buying of both luxury and more staple
effects in the city. The book is dominated by discussions of fashion, but there
are nevertheless some useful sections devoted to modern accessories and where
to buy them while offering advice on how they might be worn. Reading it now,
published as it was in the year of the Wall Street Crash, it is tempting to consider
it as a final embodiment of some of the consumerist excesses of les années folles.
However, in spite of it being quite a conservative book (it is partly a tourist
26 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

guide) it does shed some interesting light on the nature of the Parisian jewellery
scene in the late 1920s.
The Bonneys’ book is aimed firmly at the Anglophone (specifically American)
traveller and shopper who had enough time, money and staying power to
thoroughly ‘do’ Paris. It also addresses different generations of consumers and
demonstrates a remarkable first-hand knowledge of the latest fashion trends and
key events in the decorative arts of the second half of the decade. This was mainly
due to the Bonneys’ close observation of the Parisian arts scene and Thérèse’s
fastidious recording of key developments via her burgeoning photographic
practice. Crucially, the book shows how the French market in fashion, decorative
arts and accessories were having a considerable impact across the Atlantic. As
far as jewellery is concerned, the Bonneys cite the triumvirate of Jean Fouquet
(son of Georges), Gérard Sandoz and Raymond Templier as true moderns, who
were making a decisive contribution to the contemporary scene:

These names will soon be as well known to you as those of Chareau, Dim, Djo-
Bourgeois. The first to break through the bars of tradition was the house of
Fouquet, a father-son organisation, the father tending to be a conservative, the
son to be modern . . . This house startled the visitors to the famous Salon of 1925
with striking innovations, and has consistently developed a modern program
since. (Bonney and Bonney 1929, 92)

The Bonneys were convinced that for the modern woman, the relationship
between high fashion and jewellery was an essential one. For example, at the
fashion house of Lelong, costume jewellery could be created to directly match
outfits. Jean Patou and Elsa Schiaparelli are praised for their sensitivity to the
ensemble of clothing and jewellery. For the Bonneys, Patou epitomized this
tendency: ‘The idea of an intrinsically beautiful and individual gown, becoming
a mere background for extravagantly gorgeous jewels was offensive to him.
Diamonds! Emeralds! Yes, for the woman who prefers display to chorded
beauty. But for the sensitively lovely woman, harmonies!’ (Bonney and Bonney
1929, 37).
Raymond Templier (already selling in New York via Saks in Fifth Avenue)
also offered a bespoke service. According to the Bonneys, ‘at any of these places
you can take your own jewels and have modern settings designed, or can take
the problem of a gown for which you must have fitting jewelry’ (1929, 93).
The house of Premet offered a range of jewellery in coloured pearls called ‘La
Garçonne’ which, according to the Bonneys, ‘became the uniform of America
 Wearing (and Not Wearing) Jewellery 27

for that year’ (46). As for Schiaparelli, ‘she is apt to launch jewelry to go with
sweater suits, one of her successful originations being shell jewelry in twisted
ropes, with bracelets to match’ (87).
One of the most notable attempts to bring jewellery and fashion together
(mentioned by the Bonneys and others) was a show put together by modern
jeweller Gérard Sandoz in the spring of 1928. At this event, mannequins were
displayed wearing outfits by Louise Boulanger, Suzanne Talbot, Redfern and
Jeanne Lanvin with specially designed jewels by Sandoz to complement them.
Partly due to initiatives such as these, he could confidently declare that ‘the
stand-off between jewelry and fashion was about to end’ (Mouillefarine 2009,
37). Georges Fouquet recalls a similar event from the late 1920s when his firm
collaborated with Jean Patou to present clothing combined with jewellery, this
time on living models (Fouquet 1942, 96). For Fouquet, this was an important
way of propagating French taste abroad and the Bonneys were clearly aware of
this strategy. Published in the same year as A Shopping Guide to Paris, Josephy
and McBride’s Paris Is a Woman’s Town provides further evidence for this, stating
that Dorothy Shaver, director of fashion and decoration ‘in a large New York
department store’, ‘declares that American buyers and fashion magazines help
to control French fashion . . . Miss Shaver instances the craze for costume
jewelry which she asserts really began in this country and has been continued
by young America’s fondness for it’, also opining that ‘the smart French woman
is content to rely for accessories upon her pearls and a good-looking hand bag’
(Josephy and Macbride 1929, 7). The book provides advice to visiting Americans
on fashion, taste, food, accommodation and the language and culture of Paris,
always advocating the French capital as a site of consumption par excellence.
Whether made manifest as assertively modern or more conservatively
adopted, the look of the new woman became an international phenomenon. Early
influential commentaries on twentieth-century dress, such as Quentin Bell’s On
Human Finery, describe how the new modes (or codes) of the 1920s represented
a challenge to the nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century idea of
woman as site of consumption: ‘I suspect that one reason for this redirection of
fashion is the growing emancipation of women . . . The change would become
important, so far as the history of dress is concerned, when woman is no longer
regarded simply as an agent for vicarious consumption’ (Bell 1976, 164).
Jewellery in the 1920s, asserts Gabardi, rapidly went from being a tangible
expression of personal fortune to becoming a symbol of the technological age
(1987, 45). Further, the case of Coco Chanel clearly demonstrates an attempt to
28 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

firmly decouple the practice of jewellery wearing from male influence. This was
partly achieved through developing markedly less flamboyant and ostentatious
styles of dress that demanded a different approach to the wearing of accessories.
As Banta puts it, ‘by the 1920s, Chanel achieved fame, fortune and social élan
by creating a style . . . that insisted on a woman’s independence from moneyed
relations with men’ (2011, 87). Women were encouraged to contrast genuine
precious materials with imitations and, crucially, to take control of their own
jewellery wearing: ‘only then could the Chanel woman make clear that she was
not like the cocottes Chanel remembered from her youth – women who flaunted
the extravagant gifts given by their lovers in payment for their services’ (87). No
doubt Colette would also have appreciated this sentiment.
Towards the end of the 1920s, Chanel produced large, tightly fitting metal
bracelets which were taken up and celebrated by the avant-garde photographer
Man Ray who photographed them being worn by chanteuse Suzy Solidor and the
model Jacqueline Goddard in a series of portraits. These objects were defiantly
original and distinctively modern, placing considerable distance between
themselves and more conventional and discreet jewellery types. They were also
large in size and quite heavy, possessing great physical presence through their
material qualities and the amount of ‘body space’ required to wear them. These
pieces could only have been worn by women who were confident in their ability
to be directed to appear modern or to take it upon themselves to express their
sympathies with the modern aesthetic. They were very far from being ‘jewels’
in the conventional sense, bearing a closer resemblance to manacles or other
restrictive items of apparel.
In his 1961 essay From Gemstones to Jewellery, Roland Barthes comments that
the origins of modern jewellery reside in the gradual separation of the idea of
jewellery from connotations of magic, superstition and material value and was
assisted by the absorption of jewellery into the discourses of fashion. The latter is
crucial because it allowed jewellery to become ‘almost like the soul in the general
economy of clothing: that is, the detail’ (Barthes 2013, 58). Barthes also states that
the origins of jewellery (as well as fashion) lie in the husband using his wife to
show off his wealth and providing ‘poetic proof of the wealth and power of the
husband’ (56) an argument already established in relation to fashion at the end
of the nineteenth century by Thorstein Veblen in his 1899 book The Theory of the
Leisure Class. This transformation in jewellery outlined by Barthes had begun by
the end of the belle époque and was to set twentieth-century body adornment
off on a very different course where, according to Barthes, the secularization of
 Wearing (and Not Wearing) Jewellery 29

jewellery removed it from the realm of the femme fatale, allowing women (as he
puts it) to rejoin the human race (56). Above all, jewels themselves were beginning
to lose their ‘infernal aspect’ as, more and more, the notion of jewellery began to
replace that of the gemstone in strategies of adornment. On a sociological level,
Graham Hughes wrote of a late nineteenth-century photograph of a heavily
bejewelled Lady Carew that the late nineteenth century was ‘the last period in
history at which one was not ashamed to show off one’s jewels’, by which he was
almost certainly referring to gemstones rather than jewellery (1963, 64).
Referring specifically to the 1920s, Geneviève Leclerc considers how jewellery
became more democratic with ‘imitations’ making their mark at all levels of society.
The use of ‘forgotten’ stones and techniques that were brought to a wider market
made it possible for women to exercise more choice (Leclerc 1979). Significantly,
this tendency towards a wider market did not lead to the abandonment of the
idea of finery per se. This idea began to be reframed, as Barthes says, within the
discourses of fashion, but on a more democratic level. So the ability to accessorize
for the purposes of individual expression at all levels of the market becomes an
increasingly important facet of twentieth-century capitalism.
Popular replacements for traditional fine jewellery (costume jewellery
or articles de Paris, for example) were often more practical options for the
consumer and pieces in precious materials were designed deliberately to
reflect a more practical everyday sensibility, such as Paul Brandt’s ‘bijoux
sport’ range mentioned earlier. In clothing, the sports theme was a common
way of referring to a certain kind of practical day-wear – not necessarily for
use as sportswear, but as a way of linking the idea of sports (free movement,
lack of restraint, informality, clean functional lines) with a new concept of the
feminine. Lipovetsky argues that ‘by abandoning the poetics of ornamentation
and glittering display, couture fashion worked to desublimate and deidealize
the female figure, in part; it democratized clothing styles in the climate of the
new modernist aesthetic values that tended towards the purification of forms
and the rejection of the decorative’ (2007, 82).
The fashion and jewellery industries were major economic success stories
in France, Britain and America in the 1920s, providing increasing choice for
consumers at all levels of the market. Within modern femininity, adornment was
becoming a means of expression within a construction of fashion that increasingly
allowed individual taste and freedom of choice, albeit often within patterns
of consumption that exploited this. Although, as will be shown in Chapter 3,
modernist style jewellery was available and has its own place in the narratives of
30 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

twentieth-century design, it did not represent the bulk of what was being worn
and in itself did not always directly contribute to the sartorial appearance of the
new woman. Jewellery wearing of the time might, therefore, be understood as
part of the ‘triumph of ornament over dogma’ asserted by James Trilling as the
real story of twentieth-century design (Trilling 2001). What is clear is that the
role of jewellery, whatever its form, material or aesthetic value, should not be
underestimated in discourses of 1920s fashion. It was increasingly deployed to
express a different outlook, to articulate a new ‘intelligence’ in accessorizing.
For women, fashions of the 1920s often involved the exposure of relatively
large amounts of flesh. This meant that jewellery as body adornment begins to
become significant and the pre-existing repertoire of jewellery forms began to
be adapted to include otherwise hidden parts of the body, including the upper
arms and the back. Thus jewellery became an important way in which these new
body sites could be adorned and drawn attention to. Les idées nouvelles for August
1925 shows some good examples of how costume jewellery was used to ‘dress’ the
exposed nape of the neck and the upper parts of the back (referred to as ‘colliers
amusants pour le soir’). Indeed, some pieces made from large regularly spaced
semiprecious stones (intended to hang backwards from the neck) fall in a way
which suggests the rhythm of vertebrae connecting the upper exposed part of
the body with the covered part mid-way down the model’s back (Holzach 2008).
Cornelie Holzach suggests that ‘in the mid-1920s a woman ready to go out in
the evening was viewed as an object to be adorned all over’. This is an interesting
way to view the relationship between fashion and jewellery and she points out
that this relationship was documented in French Vogue for May 1925 as a taste
for the integration of gold, silver and semiprecious materials into fabrics for the
new fashions (28). In Paris and Berlin there was a brief flourishing of this lavish
tendency until fashions changed at the end of the decade.
The potential of jewellery and accessories to be worn for the creation of erotic
effects comes across clearly in the work of many artists and photographers of
the 1920s. However, some artists, such as the German painter Christian Schad,
accessorized his sitters in ways that draw attention to the various roles adornment
(or its relative absence) could play in the representation of the modern body
and the character of his sitters. In keeping with the contemporary tendency of
the Neue Sachlichkeit (new objectivity) his painting style emphasizes both detail
and sparseness. Many of his women sitters are shown in overtly erotic poses or
various states of undress. Nevertheless, there is a cool stillness to all of these
encounters between artist, model and sitter that is slightly disturbing. Often,
 Wearing (and Not Wearing) Jewellery 31

the sitter will make direct eye contact with the viewer, carrying on a tradition
established in the nineteenth century by Manet’s Olympia. In the 1930 portrait
of Eva von Arnheim, however, the sitter is shown in profile with swept back
short hair, no make-up, no jewellery, in a plain low cut shift dress. There is,
however, a single accessory: an ermine stole draped over her left shoulder. This
is a symbolic reference, argues Waldman, to the sitter’s name but it’s presence
as the only accessory in her attire is a key feature of many of Schad’s portraits
(1993). Waldman considered the dress and absence of adornment in the von
Arnheim portrait to be ‘calculated affronts to the traditional notions of femininity
prevalent in bourgeois society of the day’ (276).
Many of Schad’s female subjects of the 1920s are shown without jewellery.
This must have been a particular wish on the artist’s part, because when jewellery
and other accessories (such as flowers, bows, furs, and so on) are present they
often play a strong symbolic or allegorical role as a single item of adornment.
In other works, such as the 1927 Portrait of Anna Gabbioneta, jewellery plays
a formal role. Two small black spheres hang from the ears to help organize the
composition of the sitter’s face and make a connection with the architectural
details of the background.
In Schad’s painting Halbakt of 1929, the model’s totally frank nakedness is
eroticized by the presence of a neckpiece carefully placed between her breasts
(Figure 1.5). The title refers to the upper half of the model’s body being on display,
but the body is not completely naked, because the necklace renders the body
half- or semi-naked. The jewellery does not hide the body, but it provides a way
of relieving it of its total nakedness by providing a contrast between flesh and, in
this case, the carved stones of her neckpiece. Brooks and Giroud have identified
the stripping of the body of its accessories as part of the erotic investment that
must be made in the undressing of the body (Brooks and Giroud 1993, 32). They
make a particular point of this in relation to nineteenth-century dress and it is
interesting that, in the erotic culture of Weimar Germany, the need for women’s
bodies to be adorned in some way persists, particularly in those aspects of visual
culture dominated by men. It is important to remember that Schad carefully
accessorized his sitters when painting them and he is directing aspects of his
own desire through these objects. The choice of what accessories to wear (or not
to wear) becomes a matter for the artist in his or her strategy of representation.
Again in the context of Weimar Germany, Gerta Overbeck’s half-length
portrait of her sister Toni (1926) is an interesting case where the lack of
accessorizing makes a statement about the politics of the body. Toni Overbeck was
32 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 1.5 Christian Schad, ‘Halbakt’, 1929. Medienzentrum, Antje Zeis-Loi / Von der
Heydt-Museum Wuppertal. Oil on canvas. 55.5 × 53.5 cm. © Christian Schad Stiftung
Aschaffenburg/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn and DACS, London, 2016.

a dancer whose body was an important element in her identity as a professional

woman. Her body is displayed in relaxed pose but it is monumentalized by the
half-length pose and is clearly strong and supple. There is no attempt on the
part of the artist to depict her sister as a neue Frau through the use of fashion
or accessories, though her hair is short and her dress is modish. The important
elements are the sitter, her unadorned and uneroticized body and the context of
her surroundings. Nothing could be further from Schad’s attempts to deal with
the erotics of jewellery through calculated intervention in the sitters’ choices
of what to wear. In a later painting of 1929 by Overbeck, Servant Girl, the sitter
looks confidently out of the picture, wearing a simple top and a large string of
pearls, confronting the clichéd image of women in domestic service as passive,
naïve and dowdy. Here, as Meskimmon points out, the woman is dressed in a
way that suggests she is modern but ‘not the media stereotype of the neue Frau
as a frivolous fashion icon’ (1999, 146).
In the ‘frivolous’ world of 1920s fashion, women who abandoned the
wearing of jewellery were either expressing a particular sexual identity through
 Wearing (and Not Wearing) Jewellery 33

transgressing accepted modes of dress (i.e. cross-dressing) or were involved in

activities where jewellery wearing was impractical such as playing sports. Here,
other modern accessories (such as the increasingly popular wristwatch or well-
chosen cigarette case or lighter) might suffice. Indeed, mainstream fashion
advice from the writers of the various Vogue ‘chic guides’ (e.g. 1 June 1925 and
15 May 1926) persisted with the view that the only activity for women that was
not compatible with wearing jewellery was playing tennis.
On the other hand, a significant aspect of changes in attitudes to jewellery
wearing saw some manufacturers starting to rethink traditional jewellery forms,
adapting them to more contemporary contexts – a move not lost on some
contemporary commentators. In a Vogue article of 1925, Betty D. Thornley
recognized that within conventional modes of adornment such a shift had,
indeed, taken place. In particular, this could be seen in the new approach to the
wearing of the tiara. Still an ultra-formal jewellery type associated with public
display at society gatherings (in this case an evening out at the New York Opera),
Thornley notes, nevertheless, that ‘the modern tiara is as supple as silk, fitted to
the head like the best of Reboux hats’ and that it can be worn ‘as tightly as Lenglen
wore her ribbons on the tennis court’ (1925, 37). Here is a clear indication
that this form of jewellery was undergoing something of a transformation,
distancing itself from associations (as Thornley puts it) with ‘the peace offerings
of husbands’ and taking on the more practical characteristics of an item that was
more likely to have been chosen by the wearers themselves. Crucially, too, it is
worn in sympathy with modern fashions and not simply as a portable display of
wealth or overly ostentatious sign of aristocratic breeding. It would appear that,
increasingly, the buyer and the wearer were becoming the same person. Indeed,
by the end of the 1920s it was possible for another Vogue correspondent to be
unequivocal about the new relationship between the modern woman and her
jewellery, whatever form it may take: ‘We don’t wait to cross the thresholds of the
big jewellers armed with husbands. If we aren’t given jewels in sentiment, we buy
them in cold blood’ (‘Dramatic Modern Jewellery’, 1930, 71).

The problem of men

As far as men were concerned, the wearing of jewellery in the 1920s was an
altogether different affair. In his 1930 work The Psychology of Clothes, J. C.
Flügel commented that ‘the great masculine renunciation’ of flamboyant dress
34 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

characterizes the development of masculine dress styles from the beginning of

the nineteenth century. However, later commentators on Flügel, such as Ulrich
Lehmann, have taken this view to task:

The often-cited observation by J. C. Flügel . . . that it was man’s decision to

abandon any claim toward being beautiful and henceforth confine himself to
being useful, is not accurate. Masculine apparel did not cease being beautiful,
it was the concept of beauty, especially modernist beauty, that changed because
of the shift of social parameters after the Revolution. Flügel’s view was curiously
one dimensional in ascribing beauty to woman and rationality or expedience to
man. (Lehmann 2000, 412nn)

Thirty years before Flügel, Veblen had observed that the changes in men’s dress
in the nineteenth century may partly have come about through unwillingness to
spend money on ‘symbols of leisure which must have been irksome, which may
have served a good purpose in their time, but the continuation of which among
the upper classes today would be a work of supererogation’ (Veblen 1994, 114).
If it is to be assumed that Veblen’s symbols of leisure include accessories, then it
may be tempting to pursue the line that a wholesale rejection of accoutrements
on the part of men in the early twentieth century was in order to emphasize
their thriftiness, rationality and general usefulness to the family and to society.
Further, if the advertisements promoting accessories for men in 1920s fashion
magazines are taken into account, most of them feature giftware such as watches,
cufflinks, shaving accessories, brushes and belts. Some of these products are of
very high quality but remain, essentially, jazzed up utilitarian objects constituting
an incitement to men on the part of manufacturers and consumers to continue
to be well turned out but, ultimately, useful and productive.
It is clear that accessories for both genders were an important part of the
economies of western Europe and America in the 1920s and 1930s. France, in
particular, successfully exported the products of its luxury industries throughout
the interwar period. This was partly fuelled by the growth of ex-pat communities
in Paris. In Tender Is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald, through the character of Dick
Diver, comments on this process. Diver is at the height of his powers when he is
depicted by Fitzgerald as walking confidently through Paris on his way to a film
studio to meet the starlet Rosemary Hoyt ‘dignified in his fine clothes, with their
fine accessories, he was yet swayed and driven as an animal’ (Fitzgerald 1998,
103). This is the moment in the story when he wants to finally claim Rosemary
as his own. On this occasion he is to be disappointed. She has already left and
 Wearing (and Not Wearing) Jewellery 35

the fine accessories are deployed in vain. Dick’s dandification is thwarted but,
as a reminder of how American spending power in Paris fuelled the market for
jewellery and accessories of all kinds, he bumps into a US army veteran who
shows him a French newspaper cartoon of Americans disembarking from an
ocean liner: ‘Two hundred thousand – spending ten million a summer’ (10).
Dick is reminded, therefore, of his status as one of many foreign consumers of
the city’s luxury goods market in post-war France. In the novel, this represents
a further tipping point towards his disillusionment and ultimate dissipation.
Diver represents a successful modern man. His modernity is based to some
extent on his actions but also on his appearance, which includes buying into
contemporary ‘city’ fashions, accessories, bathing-wear and even indulging in
some light cross-dressing, which he carries off in public (albeit at the beach)
with confidence and without obvious embarrassment.
In relation to the practice of accessorizing for modern life, Flügel is convinced
that the ‘sartorial distinctions of wealth’, which had hitherto dominated fashion
for men and women, had broken down in his own time. This was due to a
combination of changes in materials technology and social progress:

(the vast improvements made in recent years with artificial precious stones and
pearls is tending to abolish the distinctions even as regards the smaller costly
ornaments) . . . Men’s clothes have, of course, gone further in this direction than
women’s, and it would seem that women might profitably copy men at least
in one direction, namely in the abolition of that particular form of snobbery
which demands an unreasonably large number of different costumes. (Flügel
1971, 185–6)

As women were reducing the number of unnecessary changes of outfit during

the day this had implications for jewellery wearing. The increasing popularity of
artificial stones was noted as early as 1923 in an article for Vogue in which the
use of aquamarines in jewellery for men is discussed. The variety of settings in
which these stones may be placed remains predictable; ‘cuff-links, studs, vest
buttons, and sometimes also for a watch fob, chain, and watch-case setting’
while also being ‘sufficiently conservative to be prized for many years to come’
(Wallace 1923, 158). Clearly, men were not expected to take too many risks
with their jewellery lest they (or their partners) have to endure the irksome and
expensive task of updating it.
According to Flügel, ‘It is perhaps no mere chance that a period of
unexampled scientific progress should have followed the abandonment of
36 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

ornamental clothing on the part of men at the beginning of the last century’
(1971, 118). Here, perhaps choosing to ignore the plethora of male scientists and
philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (I will not list them)
who presided over the Enlightenment in a variety of wigs, ruffs, frills, breeches,
stockings, stacked heels and brooches, Flügel betrays his particular dislike of the
nineteenth century – a century which, for him, produced a terrifyingly formal,
inflexible and impractical set of dress codes for men.
In an article of perhaps dubious sincerity produced for the illustrated magazine
The Quiver for September 1924 and intriguingly titled ‘Why I Would Rather Be
a Woman’, the author (‘A Man’) is keen to point out that one of the principal
benefits of being female is that women are afforded the liberty to dress ‘just as
they please’. Men are only allowed very simple but very stark variations in dress
(such as a black or a white bow tie) and the cut of their clothes is largely settled
for them. Women, on the other hand ‘can wear anything and almost nothing.
There is no canon which they can offend’ (‘Man’, 1924, 1032). Although the last
point gives the writer away as something of a fashion novice, the desire less to
envy women ‘their feathers and furs, their jewellery and other vanities’ and more
their ‘defiance of uniform’ is an interesting take on the subject of the lack of
risk taking allowed for men in sartorial matters (1032). The writer glosses over,
inevitably, the risks that women themselves take in making their own departures
from the norm. The text gives an amusing insight, however unreliable, into the
frustration with the restrictions of bourgeois male dress codes.
So was the modern male of the 1920s condemned by adherence to these codes
to a relationship with jewellery characterized by conservatism, functionality and
thriftiness? This would certainly fit Flügel’s thesis. Even if his male renunciation
of fashion is overplayed, it is clear that there was a discernible problem as far as
men’s jewellery was concerned and this was occasionally discussed in magazines
of the 1920s and 1930s. Pierre de Trévières, writing in La Femme de France at the
beginning of the 1930s, acknowledged that:

There is no question more difficult to solve than the problem of jewellery for
men … We are no longer in the days of charms dangling on a replete stomach
or romantic eras where sensitive dilettantes locked up a woman’s tear in a ring
setting. The only jewellery allowed today is a tie-pin, cufflinks, a watch chain and
a ring. (de Trévières 1931, 22)

He then describes the advice of modernist jeweller Jean Després on the best
way for a modern man to engage successfully with jewellery. The advice is
 Wearing (and Not Wearing) Jewellery 37

practical and conventional, based on the idea of wearing signet rings of varying
types, with stones set either higher or lower in order to be suitable for different
activities (sports, work, evenings out). Other accessories must match the tonal
palette of the costume and the chosen jewels and metals such as buttons, cuff-
links and plastron (de Trévières 1931, 22).
Roland Barthes argued that the modern man of the twentieth century had to
rely on the details in their costume as the only way in which any kind of ‘dandyism’
could be preserved in everyday life: ‘it was the detail (the “next-to-nothing”, the “je
ne sais quoi”, the “manner”, etc.) which started to play the distinguishing role in
clothing: the knot on a cravat, the material of a shirt, the buttons on a waistcoat, the
buckle on a shoe, were from then on enough to highlight the narrowest of social
differences’ (2006, 61). Certain accessories, like the monocle, remained popular
in artistic (and definitely modernist) circles as a foil for the practical formality
of the suit. But it was also associated, as Marius Hentea says, with both men and
women as well as ‘dandies and aristocrats, military officers and con men’ (2013,
220). Although not an item of jewellery, it was almost always used as a way of
accessorizing a costume, whether in a spirit of parody (Dadaist Tristan Tzara wore
one for most of his life), genuine need to improve the eyesight through a functional
instrument or, in the case of a number of well-known lesbians of the 1920s and
other frequenters of the Paris club Le Monocle, to undermine its status as an object
traditionally gendered ‘male’. In Brassai’s 1932 photograph Young Female Invert at
Le Monocle, the female sitter (in male evening dress) sits before an empty plate
and a bottle of champagne wearing a very large signet ring (and wristwatch) on
her left hand. This is the unequivocally ‘masculine’ scale of ring acceptable to the
male who wanted to make a feature of his jewellery and would not want it to be
perceived as feminine. Its adoption in this case of female cross-dressing asserts
the new identity. On stage, the famous 1920s drag artist Barbette often wore
numerous bangles on his right arm when performing. However, he removed his
wig at the end of his act in order to break the spell of his transformation. Surviving
photographs of Barbette out of drag show him dressed impeccably in 1920s male
fashion. The accessories worn by the sitter in Brassai’s photograph serve to suggest
that here there is no act and neither is there a spell to be broken.
Among professional men working as artists and designers (notably those
associated with the modern movement) the tendency to accessorize was limited.
Although modernist architect Le Corbusier appears not to have worn any
jewellery he did accessorize with a watch, pipe and pocket-handkerchief. In spite
of this, he was not averse to appearing in flamboyant fancy dress on occasion
38 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

and, like Gerald Murphy, was happy to be photographed nude when on holiday
in the South of France. Other celebrated modernist architects such as Walter
Gropius and Mies van der Rohe wore no jewellery at all. This is not surprising.
We would look in vain for any notable examples of jewellery wearing among
men directly associated with the propounding of hard-nosed modernist design
values. Even though the contrast between the artist Kandinsky (who was able to
paint with some abandon in a dress suit) and the photographer Moholy Nagy
(who regularly wore a worker’s boiler suit) reveals a keen interest in male self-
presentation, accessorizing was not a priority.
Examination of photographic portraits of celebrated Paris jewellers of the
1920s shows that even those at the heart of the profession were reluctant to
disrupt the conventions of the male dress code. Of the ten photographic portraits
of jewellers illustrated in Sylvie Raulet’s book on Art Deco jewellery, only those
of Georges Fouquet, Louis Cartier, Paul Templier and Georges Mauboussin
(pearl tie-pin and lapel badge) and Louis Arpels (large signet ring and elaborate
watch chain/bracelet) show the sitter wearing any jewellery at all. Arguably
the most ‘progressive’ of them all (the younger triumvirate of Jean Fouquet,
Gérard Sandoz and Raymond Templier) appear to eschew the wearing of the
jewel (Raulet 2002). It is important to remember that these designers were also
key players in business as well as in the creative direction of their family firms
and this will partly explain their formal appearance. Like the architects, these
men dressed in a way that enabled them to move easily between the drawing
studio, workshop and meeting room. Although tempting to conclude otherwise,
in a professional context a single pearl tie-pin would not necessarily have been
enough to identify a jeweller with their trade such was the ubiquity of this simple
ornament in the 1920s.
The language of clothes for men that demanded the rejection of ornament
and accessories as suggested in architect Adolf Loos’s infamous 1908 essay
Ornament and Crime certainly did come about. Further, although Valerie Steele’s
observation for early twentieth-century men that ‘bright colours remained taboo
and decoration had already been abolished’ seems a little harsh at first reading,
the limits of a man’s ability to accessorize were in fact very clearly set out and
had been culturally determined for some time (1998, 233). If the interwar pages
of Vogue, for example, are scanned there is no shortage of possibilities for men
to avail themselves of ‘functional’ accessories such as combs, brushes, tweezers,
razors, belts, buckles, and other such items. Although very strictly traditional
items of jewellery were available, ranges were often limited.
 Wearing (and Not Wearing) Jewellery 39

Figure 1.6 Sara and Gerald Murphy at the “Automotive Ball”, Paris, 1924. Sara and
Gerald Murphy Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book
and Manuscript Library. © Estate of Honoria Murphy Donnelly/Licensed by VAGA,
New York.

Nevertheless, transgressing the boundaries of mainstream accessorizing

was possible for men of means and there was no better way of doing this than
through the fancy dress party and the costume ball – those organized by Etienne
de Beaumont in 1920s and 1930s Paris being good examples. Here, men were
able to shrug off their strict adherence to dress codes and indulge themselves,
perhaps through adopting historical costume or more fanciful creations.
Referring to the fancy dress ball, Cynthia Cooper suggests that ‘while it was
40 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

generally taboo for a man to dress as a woman on such occasions, considerable

evidence suggests that for men, wearing fancy dress bore a marked similarity to
cross-dressing’ (2004, 45).
This is arguably the case with Gerald Murphy’s costume for Etienne de
Beaumont’s ‘automotive ball’ held in Paris in the spring of 1924 (Figure 1.6).
Murphy had himself welded into a metal tunic that featured, as accessories,
a speakerphone worn in place of a brooch, a rear view mirror positioned on
the shoulder, a high metal collar fastened with a chain and an extraordinary
headpiece recalling the shapes of cylinders and bolt-on motor parts. Below the
waist, Murphy wears only a pair of dancer’s tights and simple shoes. By contrast,
with the exception of her enormous spherical earrings, Sara Murphy’s costume
is a more straightforward affair – a foil dress with driving goggles and her pearls
wrapped three times around her neck.
Beaumont’s regular Soirées were typical examples of what Lynn Garafola has
termed ‘lifestyle modernism’, a kind of modernism which may have been inspired
by the familiar and everyday but which, in turn, became identified with ‘the new
consumerist chic of the upper class’ (Garafola 1989, 115). At the automotive ball,
this particular interpretation of body adornment, jewellery and accessories on
the part of Gerald Murphy may use contemporary mechanical forms as a major
stylistic theme, but the context and manner of their deployment as part of his
costume is surely closer to the spirit of Watteau than Renault.
 2

New Women: The Jewellery of Charlotte

Perriand and Nancy Cunard

I had a street urchin’s haircut and wore a necklace I made out of cheap chromed
copper balls. I called it my ball-bearings necklace, a symbol of my adherence to
the twentieth-century machine age. (Perriand 2003, 21)

A variant of the Art game is the Jewel racket (Same system, same result).
(Cunard 1931)

Designer Charlotte Perriand (1903–1999) and poet and activist Nancy Cunard
(1896–1965) knew the importance of jewellery in making statements about
personal and professional identity, the causes they believed in and how they
wished to be perceived by contemporary society. Both developed passionate
attachments to ideas, philosophies and practices in the arts and the political arena.
They often dressed in the fashionable clothes of the day but also adapted their
sartorial appearance to suit the contexts in which they were living and working.
It is interesting how crucial their choices of adornment were to their professional
personas and it is clear that these choices were markedly different. Both Perriand
and Cunard married young and experienced early failed marriages with men
who seemingly shared few of their cultural or political interests and, in quite
different ways, they embraced the modern movement in their respective fields.
In the case of Perriand it was modernism in design that provided the outlet for
her development as a professional designer and as a person. For Cunard, her
attachment to literature and radical politics was a constant driving force, helping
her move, in a few short years, from compliant English debutante to militant
civil rights campaigner. The contrast between the cool, level headed graduate
of the Ecole de l’Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs with the more impulsive,
rebellious autodidact and campaigner for social justice is firmly embodied in
the manner in which these two highly influential women chose to adorn their
42 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

bodies with jewellery. Both, in different ways, were new women. Flappers they
were not.

Charlotte Perriand and the ball-bearings necklace

Charlotte Perriand’s ball-bearings necklace (known as the collier roulements à

billes) was exhibited in 2009 at ‘Bijoux Art Deco et avant garde’ at the Musée des
Arts décoratifs in Paris and, in 2011, in the show ‘Charlotte Perriand 1903–99:
From Photography to Interior Design’ at the Petit Palais (Figure 2.1). In the
former exhibition, the necklace appeared remarkably different from many other
pieces because of its simplicity, bold execution and stark utilitarian beauty,
exposing the obvious modishness of its more lustrous cousins. In contrast, at
the Petit Palais, the piece was exhibited to help chart the career of Charlotte
Perriand, modernist design pioneer, enthusiastic photographer and collector of

Figure 2.1 Charlotte Perriand’s Collier roulements à billes (ball-bearings necklace),

1927. © Archives Charlotte Perriand. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016.
 Charlotte Perriand and Nancy Cunard 43

art brut (Barsac 2011). Among the many notable achievements reflected upon
in her autobiography, Perriand recalls the importance of the habitual wearing of
the necklace at a time when her career as a designer and collaborator with Le
Corbusier was starting to take shape. It became, for a short period, synonymous
with Perriand and her championing of the machine aesthetic in the late 1920s
and has subsequently attained the status of a mythical object and symbol of the
machine age.
The necklace can be considered as an object and symbol in the context of
modernist aesthetics. It also has a key role to play in the formation of Perriand’s
personal and professional identity in the late 1920s when she was working with
Le Corbusier. It also has significance in relation to aspects of gender and politics
in the context of the wider modern movement.
In 1927, when the necklace was made and habitually worn, Perriand was at
the beginning of her exploration of the objects of the machine age. Her interest
in all things metallic and mechanical was at its height. She had begun working
at Le Corbusier’s atelier in the rue de Sèvres and had forged relationships with
many modernists such as Pierre Jeanneret, José Lluís Sert, Alfred Roth, Ernst
Weissmann, Kunio Maekawa and others. A number of photographs survive
of Perriand wearing the necklace to work at the atelier and in the company of
various collaborators and interns. Perriand wore the piece when seated in the
LC7 swivel chair and, most famously, when reclining in the LC4 chaise longue
(Figure 2.2).
The necklace is made from lightweight chrome steel balls strung together
on a chord. Originally, there were sixteen and, according to Pernette Perriand-
Barsac, the missing sphere has recently been added (Perriand-Barsac 2011).
A companion piece to the chromed necklace, a gilded version dating from the
same time, has fourteen spheres. A version dating from 1930, in blue glass, has
twenty-four spheres. Perriand also made a chain mail belt around the same time.
The chromed necklace obviously required little skill in making, just
straightforward assembly, but its potency as an object remains undimmed. It
is not a luxury object, but it is clearly designed to embody meaning, to work as
modern adornment and to be worn for effect. The principal visual characteristic
is, of course, the influence of the machine. The use of machine parts as inspiration
for modern jewellery in the interwar years was a significant feature of modern
design by the late 1920s in the work of Parisian jewellers Jean Després, Raymond
Templier and Jean Fouquet (see Chapter 3). The influence of Perriand’s necklace
on the latter has been recognized: ‘It is not possible to leave out the designer
44 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 2.2 Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret. LC4 chaise longue,
1929. Le Corbusier: © FLC/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016. Jeanneret:
© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016.

Charlotte Perriand whose ball bearings necklace, we recall, resembles the

bracelet of the same name in chromed steel by Jean Fouquet’ (Gabardi 1986, 64).
This vogue for utilizing the language of mechanical parts to create
contemporary forms in jewellery was usually expressed through the use of
precious and semiprecious materials and aimed at a bourgeois market. However,
the bracelet by Fouquet (Figure 2.3) would, when worn, exploit the movement
of the ball bearings as the piece moves around the wrist, creating a relationship
with the original function of the moving parts. The mode began in the late 1920s
and most of the important examples by the Parisian jewellery houses in today’s
museum collections post-date Perriand’s necklace.
Her use of the chrome balls exploits the ball bearings as image (or signifier)
of modernity, since the use of real ball bearings in this context would have
been impractical. There is also another crucial difference. From the time of her
association with Le Corbusier, Perriand became interested in found objects and
art brut. Raw, ready-made forms which she photographed and kept records
 Charlotte Perriand and Nancy Cunard 45

Figure 2.3 Bracelet in chromed metal and ebonite by Jean Fouquet, c. 1931. Diameter
6.5 cm. Private Collection. Photo © Christie’s Images / Bridgeman Images. © ADAGP,
Paris and DACS, London, 2016.

of, somewhat in the spirit of Duchamp and the surrealists. This is a very clear
preoccupation in her work from the early 1930s, but the origins of her using
existing objects as inspiration is interesting. Perriand famously used a chromed
car headlamp to illuminate the dining area of her apartment in the Place Saint-
Sulpice in 1927–1928. In the 1930s, Perriand would extend this practice through
scavenging industrial sites and photographing the detritus to be found there
(Barsac 2011).
At the 1925 Paris exhibition it was possible to see the works of the pioneer
modernists, such as Le Corbusier, alongside exhibits of manufacturers’
industrial components. Interestingly, the French ball-bearings industry was
aware of the significance of their products as inspiration for modern designers
when it took out a single-page advertisement in a special issue of L’illustration
in June 1925: ‘Thus the ball bearing, this organ of high mechanical perfection,
could find its place in events such as those of the modern decorative arts, due
46 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

to the prodigious contribution that it makes to all the mechanized industries

working with iron, wood, stone, leather, etc’ (Possémé 2009, 16). In modernist
visual culture, there was a notable interest in the aesthetics and dynamism of
ball bearings that was to reach its apogee at the ‘Machine Art’ exhibition at the
Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1934. Here, actual machine parts were
displayed in the galleries as significant objects in their own right with the display
strategy and selection policy of the institution being the only contribution on
the part of artists. Josef Albers’s design for the cover of the catalogue canonizes
the Swedish company S.K.F.’s self-aligning ball bearings as an example of the
machine aesthetic par excellence. These bearings have been in production since
1907 and the similarity with Fouquet’s bracelet is striking. A small number of
pieces of jewellery made in the Bauhaus metal workshops between 1925 and
1931 also show the influence of ball bearings (Joppien 1995).
In the wider cultural sphere, ball bearings provided inspiration for American
expat Gerald Murphy both in terms of his paintings and his taste in interior
decoration. His interest in things mechanical has already been noted in the
previous chapter. According to William Rubin, ‘Walking down the Champs-
Elysées, Murphy happened on a display of “S.K.F” Swedish ball bearings. He was
so struck by them that he purchased the largest one and mounted it as a revolving
sculpture’ (1974, 36). In a similar vein, Deborah Rothschild notes that ‘Gerald
quipped that he would rather have a real ball bearing than a Rodin that might
turn out to be a fake. Like many moderns in the 1920s . . . Murphy responded to
the ball bearing as one of the great beauties of the mechanical age’ (2007, 37). It
is known that Murphy planned a painting called ‘ball bearings’ around 1926 but
this is now lost. Murphy’s paintings were characterized by a precisionism which
lies somewhere between Léger’s cubism and Ozenfant’s purism, perhaps best
exemplified by his painting Watch of 1924–1925. In photography, the American
Paul Strand had carefully photographed a collection of S.K.F. ball bearings
for the arts magazine Broom in the early 1920s (November 1922). The Italian
futurists also praised these vital objects of the machine age, even including
them in a recipe for a chicken dish (‘chicken-Fiat’) in which ‘a boiled and then
roasted chicken has a handful of mild steel ball bearings inserted to add flavour’,
although this description lends more of a baroque than a modernist touch to it
(Marinetti 2014, 97).
The ‘Machine Art’ exhibition catalogue sought, via references to the ideas of
Plato and St. Thomas Aquinas, to identify the essential qualities of precisionism,
the latter identifying ‘integrity or perfection’, ‘proportion or harmony’ and
 Charlotte Perriand and Nancy Cunard 47

‘clarity’ as the three essential requirements of beauty (Museum of Modern

Art 1994). Shiny surfaces are also a key ingredient as is the absence of surface
ornament. The significance of this for an understanding of Perriand’s necklace
will be discussed later.
Following the 1925 exhibition, some jewellers and silversmiths quickly
picked up on the potential of machine forms for the production of famous
essays in design inspired by the machine aesthetic. Some of these were daringly
original but others were predictable and more modish. Referring to this practice,
modernist silversmith Jean Puiforcat was characteristically critical: ‘Gold and
silversmithing has, in common with the machine, beautiful polished metal. But
it would be crazy to make a teapot like a piston’ (Herbst 1951, 26). Jewellery
directly inspired by machine parts also had its detractors. Referring to work in
this vein by Fouquet and Templier in Art et industrie in 1932, critic Marcel Zahar
opined ‘Yes, machines are wonderfully powerful things . . . but I am not keen
on seeing their insides displayed at inopportune moments. Pieces of jewellery
that look like spare parts make for very crude symbols. We don’t need fetishism!
We are not commemorating the victory of the machine: we don’t have to sport
miniature engines’ (Possémé 2009, 15).
One senses that Perriand, too, would have disliked the ‘fetishism’ referred to
by Zahar. As she was beginning to become politically active on the fringes of the
French left in the late 1920s, the liaison between high fashion, expensive materials
and bourgeois taste would not have appealed to her. The slavish incorporation
of machine forms as decorative elements held no interest. She must also have
been sensitive to the possible negative impact that the necklace might have
when worn in the wrong context, perhaps realizing that the gesture would be
misunderstood as dilettantism. At the end of the decade, Perriand enrolled in
the ‘Scientific Organisation of Work’ class at the independent Marxist workers’
university in the nineteenth arrondissement ‘leaving my ball-bearings necklace
at Montparnasse’ and ‘dressed in a stone-gray oilskin’ (Perriand 2003, 72–3).
The wearing of the necklace was clearly important on other occasions,
particularly when meeting people professionally. Such a strong visual statement
was bound to provoke conversation and remain in the memory as Perriand
continued to cultivate a strong image of herself as a femme moderne in the
late 1920s. This effort on her part was given further impetus by her very public
efforts to promote metal as a superior alternative to wood. None of the members
of Le Corbusier’s atelier expressed any interest in precious materials, of course.
All were disciples of concrete and metal and were preoccupied with ideas of
48 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

mass production rather than craft. So the choice of chromed metal by Perriand
for her jewellery is entirely consistent with this. For her, mass manufactured
metal was supreme.
In a famous exchange of 1929 between Perriand and the English critic John
Gloag in the pages of The Studio, she reacted to the latter’s criticism of the ‘robot
modernist school’ by identifying the principal advantages of metal over wood.
According to Perriand, metal is superior ‘Because by means of the different
methods of manufacture [metal] opens out new vistas; new opportunities of
design’ and ‘Because the protective coatings against toxic agencies not only lower
the cost of upkeep, but have a considerable Aesthetic value’ (1929, 279). Further
on, she refers to ‘a new lyric beauty, regenerated by mathematical science’ which
brings to mind the simplicity and satisfying repetition of the form of the necklace
(279). In one of his lectures delivered in Brazil in 1929, Le Corbusier wrote that
‘life is full of opportunities to collect things that are subjects for thought’ and
cites, for example, ‘this polished steel part taken from a machine’ (1991, 121).
He may not have been thinking directly of Perriand’s piece, but he is citing the
spirit of its creation.
One of Perriand’s vital professional and personal relationships was with
the painter Fernand Léger. They met in 1930 at a reception organized by the
German Embassy in Paris to coincide with the opening of an exhibition of
Bauhaus work (Perriand 2003, 35). They became close friends and collaborators
for many years, sharing similar preoccupations and contacts within the Parisian
modernist milieu and working together on extensive projects promoting the
political plans of the Popular Front government. Léger’s painting Nature morte
(Le mouvement à billes) (Still-Life [Movement of Ball Bearings]) of 1926 is an
obvious source of visual reference for Perriand’s necklace and was painted
around the same time as her wearing of the piece became habitual, though the
pair had not actually met at this point. There is, however, a more intriguing
connection between Perriand’s necklace and Léger’s film Ballet mécanique that
abounds with objet types in motion, bringing to life the static monumental forms
of his easel paintings. The film (a collaboration between Léger, Dudley Murphy
and George Antheil) was completed in 1924 and premiered in Vienna, but it was
not screened in Paris until 1926 when it was shown with René Clair’s Entr’acte
at the Studio des Ursulines (Lanchner 2010, 270). Perriand could have seen the
film that year as she regularly attended screenings (2003, 19).
There are a number of key sequences in the film and an ironic reference that
may reveal a direct source of inspiration for the necklace and Perriand’s interest
 Charlotte Perriand and Nancy Cunard 49

in the spherical reflective surface. Shiny, metallic swinging spheres appear

a number of times (both singularly and montaged together) at two points –
2:27 to 2:45 and 5:06 to 5:44 – creating dynamic movement and allowing the
surrounding environment to be reflected (Murphy and Léger 2005). In the first
sequence, the sphere reflects the camera operator, the director and the studio
interior. We see the same effect in the photograph of the necklace from the
Charlotte Perriand archives where the photographer and his equipment are
clearly visible (see Figure 2.1). This produces an effect not only of dynamic
movement, but also of strangeness and, to some extent, disorientation. At many
points in the film, the exploitation of actual movement through an ostentatious
display of kinetic effects is juxtaposed with montaged images of shiny surfaces
such as kitchen implements creating ‘an inventory of purist motifs’ (Christie
2006, 304). However, it is the way in which the surfaces of these objects are
interrogated by the camera that is most useful for this discussion.
Léger’s use of the close-up in relation to the spherical balls is significant for the
way space is conceived. Walter Benjamin explains this clearly in his essay ‘The
Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ of 1936: ‘With the close-up,
space expands; with slow motion, movement is extended. The enlargement of
a snapshot does not simply render more precise what in any case was visible,
though unclear: it reveals entirely new structural formations of the subject’
(1999a, 229–30). The close-up on the spherical balls allows us to glimpse the
other reality of the interior of the studio where the film is being shot. We can
see the reflection of the interior setting, the director and the camera operator
in a ‘new structural formation’. The effect of seeing the world via the reflections
in the necklace is similar in that the reflections set up an exterior and interior
dialogue. The perfection of its reflective surfaces creates a rhythm of reflection
that is reminiscent of a montage film sequence. The effect when worn is that of a
transformation of the visible world into something resembling a filmic moment.
In a 1924 piece for Bulletin de l’Effort Moderne, Léger wrote: ‘Every machine
object possesses two qualities of material: one, often painted and light-absorbent,
that remains static (an architectural value), and another (most often bare metal)
that reflects light and fills the role of unlimited fantasy (pictorial value). So it is
light that determines the degree of variety in the machine object’ (1973, 54). The
reflective surfaces of Perriand’s necklace provide a constantly shifting sense of
pictorial value as it reflects the world around it. It is relentlessly anti-decorative;
or rather any decorative value it may possess is related to one’s interpretation of
the subject that is reflected in its live surface.
50 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

All jewellery moves with the body to a greater or lesser extent. If made of
reflective materials, it also captures images of what surrounds it – although the
maker or, indeed, the wearer does not always exploit this deliberately. Perriand’s
piece has clear transformatory qualities in the way that, on or off the body (and
even in the museum display case) it changes the perception of the world and the
surfaces process a constantly shifting pattern of images. In Ballet mécanique the
intertitle ‘on a volé un collier de perles de 5 millions’ (pearl necklace worth five
million stolen) appears towards the end of the film, from 15:10 to 16:45, in full
and fragmented form (Murphy and Léger 2005). As James Donald points out,
it is drawn from the headline ‘A 5 million necklace. Naturally, it was stolen’ in
L’intransigeant for 10 September 1924 (2009, 42). Perriand may have enjoyed the
reference to the stolen strings of pearls at this time and the reflective swinging
spheres in Ballet mécanique may have been a direct source of inspiration for
the necklace. Her taste in jewellery was never conventional. In 1926, she was
photographed wearing what appears to be large piece of costume jewellery – a
clear precursor to the famous signature piece.
Some of Bauhaus designer Marianne Brandt’s self-portraits use jewellery
and objects (like the rotating spheres in Ballet mécanique) as a way of using
reflections to ‘make strange’ the image of the surrounding environment. The
theory (and practice) of ‘making strange’ (ostranenie) derived from Russian
formalism as expounded by the poet and theorist Victor Shklovsky and was
practiced regularly in Bauhaus photography. The ‘defamiliarization’ evident
in Brandt’s photograph of her reflection is a direct response to this approach.
In Perriand’s necklace, we see something similar. The repeated reflections are
clearly a way of defamiliarizing the external world so that the artistic nature of
the assemblage of reflective spheres can be fully appreciated as creating lasting
aesthetic value. In Shklovsky’s 1917 essay ‘Art as Technique’ he states:

The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and
not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar’, to
make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because
the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. Art
is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object; the object is not important.
(Harrison and Wood 2003, 279)

For Perriand, the chrome balls were not only strikingly modern, but were
materially different from other examples of modern jewellery. She incorporated
the piece into her identity as a modern woman: ‘I am conscious of and in synch
 Charlotte Perriand and Nancy Cunard 51

with my times. They are mechanical: in the streets the beautiful cars wink at me,
they are clean, shining. I adorn my neck with chromed-steel beads, my waist
with a coat of mail, my studio with chromed steel – I wear my hair à la Josephine
Baker’ (Perriand 2003, 12).
In combination with the wearing of the necklace Perriand’s adoption of a
form of the fashionable ‘bob’ haircut was indicative of how she wished to be
identified with contemporary style and, perhaps more significantly, modern
dress. The photograph of Perriand with the Croatian architect Ernst Weissmann
illustrates this very well (Figure 2.4).
As has been shown in Chapter 1, it should not be underestimated how clearly
provocative an act it was for women of the time to cut their hair short and to
adopt the new clothing styles (Roberts 1993). In a wider sense, the appearance
of the femme moderne was linked to the changing circumstances of post-war
France. Perriand’s adoption of a restrained and rational dress sense is clear from

Figure 2.4 Charlotte Perriand with architect Ernst Weissmann, 1927. © Archives
Charlotte Perriand. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016.
52 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

photographs of her in the 1920s, although she rarely adopted the full-blown
‘new fashion’ look promoted by the likes of Chanel. Her dress sense remained
simple with the emphasis on comfort, allowing great freedom of movement and,
arguably, aided her ability to adapt to professional life in Corbusier’s studio at
the rue de Sèvres. Of course, detractors of this look were keen to point out a lack
of femininity and a dangerous trend towards androgyny. However, as we have
seen in Chapter 1, others contended that the new fashions were in tune with
women’s concern for greater freedoms. In a 1927 article in de la Mode André de
Fouquières stated, ‘Women want to walk, run, do sports . . . Nothing can prevent
them from doing so, nature is regaining its rights . . . Suddenly, the noise of a
motor! C’est la réalité présente! Life! Movement! Vertigo!’ (Roberts 1993, 676).
Le Corbusier also had specific views on the development of modern
dress: ‘The courage, the liveliness, the spirit of invention with which women have
operated the revolution in clothing are a miracle of modern times. Thank you!’
(1991, 107). Although Le Corbusier’s relationships with women were complex,
the emergence of the new woman and his celebration of the new clothing trends
were directly influenced by his familiarity with contemporary fashion magazines
and his polemics on the subjects of clothing and physical culture (Samuel 2004).
Apart from his wife, Yvonne, a former model who also adopted modern dress,
Perriand (the only female intern at the studio) would have provided day-to-day
evidence of the emergence of the trend towards functional, practical clothing.
A conventional reading of Perriand’s position in the photographs of the
chaise longue (the shoot was set up by Perriand herself) might suggest that
it could be demonstrated how, for example, modern clothing styles allowed
women the freedom of movement to operate and inhabit modern furniture
efficiently and effectively. Alternatively, as Mary McLeod has suggested, the
chaise longue and its photographic representation with Charlotte Perriand is a
twentieth-century equivalent of the erotic associations with the body that can
be seen in eighteenth-century furniture (McLeod 1987, 5). We are, however,
a long way away here from the fantasy worlds of Boucher and Fragonard. A
better comparison can be made with Erich Consemüller’s famous photograph
of Bauhaus designer Marcel Breuer’s B3 club chair of c. 1926. The female
inhabitant of the chair wears a metal mask by Oscar Schlemmer rendering her
anonymous, uncompromisingly modern and assertively unerotic. Her gaze is
a direct challenge to the viewer. In both photographs, the necklace and the
mask play a role in identifying the sitters as modern and in both cases the faces
are hidden, rendering the sitters anonymous. In the photograph of Perriand in
 Charlotte Perriand and Nancy Cunard 53

the LC7 chair she, again, turns her head away. The necklace remains, however,
conspicuous. It is too simple to assume that Perriand’s role as model was simply
to demonstrate how the furniture works. Her presence was also to demonstrate
that the new furniture existed outside of the conventions of femininity and
masculinity and that it was in some way ‘neutral’ in terms of gender. That
said, it should also be remembered that the binary approach to gender was
still prevalent when, in 1932, Le Corbusier placed Perriand in sole charge of
furniture, interior fittings and ‘domestic equipment’ at the atelier and handed
Perriand a certificate to confirm this (McLeod 2003, 46).
Nevertheless, following this appointment, Charlotte Perriand was able to take
her place as a key player in the modernist design milieu from the late 1920s. Her
work was always more important to her than the way she presented herself, but
her adoption of modern dress, an association with the most uncompromising of
modernist architects and the deliberate choice of an unusual piece of signature
jewellery, Perriand’s sense of self-presentation was a significant factor in the
development of her career. Her formal attachment to the atelier of Le Corbusier
lasted from 1927 to 1937. She was the only female collaborator. In later
interviews, Perriand was not keen to engage with questions about her position as
a woman working in a male dominated profession, though she was clear on one
point: ‘There is one thing I never did, and that was flirt. That is, I didn’t “dabble”,
I created and produced, and my job was important. There was mutual respect,
mutual recognition’ (Teicher 1999, 129).
From 1930, Charlotte Perriand seems to have abandoned the habitual
wearing of the necklace during the period when she was moving away from
her preoccupation with metal and beginning to consider the value of organic
materials as a direct source of inspiration for her work. As Golan puts it,
‘Organic retrenchment deeply affected all of the major modernists working in
France. By the late 1920s, even hardliners like Fernand Léger, Le Corbusier, and
Amédée Ozenfant would shift towards organicism, distancing themselves from
the unconditional embrace of the machine aesthetic’ (1995, ix–x). In the period
after her closest association with the atelier of Le Corbusier and her frequent
travels abroad, Perriand’s efforts to ‘humanize’ the modernist aesthetic in design
are well known. This is ironic, of course, given her earlier praise for the virtues
of metal over wood a little over a decade earlier. The abandoning of the necklace
was clearly down to more than just changes in fashion. As Tim Benton has
pointed out, Le Corbusier’s atelier had left behind the signature ‘purist’ style by
the mid-1930s, when steel and concrete began to be replaced by the use of stone
54 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

and brick and that ‘Charlotte Perriand a substitué à son célèbre collier . . . un
collier de coquillages’ (2005, 15).
Indeed, no images of Perriand exist after 1930 which show her wearing her
ball-bearings necklace and she began to assemble a series of necklaces made from
materials such as sand roses and shells. At the same time she began to add found
objects as details in her exhibition stands (notably from 1929) and to use them as a
form of visual research, carefully and artfully photographing these objects under the
influence of surrealism. During the 1930s, Perriand began to spend more and more
time away from the city, finding an ever greater affinity with the natural world. Several
photographs by Pierre Jeanneret and others exist in which Perriand, confident in her
nakedness, is captured wearing necklaces made from natural materials at various
locations such as the beach at Dieppe and in the Savoy Alps (Figure 2.5).
The dramatic photograph of Perriand in the mountains conveys a completely
different image of the designer from that of the disciple of machine art of the

Figure 2.5 Charlotte Perriand in the Savoy Alps, c. 1935. © Archives Charlotte
Perriand. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016.
 Charlotte Perriand and Nancy Cunard 55

1920s. With an expansive gesture of her whole body, she offers herself up to
nature as she exercises. She is no less a modern woman but, if we look closely, we
can see that she wears what appears to be a simple white coral or pearl necklace.
The necklace, with which Perriand had become synonymous, was put away as
her return to nature became increasingly important and her career moved in a
different direction. Nevertheless, this straightforward collection of objects worn
as a symbol of the machine age had an important part to play in the formation
of Perriand’s identity as a modern woman and her determination to succeed as
a designer in her own right. As Jacques Barsac has written, ‘Charlotte Perriand
was a free woman. Free in her body, in her thoughts, in her creativity. A woman
of her time while most were lagging behind . . . she confronted the body of the
woman trapped in the straightjacket of the decorum and etiquette of the era’
(2007, 21).
Though not openly espousing any feminist cause, it is clear that Perriand’s
identity was formed directly by her desire to be a woman of her times. Indeed,
the abandonment of the wearing of the necklace can be seen as a sign of growing
maturity and confidence in herself and her abilities. The uncompromising
machine aesthetic had been abandoned in much of her design work by the
mid-1930s as Perriand sought to work in a political arena where she could
make a direct contribution to society. This was a détournement inspired by a
commitment to political change and, one suspects, a conscious rejection of the
outright adherence to the machine culture of the 1920s.
In 2007, a project by the British artist Sadie Murdoch attempted a feminist
reading of the iconic photograph of Perriand in the chaise longue through a
process of restaging (Figure 2.6). Her impersonation of Charlotte Perriand,
her clothes and the studio background drew attention to the fact that Perriand
herself directed the various photographic sessions that led to the image
becoming ubiquitous in the canon of modernist design. It also addresses the
issues of authorship in relation to the chaise itself that have been, belatedly,
settled in recent times (Sparke 2009, 480). In the image, Murdoch does not wear
a replica of Perriand’s necklace, but the floor is littered with ball bearings, some
of them describing part of a circle as a direct reference to it. As the artist says,
‘The chrome necklace as a decorative adornment made with objects used for
engineering was both feminine accoutrement and a signifier of the masculine
world of technology and machinery. It is an assertive embrace of pleasure
and modernity; like Perriand’s “Bar in the Attic” (1927), it is a gesture of self-
affirmation’ (Warburton 2007)
56 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 2.6 Sadie Murdoch, ‘Mirrored Photomontage 2’, 2007. Courtesy of the artist,
the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK and the Roberto Polo Gallery, Brussels, Belgium.

Through her research and restaging of the photograph, Murdoch manages

to convey something of the essence of the necklace’s significance in Perriand’s
formation of her own identity. There is, though, an additional element which does
not complete the conventional narrative. As Eva Diaz notes, ‘Murdoch subtly
disrupted Perriand’s previously impeccable deportment – she has broken Perriand’s
signature “ball-bearing” choker, its silver beads joining the fractured shadow to
form a mysterious constellation across the floor’ (2007). This is where Murdoch’s
restaging moves from historical recreation to the physical representation of the
necklace’s place in the mythology of modernist Paris in the late 1920s.
It is noteworthy that Charlotte Perriand does not seem to have been
photographed wearing either the gilded or blue glass versions of the necklace
in public or private. Examination of surviving photographs from the period
1927–1930 at the Charlotte Perriand archives bears this out. Clearly, Perriand
preferred to be photographed wearing the version that made the strongest impact
when in front of the camera. Like all jewellery of substance, it was intended to
 Charlotte Perriand and Nancy Cunard 57

communicate ideas about adornment and to be worn for effect, its symbolic
role being of additional importance. However, Charlotte Perriand’s ball-bearings
necklace was intended as more than just a decorative accoutrement of machine
modernism and it had a clear role, albeit for a short time, in the formation of the
designer’s identity as a modern woman and as a portable working demonstration
of modernist aesthetics. Perriand’s situation in the late 1920s was a period of
personal and professional growth. Ultimately, this was to lead to her reaching
the peak of her profession. In these early days, when the necklace was such a
significant symbol of her own transformation into a modern woman, it is worth
recalling part of Marshal Berman’s definition of modernity: ‘to be modern is to
find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth,
transformation of ourselves and the world’ (1991, 15).
In his text Publicité = Poésie, French modernist poet Blaise Cendrars lists his
‘seven wonders of the modern world’. These include ‘ball bearings by S.K.F.’ and
‘the naked nape of a woman’s neck who has just had her hair cut’ (1931, 212–
13). The text was written on 26 February 1927 and it is at the very least a fine
coincidence that Charlotte Perriand’s necklace should have been conceived at
pretty much the same time as Cendrars was musing on the objects and situations
that increasingly defined the modern world. Both clearly believed that the ball
bearing (real or imitation) in some way signified the highest state of modernity.
Cendrars’s observation that short hair for women also represented the spirit of
modern times is apposite. After all, Charlotte Perriand’s necklace could not be
worn effectively with long hair. That would lessen its impact both in terms of
how it was worn, how it would be seen and how it would reflect the movement
and dynamism of the modern world around it.

Nancy Cunard and the performance of African jewellery

In her 1931 pamphlet Black Man and White Ladyship, Nancy Cunard, heiress
to the vast shipping fortune of the Cunard family, condemns her mother (Maud
Alice Burke, Lady Cunard) and her social circle for their intolerant attitudes to
race. The reason for this was that Cunard had developed a strong and intimate
friendship with the black jazz musician Henry Crowder, whom she had first met
in the late 1920s in Venice and subsequently lived with in Paris and Normandy.
She describes the reaction to her relationship with Crowder and the warnings
from her mother’s circle (in the highest echelons of London society) that the
58 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

match was entirely inappropriate and could only end badly. This is how Nancy
Cunard describes the scene in Grosvenor Square:

At a large lunch party in Her Ladyship’s house, things are set rocking by one
of those bombs that throughout her ‘career’ Margot Asquith, Lady Oxford, has
been wont to hurl. No-one could fail to wish he had been at that lunch to see
the effect of Lady Oxford’s entry: ‘Hello Maud, what is it now – drink, drugs or
niggers?’ (1931)

Cunard also describes the opprobrium of composer Thomas Beecham, an intimate

of Lady Cunard and mainstay of her social circle, who says that she should be
‘tarred and feathered’ for her relationship with Crowder. The pamphlet is in two
sections. The first deals with the reaction to her friendship with Crowder and the
often highly personal attacks on her mother and her mother’s friends. The second
is concerned with Cunard’s views on the lamentable state of civil rights (in America
and elsewhere) for black men and women since the abolition of slavery. These two
themes formed the backbone of Cunard’s personal and political struggles in the
interwar years. Her life is well documented, and an assessment of her contribution
to poetry, publishing, radical politics and black civil rights makes her one of the
most fascinating of new women. Here, however, it is her collection of jewellery
and accessories that is of principal interest and I hope to show that this was an
important aspect of both her public and personal life. Indeed an understanding of
the jewellery collection itself sheds light on her considerable achievements.
Needless to say, the publication of the aforementioned privately printed and
strategically distributed pamphlet, unmistakable in its red cardboard cover and
bold black lettering, led to a final and irrevocable estrangement between mother
and daughter resulting in the latter being, effectively, disinherited. The copy of
the pamphlet consulted at the British Library contains a handwritten note (with
a signature I have been unable to decipher) part of which reads: ‘My dear John.
Many thanks for this regrettable work. Edith says she can detect the hand of
Wyndham Lewis throughout’ (Cunard 1931). That these readers found it hard to
believe that Cunard was capable of such invective unaided is symptomatic of the
way that members of her mother’s social circle often felt moved to undermine
her attempts to escape from that particular milieu. But from an early age, Cunard
had felt herself to be at odds with the culture and values of her social group and
she successfully cultivated an image of herself as a non-conformist, rebellious
type, actively seeking to challenge and overturn social mores and the norms of
behaviour meant to be adhered to by her particular generation of debutantes.
 Charlotte Perriand and Nancy Cunard 59

Her poetry, considered by some to be uneven in its quality and a medium

that was ‘uncongenial’ to her (Lucas 2005), nevertheless exhibits the passion
she held for the modern world and for the social and political causes that
she embraced. Cunard’s assault on her own class began in the mid-1920s and
was fuelled by her associations with numerous avant-garde writers and artists
such as T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Man Ray, Louis Aragon and Tristan Tzara. By
the middle of the next decade she was fully engaged in her struggles against
poverty, racism and European fascism. Her 1934 poem Tell It, Glen was written
in response to the fifth National Hunger March from Glasgow to London. The
poem ends thus: ‘Glen is my name, Northumberland – out of work / I did the
Hunger March in thirty-four. / Now sit and think: no job. / The dole drips pence.
/ Do I conclude: “Life’s this” or “Is there more?” ’ (Cunard 2005, 42). But the
contrast between Cunard’s own background and those she supported could
not have been more stark. Her position was on the fringes of the communist
party, but she never formally joined. As with other interwar literary figures (W.
H. Auden, George Orwell, Stephen Spender) the reaction against her own class
was partly inspired by contempt for its taste in art as much as by its disdain for
the dispossessed or marginalized. When Cunard refers to her mother’s ‘jewel
racket’, she makes a point about the commodification of objects as well as the
aesthetic choices made in the name of good taste. This taste was predictably that
which would not look out of place in a Western upper-class social milieu. To
Nancy’s distaste, every artefact that came into Lady Cunard’s possession had to
be assessed for its potential as an investment as well as for its artistic qualities.
The well-known images of Nancy Cunard produced during the interwar
years by the photographers Man Ray, Cecil Beaton and others, show Cunard
wearing large pieces of jewellery in the form of large wooden or African ivory
bracelets, beaded necklaces and earrings (Figure 2.7). In this period, she divided
her time between London and Paris, with occasional forays across the Atlantic
in the pursuit of political causes. From the mid-1920s until the outbreak of war,
Cunard’s accessories defined her image – along with her particularly individual
take on contemporary fashion.
By the end of the 1930s she had amassed a huge collection of African jewellery
and artefacts that she kept at her house at Réanville, Normandy, first home of
her ‘Hours’ printing press. As we have seen with the case of Charlotte Perriand,
jewellery and accessories can allow us to form an allegiance with a cause or,
indeed, a whole cultural movement. Cunard’s collection of jewellery clearly
expresses her solidarity with the black civil rights movement and a particular
60 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 2.7 Nancy Cunard photographed by Cecil Beaton for The Book of Beauty, 1930.
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s.

kind of pan-Africanism, but it is also bound up with some deeper personal

issues and anxieties.
Cunard left no complete autobiography, but in her books and articles about
other people she often included autobiographical sketches. In her Grand
Man: Memories of Norman Douglas, Cunard recalls how her interest in all things
African came about as a young girl in the form of ‘extraordinary dreams about
black Africa – “The Dark Continent” – with Africans dancing and drumming
around me, and I one of them, though still white, knowing, mysteriously enough,
how to dance in their own manner’ (1954, 140). Surviving portraits suggest that
Cunard began to wear African bracelets from the early 1920s. A portrait of a
cross-dressing Nancy Cunard by Eugene MacCown of 1923 shows her wearing
a top hat, a waistcoat and trousers (minus jacket) and a large (probably ivory)
bracelet on her left hand. In her friend Oskar Kokoschka’s portrait dated 1924,
Nancy is shown wearing a number of African bracelets on her left arm. It would
 Charlotte Perriand and Nancy Cunard 61

seem that from this point on until the later part of the 1930s Cunard and her
bracelets were almost inseparable. In the portrait by John Banting of 1932, her
lower arms are completely covered in ivory bracelets. She wears black gloves and
her head is tightly bound in a black turban.
Cunard’s close friendships with Parisian avant-garde artists and writers
Tristan Tzara and Louis Aragon (both of whom had large collections of African
art) developed her interest in this further. According to Daphne Fielding, ‘Her
passion for collecting ivories – not only bracelets but also carved gods, masks,
ornaments and fetishes – sometimes took her to Southampton and once, in a
shop in the suburbs, she came upon a large and unique collection of Africana
which she promptly bought, identifying and classifying them in due course with
the help of the British Museum’ (1968, 89). This is also pointed out by Hugh
Ford, who mentions in his introduction to the 1970 edition of Cunard’s Negro
anthology that she and Aragon ‘haunted’ shops in English and French seaside
towns looking for ‘sailor’s stuff ’ – that is, African artefacts (Ford 1970, xv).
Interest in the ‘primitive’ arts of Africa became an important preoccupation
of a number of avant-garde artists in the 1920s, following on from the earlier
interests of the expressionists and the cubists. All early twentieth-century artists
who were interested in the ‘savage’ art of the African colonies had a strong interest
in its formal qualities. However, in surrealist circles interest in these artefacts was
used to define a critical position with which to question the values of Western
society. As Winkiel writes, ‘For surrealists, African and Oceanic artifacts . . .
represented the farthest limits of human sensibility. Through encounters with
the primitive, surrealism sought freedom from oppressive social constraints and
freedom to imagine and enact the future differently. The juxtaposition between
civilized and savage contested European taxonomies and hierarchies of value’
(2006, 512–13). It was precisely this juxtaposition that Nancy Cunard embodies
in her choosing to wear her ‘armfuls’ of African ivories. In doing so she was
engaging in a demonstration of a dialectical position, using personal adornment
to draw out the historical tension between ‘civilization’ and ‘savagery’ and, as will
be shown later, this took on a performative aspect.
Cunard used her knowledge of African artefacts to open up another attack on
her mother’s modus operandi:

Her ladyship’s own snobbery is quite simple. If a thing is done she will, with a few
negligible exceptions, do it too. And the last person she has talked to is generally
right, providing he is someone. The British Museum seems to guarantee that
62 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

African art is art? Some dealers, too, are taking it up, so the thick old Congo
ivories that she thinks are slave bangles are perhaps not so hideous after all
though still very strange; one little diamond one would be better. (1931)

This encounter with African jewellery is like Picasso’s first encounters with
African art at the Trocadéro in Paris. He was at first disconcerted and, as Anne
Anlin Cheng contends, ‘the effect of the “primitive” object on the modern subject
is not only one of stylistic influence but also one of onto-visual realignment’
(2011: 21). In accessorizing her body in such a dramatic fashion, Cunard
was creating and projecting a new understanding of herself and outwardly
expressing her world view. Further, in indicating that her mother’s taste in (and
understanding of) jewellery is limited, she also makes an important point about
scale. At this point in her life, the large African bracelets would be deployed in
direct opposition to the values espoused by her mother and her circle.
Many of those who have been moved to write reminiscences of Nancy
Cunard have drawn attention to the impact of her jewellery wearing on those
in her company. The African bracelets were employed to gain attention and,
whether intentionally or inadvertently, made lasting impressions on friends,
acquaintances and lovers. One of Cunard’s admirers, Anthony Hobson, recalled
that conversations with her were ‘punctuated by the rhythmic clash of the rise and
fall of her African ivory bracelets . . . worn seven or eight on each arm’ (Gordon
2007, 292). William Plomer gives us a vivid image of Nancy on the eve of her
departure to support the Republican cause in Spain: ‘And when she moved to put
a cigarette or cup or glass to her lips, attention was inevitably attracted to her thin,
fine boned arms, both encased in such a concatenation of wide, weighty armlets
of rigid African ivory that the least movement produced a clacking sound, as of
billiard balls or the casual cakewalk of a skeleton’ (Fielding 1968, 121).
There is a similar scene in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1926 novel The Great Gatsby
where Catherine (Myrtle’s sister, here at Tom and Myrtle’s party) is described
thus: ‘When she moved about, there was an incessant clicking as innumerable
pottery bracelets jingled up and down upon her arms’ (Fitzgerald 2000, 32).
The sound of jewellery can be an important aspect of wearing and, during the
late 1920s when heavier statement jewellery was becoming popular, the impact
of sound on those in the vicinity should not be underestimated. Fitzgerald’s
fictional portrait of Catherine is of a woman who has pushed the bounds of
artificiality a little too far so that her appearance is odd and she has not quite
captured the ‘look’ of the day. Her movements are accompanied by the clicking
of her bracelets as if she were a giant insect.
 Charlotte Perriand and Nancy Cunard 63

Society author Daphne Fielding met Cunard at a party in 1926 at Keats’s

cottage in Hampstead. Nancy was ‘made up in the manner of a Van Dongen
model, swathed in tobacco-coloured silks, wearing what she called “armfuls of
ivories” – African bracelets that clacked and clattered together like castanets
with each of her graceful gestures’ (Fielding 1968, xiii). Cunard had a passionate,
argumentative nature that was often on public display, here in Parisian café
society: ‘Late night discussions concerning any infringement of justice were
dangerous and sometimes, in full spate of argument, she would emphasize a
point with a bombardment of bracelets’ (79). The bracelets had other uses
too. According to Louis Aragon, ‘Nancy drank and became drunk often. Then
she would become unpleasant, slapping her companion’s face with the ivory
or metal which clasped her from wrist to elbow’ (Gordon 2007, 113). In the
Epilogue to Henry Crowder’s memoir of Nancy As Wonderful As All That,
Robert L. Allen writes that Cunard ‘could be physically abusive when drinking.
A mutual friend, Janet Flanner, recalled seeing Crowder one day with a set of
bruise marks. She asked him what happened: “Just bracelet work, Miss Janet”,
he replied sardonically’ (Crowder, Speck and Robert 1987, 196). To extend the
theme of jewellery and violence, the Marchesa Casati is said to have worn her
lover Gabriele D’Annunzio’s bruises on her neck and arms in place of her usual
heavily extravagant jewels after a particularly torrid ride in a Venetian gondola
(Ryersson and Yaccarino 2009, 120). All jewellery marks the body in some way,
usually temporarily. That the effects of jewellery and jewellery wearing can evoke
a sense of violence, coercion and enslavement is a theme that will be returned
to later.
Cunard’s propensity to violence may or may not have been exaggerated and
we should not discount the fact that both Crowder and Aragon may have had
their own reasons for attempting to diminish the reputation of their former
lover. Nevertheless, her jewellery wearing was about performance and, in
particular, the physical performance of her personality. For example, Cunard
had upset Virginia Woolf (in all fairness probably not a very difficult task) with
the combination of her forceful personality and physical appearance. Describing
a party in the autumn of 1924 which did not seem to go well, Woolf writes,
‘Nancy Cunard shouldn’t have come – the anxious flibberti-gibbet with the
startled honest eyes, and all the green stones hung about her’, referring also to
the fact that Cunard ‘had no shadows, no secret places’ and ‘lived like a lizard
in the sun’ (Gordon 2007, 45). It is a vivid image and one that is all the more
effective for the way that Cunard’s accessories become part of the overriding
64 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

force of her personality. She refused to conform and the way she dressed was an
expression of an independent spirit. Cunard certainly followed fashion, but was
invariably photographed wearing something that was unusual or out of scale
or, sometimes, out of context. Studio photographers, including Cecil Beaton,
responded to this by choosing appropriate backgrounds against which she could
be photographed. In Beaton’s The Book of Beauty (1930), the accompanying text
to the photograph of Nancy Cunard (Figure 2.7) refers to her as being ‘like a robot
woman in a German film’ no doubt inspired by Brigitte Helm’s performance
in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (63). The assorted paraphernalia of Beaton’s studio
(mirror globes, shiny fabrics, geometric patterned backcloths) serve to strike up
a relationship with the modern accessories being worn by some of the sitters.
Before its appearance in The Book of Beauty the same photograph appeared on
the cover of The Sketch for 25 September 1929 accompanied by the legend ‘The
Lady of the Brobdingnagian bangles’, a Swiftian reference to their colossal size.
Beaton also includes a drawing of Cunard sitting on the floor surrounded
by an assortment of bangles as a child sits surrounded by toys. Nevertheless,
Cunard employed her image to maximum effect in the projection of her personal
identity. When this photograph was taken, Cunard was on the verge of the great
rupture with her family and London society. It was in her interests to make a
statement to this social group that she was on the move and about to repudiate
their values. In being portrayed as someone with a unique visual appearance
(a modern but not conventional beauty) Cunard was making the most of her
opportunities. As Graham Hughes puts it, ‘Showing off may sometimes be an
unlovable characteristic, and many people use jewels to advertise neither their
wealth, nor their taste, but simply their character’ (1963, 61). That character
was, at this time, forming itself into something that would propel Cunard into
confronting some of the most pressing issues of the 1930s – poverty, inequality,
the rise of fascism and the persistence of colonialism. While both Lady Cunard
and her daughter were photographed for The Book of Beauty, Nancy reports that
when the book appeared, Lady Cunard consigned her own copy to the flames
(Cunard 1931).
In the context of Cunard’s support for the civil rights movement it hardly needs
pointing out that this was a reaction on her part to the mixture of ignorance,
exploitation, cynicism and sensationalism that haunted the whole colonial
enterprise and formed popular western attitudes to so-called primitive cultures
in the 1930s. Celebrity features in contemporary magazines such as Harper’s
Bazaar reinforced these attitudes. In October 1935 the magazine published a
 Charlotte Perriand and Nancy Cunard 65

series of photographs of Cole Porter’s well-publicized southern hemisphere

cruise. Departing from New York on the Franconia he took in Singapore, New
Zealand and South Africa among other destinations. Many of the photographs
show Porter and his entourage posing with ‘natives’ from the countries visited.
One of Porter’s companions appears completely blacked up at a fancy dress
party on board ship. He sports a feathered headdress and very long beads as
a way of appearing to have ‘gone native’. Ironically, the Franconia was operated
by the Cunard Line which was no stranger to producing stereotypical images of
black people. Integral to the advertisement for the Franconia’s Caribbean cruise
published in Harper’s Bazaar for January 1927 are two stereotypical wide eyed
black cherubs climbing palm trees.
In her angry pamphlet, Cunard’s praise for ‘the African’ is made clear:

He made music and unparalleled rhythm and some of the finest sculpture in the
world. Nature gave him the best body amongst all the races. Yet he is a ‘miserable
savage’ because there are no written records, no super-cities, no machines – but
to prove the lack of these an insuperable loss, a sign of racial inferiority, you
must attack the root of all things and see where – if anywhere – lies truth. There
are many truths. (1931)

As early as 1920 Bloomsbury artist and critic Roger Fry, having visited the
exhibition of ‘Negro Sculpture’ at the Chelsea Book Club, felt moved to write
in the pages of the Athenaeum that the African representations of the human
form that he saw there were ‘great sculpture – greater, I think, than anything we
produced even in the Middle Ages’ (Fry 1981, 71). For Fry, the greatness of these
works lay in their ‘complete freedom’ and their formal qualities derived from the
interplay of cylinders, planes and masses (71). In these pieces, Fry saw formal
greatness but not a great culture. To achieve this, he argues, requires ‘the power
of conscious critical appreciation and comparison’ something that, for him, was
lacking in black African societies (72–3). In contrast, Nancy Cunard’s view was
that African art required no cadre of critics, commentators or institutions to
validate its cultural achievements. Her sensibilities towards the culture were
brought about through close personal contact with the objects produced by
African culture – through wearing African jewellery and collecting African
sculpture she was attempting to feel its life and its power as intimately as possible
in an almost visceral way.
Cunard was close to the surrealists and their anti-colonialism sought to
emphasize that African objects should not be collected in the manner of
66 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

trophies but as aids to exploring the unconscious. Some of this was to be

explored in exhibits shown by Louis Aragon at the Exposition Anti-impérialiste
held at the same time, but in opposition to the official Exposition Coloniale in
Paris in 1931. Palermo notes that Aragon’s exhibit, which included ‘art nègre,
océanien et peau-rouge’ (negro, oceanic and red skin art) were intended to
draw attention to the destruction of these objects by colonialist missionaries,
while using the general labels ‘fétiches’ and ‘art sauvage’ to describe them
(Palermo 2009). Although the exhibits chosen by Aragon constituted a
political act, they also had other resonances central to the ideas of surrealism.
For Cunard, the collecting of such objects probably also had a deeper personal
meaning. According to David Bate, ‘for Freud, “The finding of an object is in
fact a refinding of it”. This object in psychoanalysis is the (love) object of desire’
(2004, 194). This may have some profound implications for Cunard’s attraction
to the African bracelets because, if a Freudian account is contemplated, they
can serve either as ‘props’ (standing in for someone or something held dear in
childhood) or as a way of developing the subject’s ego through identification
with other people or, indeed, an ‘other’.
1934 saw the publication of Cunard’s anthology Negro on which she worked
with the assistance of Raymond Michelet from 1931 to 1933. Its 854 pages
contain a plethora of writings about the black experience from the point of
view of politics, society and culture. The contributions (from black and white
authors) are drawn from a wide range of cultures and backgrounds (America,
Africa and Europe) and constitute a mixture of testament, polemic, analysis,
history and poetics. Cunard contributed seven major pieces of writing, including
the Foreword, in which she describes Africa as ‘a continent in the iron grip of
its several imperialist oppressors’ (1934, iv). This sets the tone for the rest of
the book, which was clearly intended to be a call to arms as much as a literary
survey. The reception of this still controversial anthology of literary and political
works has been thoroughly researched by Tory Young (2000) and Laura Winkiel
(2006). Of most significance to the study of Nancy Cunard’s jewellery, however,
is the anthology’s section devoted to Negro Sculpture and Ethnology.
Masks, figures and jewellery from museums of ethnography (notably the
Trocadéro in Paris and the Tervueren Museum in Brussels) are illustrated
alongside examples from a number of private collections, including Cunard’s
own, photographed by ‘Rolf Ubach’ (actually the surrealist photographer Raoul
Ubac). Published objects from her collection included an Ashanti doll, Zulu
beaded anklets and a beaded girdle as well as a selection of ivory bracelets
 Charlotte Perriand and Nancy Cunard 67

Figure 2.8 A selection of Nancy Cunard’s African bracelets from her Negro anthology,
1934. Photograph by Raoul Ubac. © The British Library Board (shelfmark L.R.41.b.12).
© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016. Image used with kind permission of the
Literary Estate of Nancy Cunard.

(Figure 2.8). Ubac’s images, no doubt produced under the direction of Cunard
herself, are redolent of order and they are arranged in a way that suggests that
some kind of taxonomic activity is taking place. At Cunard’s home in Réanville,
the bracelets were arranged systematically on a bespoke wooden frame where
different sizes and weights were loosely grouped together, perhaps for ease of
access or preference in wearing. Jacques-André Boiffard photographed this
arrangement in the 1930s (Frioux-Salgas 2014, 25). The size, weight and sheer
68 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

number of the assorted bracelets meant that Cunard would have had no use for
a conventional jewellery box.
In Negro Cunard’s familiarity with colonial ethnographic texts is made clear.
Underneath the photograph of her collection of ivory bracelets is a short section
of text from George Basden’s 1921 work Among the Ibos of Nigeria in which he
observes:

Amongst the Ibo [Igbo] people in Nigeria the most valuable and the most
prized of all adornments are the anklets and bracelets of ivory. These can only
be worn by rich women or by such as are high rank . . . Young women during
their course in nkpu (ceremonies that take place after puberty during the pre-
marriage period) sometimes wear ivory bracelets right up the arm, but this is
quite a temporary arrangement. (Cunard 1934, 730)

The author goes on to say that the ivory bracelets are so precious that nothing
can induce older women to part with them. It is possible that Cunard may have
been inspired by Basden’s text and by some of the photographs of anklets and
the Igbo women themselves. One particular image, uncomfortable to look at in
postcolonial times, nevertheless shows how the ivory bracelets and other items
of jewellery were worn on the arms, around the neck and the legs of the women
(Figure 2.9).
Given Cunard’s praise for African culture and her recognition that it cannot
be understood in terms of a single truth about societies or civilizations, she
would no doubt have been appalled by Basden’s preface, in which he asserts
that ‘the black man himself does not know his own mind. He does the most
extraordinary things, and cannot explain why he does them. He is not controlled
by logic: he is the victim of circumstance, and his policy is very largely one of
drift’ adding that ‘men constantly act contrary to their better judgment, and,
at times, even wrongly, because they firmly believe they have no alternative’
(Basden 1921, 9–10). In the aftermath of the First World War, Cunard would no
doubt have recognized the absurd irony of Basden’s latter claim.
Here it is worth considering the nature of the bracelets that Cunard so avidly
collected and wore so brilliantly. In her account of African bracelets, Anne van
Cutsem notes that ‘Bracelets are an important document about people who
do not have a written history’ and in relation to their form ‘the unifying circle
maintains the cohesion between body and soul’ (2002, 7). This underlines the
fact that the unknown but highly skilled makers were, of course, entirely capable
of expressing themselves through symbolic forms. Cunard wore them, to some
 Charlotte Perriand and Nancy Cunard 69

Figure 2.9 Plate from George Basden’s 1921 work Among the Ibos of Nigeria.

extent, as ‘fashion’, but as a form of adornment that drew attention to the skill,
craftsmanship and form-giving capabilities of their makers. Cunard’s collection
contained examples of many different types of bracelet. Some of them were plain
bands and others were decorated with incised lines, geometric patterns or dots.
The African bracelets so admired by Cunard were, ironically, the products
of an exploitative trade well before this was recognized as such in more recent
times. The relationship between ‘the African’ and the elephant, the pursuance
and exploitation of which was an important aspect of African culture was, as
David H. Shayt notes, one of the incentives for the European colonization of
Africa (Shayt 1992, 371). The transformation of ivory into (among other things)
70 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

fans, shoe horns, cutlery handles, billiard balls and piano keys meant that ivory
reached a strange level of ubiquity in western society by the end of the nineteenth
century. Nancy Cunard wore ivories that had a direct connection to the elephant
itself, since the tapered shape of the tusk lent itself to the production of bracelets
of different diameters. The material is noted for its whiteness, but in contact
with the oils of the skin and with repeated application of palm oil, its colouring
develops, eventually, towards a deep amber and sometimes red colour. Cunard’s
bracelets were probably already in an advanced state of colouration when she
acquired them, since to keep ivory white requires assiduous attention. She did,
however, comment on their colouring when noting the ‘generously rich scale of
tones in African wood and ivory, so vibrant when seen at close range’ (Cunard
1969, 151–2).
Cunard knew of the symbolic power that these objects held (as ivory) and was
also aware of how they were used in relationships. Many were worn by men and
women. Some were revered rather than worn. Others were deliberately meant
to be too heavy to allow the wearer to perform manual tasks, thus indicating
an elevated status. Most ivory bracelets were, however, used to indicate if not
an aristocratic position then at the very least an important one. Some bracelets
were worn to indicate ownership – that is, that someone was ‘owned’ in
marriage – or of favoured status. Cunard was not, of course, ignorant of these
meanings, but used the objects to reinforce her statements about colonialism
and pan-Africanism and, consciously or not, employed the bracelets as a form
of demonstrating belonging. According to van Cutsem, the Igbo in Onitsha,
where the ivory bracelets are used to indicate social rank, ‘knock their bracelets
together’ as a form of greeting (2002, 17). Phillip L. Ravenhill says that among
the Baule (Côte d’Ivoire) the tradition is to wear a number of bracelets on each
arm even during work so that: ‘Worn constantly, the bracelets would rub and
bang together until the connecting surfaces fit perfectly against each other;
each downward stroke of the pestle pounding the yams in the mortar would
be accompanied by the rhythmic clack of the bracelets’ (1992, 118). This clearly
recalls Cunard’s exploitation of the sound of the ivory bracelets herself. She used
this to indicate opposition to conventional modes of western adornment where
concentration is on the ocular rather than the haptic or aural.
The wearing of ivories in Africa is also reported as causing a considerable
amount of discomfort. Herbert M. Cole observed that among the Igbo ‘these
ornaments, being heavy and cumbersome, cause considerable discomfort; yet
it has long been recognized that the degree of physical discomfort is sometimes
 Charlotte Perriand and Nancy Cunard 71

inverse to the level of status in African personal decoration’ (1992, 214). This
raises an intriguing question about Cunard. Did she wear these bracelets as a
way of identifying herself with an African, rather than an English, aristocracy?
Cunard’s own adoption of the African jewellery is not without its points of
controversy. Unlike other Western women, Cunard chose to wear actual African
jewellery, not jewellery that had been made in the West to an African design
or under African influence. In doing this she was seeking authenticity as well
as solidarity with the African cause. As pointed out already, she was militantly
anticolonial (as were her surrealist friends) and regarded African culture as
having equal status. Yet she was happy to wear these bracelets out of context
and in ways that contrasted with her Western style of dress. Their provenance
(and also their materiality, much less of an issue in the 1930s) was seemingly
not problematic to Cunard who avidly collected these pieces. Either a spirit of
irony was at work here or she wanted (as is most likely) to amplify the shock
that her contemporaries felt about her allegiances. In a letter to Clyde Robinson
in 1961, Cunard refers to her relationship with Africa in the following way: ‘As
for wishing for some of it [blood] to be Coloured, no; that’s beyond me. That,
somehow, I have NOT got in me – not the American part of it. But the AFRICAN
part, ah, that is my ego, my soul’ (Ford 1970, xii). This is an interesting take on
the idea of her ‘Africanness’ because, for a brief time in the early 1930s, Cunard’s
self-identification with black Africa took a strange turn – and one in which her
jewellery collection played a major part.
As she embarked on the preliminary work for her Negro anthology, it would
seem that Cunard wanted to perform her jewellery in a way that expressed the
themes of slavery and bondage. In the photographic sessions undertaken with
the British photographer Barbara Ker-Seymer, Cunard wears quite different
jewellery. The signature heavy bracelets are gone and are replaced by tightly
coiled strings of coloured beads around her arm and neck. These adornments
are not meant to move and signify restriction, constriction and perhaps bondage
and slavery. The same effect would not have been achieved with the larger pieces.
Here they are tightly wound around and are in stark contrast to her ‘performance’
of the African ivory bangles where, in conversation and disputation with friends
and adversaries, they slide up and down the arm and create their own audible
presence. Is Cunard empathizing with the fate of African slaves or lynched
Southern blacks or is she, a white woman, trivializing their experience? Why
did she want to have herself photographed in this way? In some of the images
Cunard appears black due to the reversal of the tones in some of Ker-Seymer’s
72 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

solarized images. In others she appears lost, detached, vulnerable and afraid or
perhaps, as Jane Marcus has suggested, on the edge of orgasm (Marcus 2004,
134; see also Figure 2.10). Indeed, in her recollections of her youthful dreams
of Africa, Cunard says that ‘everything was full of movement in these dreams;
it was that which enabled me to escape in the end, going further, even further!
And all of it was a mixture of apprehension that sometimes turned into joy, and
even rapture’ (1954, 140). This is what makes Cunard’s desire to show herself as if
she were suffering pain so interesting. In using her beaded jewellery to increase
the impact of her impersonation of the black African (such as attempting to
create the impression of an elongated neck or shackled arm) she also makes
an uncomfortable encounter between Western BDSM practices and practices
of the slave trade. Her beads appear to be choking her and this self-abnegation
can either be read as an expression of solidarity with those who suffered because

Figure 2.10 Nancy Cunard photographed by Barbara Ker-Seymer, 1930. Image used
with kind permission of the Literary Estate of Nancy Cunard. © Harry Ransom Center,
The University of Texas at Austin.
 Charlotte Perriand and Nancy Cunard 73

of their race or as an inappropriate dalliance. Either way, they are disturbingly

haunting images.
Marcus also refers to Cunard using fashion to express ideas of bondage: ‘even
her leg warmers – this is the early 30s – are a form of chic shackles. She almost
always kept her head bound – in hats and scarves, veils and close bands or
ribbons’ (2004, 133). These photographs were private and taken by an avowedly
experimental photographer, so the nature of the photo session must be
considered in that light. The fact that Cunard felt at ease enough to perform
or be directed in these poses is worth noting. Nevertheless, Marcus says that
although these photographs were made for Cunard’s own pleasure, they still
represent ‘her unshakable commitment to the politics of protest against racism’
(2004, 134).
In an effort to publicize some of the notated musical compositions of her
lover Henry Crowder (some of them musical settings of poems by Cunard,
Ezra Pound and others) Cunard collected them together in the volume Henry-
Music, published by the Hours Press in 1930. The front and reverse covers were
designed by Man Ray and contain images of her collection of African jewellery
and artefacts (more idiosyncratically arranged than in Ubac’s later photograph
for Negro) as well as a picture of Crowder himself (Figure 2.11). Nancy is in
attendance, but only in the form of her fully laden braceleted arms. Cunard
confirms that the African artefacts were from her own collection, or from ‘a
famous private collection’ as she puts it in her Hours Press booklet (1930, 7).
She is full of praise for Man Ray’s front and back covers for the volume: ‘His
vision in taking and placing and, as it were, in “mating” various objects, was
often supreme. I think the many African ivory bracelets of considerable age, and
the other pieces so beautifully set together by him on the two covers of Henry-
Music are another proof of this’ (Cunard 1969, 151). She was later to describe
the image in the following way: ‘At the back of Henry’s fine full face on the front
cover is what looks like a sort of high collar – in reality my arms laden entirely
with dozens of thin, disc-like old ivory bracelets from West Africa’ (151).
Marcus’s interpretation of this act focuses on the element of control exerted
through Cunard’s absence: ‘She stands behind her man in a form of simultaneous
effacement and exhibitionism, saying: He is mine – but I’m not there’ (1995, 49).
Cunard is represented solely by her jewellery. These pieces were such a strong
part of her identity that they could stand in for her. They could also suggest
a form of control through representing a weight on Crowder’s shoulders. In
surviving accounts, there are strong suggestions that Cunard tried to exert too
74 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 2.11 Front cover of Henry Crowder’s Henry Music, 1930. Design and
photography by Man Ray. © The British Library Board (shelfmark H.2012). © Man
Ray Trust/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016. Image used with kind permission
of the Literary Estate of Nancy Cunard.

much control over Crowder. Jane Stevenson reports that author and aesthete
Harold Acton, a contributor to Henry-Music, ‘once overheard Nancy Cunard . . .
exhorting her lover Henry Crowder to “be more African”. “But I ain’t African”,
he protested, with remarkable restraint. “I’m American” ’ (2008, 116). The cover
of Henry-Music seems to be trying very hard to form in the mind an image
of Africa (rather than the American South) as the crucible in which Crowder’s
jazz sensibilities were formed. Cunard’s poem Equatorial Way, set to music by
 Charlotte Perriand and Nancy Cunard 75

Crowder in the book, is an indication of this. In her memoir These Were the
Hours, Cunard readily admits that this piece was ‘merely dictated by the romantic
thought of the black man’s return to the “Dark Continent” ’ (1969, 150).
Leininger-Miller writes of the experience of African-American painter
Palmer Hayden, who worked in Paris in the 1920s and early 1930s. Like
Crowder, he felt substantially more American than African. He is quoted as
saying ‘I never had any desire to paint anything about Africa. I painted what
Negroes, colored people, us Americans do . . . we’re a brand new race, raised
and manufactured in the U.S’ (Leininger-Miller 2001, 102). Hayden produced
a number of watercolours of African dancers (whom he had seen performing
at the 1931 Exposition coloniale) which appropriate stereotypical images of
Africans and their costume – including jewellery and masks. For Leininger-
Miller, although these images ‘are not excessively offensive, but rather have a
sense of naïveté about them’ they point to the problem of to what extent African
American culture had ‘internalized white perceptions’ (2001, 100). The situation
whereby Nancy Cunard appropriated the real objects of African culture and
displayed and performed them publicly points to a yearning on her part for
something that she had never directly experienced (Cunard only ever visited the
northern part of Africa) and a melancholy desire, ultimately futile, to approach
a state of Africanness that can bring her closer to the oppression experienced
by the captive. This spirit lingers in the photographs of Cunard by Ker-Seymer.
For the onlooker, this process of appropriation would have set up other
resonances. As has been pointed out in relation to Josephine Baker’s performance
in the 1927 film La Sirène des tropiques, ‘Baker performs the same dance in the
tropics and in Paris: however, the change in locale affords it a different meaning,
one specific to each context. In the tropics, the dance connotes the savage, while
in Paris it is understood to be “modern” ’ (Murphy, Ezra and Fursdick 2014,
272). Thus the change of physical context of these objects changes the meaning
of Cunard’s African jewellery from that of an authentic cultural object to one
that expresses a modern(ist) sensibility. The objects of adornment are, therefore,
made new by their contact with modern culture. Cunard specifically deploys
her African bracelets in this new context in order to draw attention to them as
critical jewellery objects.
Although photographed wearing a large ivory bracelet in Madrid in 1936
(Ford 1970), Nancy had left her bracelets behind when she left France to support
the Republican cause in Spain. Nevertheless, Sylvia Warner mentions them as
being worn during the Second World War in 1942 or 1943 (Gordon 2007, 264).
76 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

But the vast majority of Cunard’s African bracelets did not survive the second
war. Her house at Réanville was ransacked by locals and used as a billet by the
occupying German forces. On her first visit back to the house in March 1945,
Cunard discovered:

Of the entire collection of African and other primitive sculpture not one single
piece remained, and most of the African ivory bracelets had vanished along
with the trunk they were in. Georgette [the local innkeeper’s wife and friend of
Cunard] had picked up some of them in the fields, mostly those thin, disclike
ones that Man Ray had photographed for Henry-Music. (1969, 203)

Cunard continued to wear African jewellery after the war, but not as often and
certainly not in the same extravagant manner. An exception is the photograph
taken by Hugh Ford of Cunard flamboyantly ‘performing’ some of her bracelets
at her second French house for possibly the last time in 1963 (Ford 1970). Two
years later she was dead. A small collection of pieces were exhibited alongside
some of Cunard’s African sculptures at the exhibition ‘L’Atlantique noir’ de
Nancy Cunard, held at the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, in 2014. This exhibition
was dedicated to her struggle for black civil rights and to the development of
the Negro anthology. The impact of placing some of Cunard’s personal effects
in close proximity to the examples of her literary output and political activism
served to show that the ivories were, in fact, to be considered as much more
than memorializing objects. With this display it became possible to consider
her jewellery in a completely new light – as objects about which we remain
ambivalent, yet real objects of great significance that helped to define Cunard’s
personality and career while embodying the political struggles and clashes of
cultures and ideologies of the first half of the twentieth century. This may seem
an exaggerated claim for a collection of jewellery, but the vitality with which
these objects were worn and the regularity with which they literally clashed
together in the cause of passionate argument render them important accessories
to a remarkable period of political and cultural activity.
 3

Modernism and Modernity

It is as if one were having one of those dreams provoked by an empty stomach: a

tiny ball rolls toward you from very far away, expands into a close-up and
finally roars right over you. You can neither stop it or escape it, but lie there
chained, a helpless little doll swept away by the giant colossus in whose ambit it
expires. Flight is impossible. (Kracauer 1995, 332)

Writing in 1924, and with this vivid image, German sociologist and critic
Siegfried Kracauer was attempting to portray the unstoppable momentum of
change that increasingly characterized the mass culture of the modern world.
Here, unsurprisingly for a critic of the medium, he is indebted to images
from film (the helpless victim tied to the railway line, the inevitability of the
on-rushing colossus, the close-up shot) to help him make his point. Ultimately,
Kracauer’s critique of mass culture set out to expose the reliance for culture on
the ‘distraction industries’ (film, advertising, popular shows) on the part of the
working populace, expressed powerfully in his analysis of The Tiller Girls in his
essay ‘The Mass Ornament’ of 1927. But in this extract he is writing of ‘Boredom’
which has become ‘the only proper occupation, since it provides a kind of
guarantee that one is, so to speak, still in control of one’s existence’ (Kracauer
1995, 334).
For a cultural critic like Kracauer, the forces of modernity were shackled
to those of capitalism, leading to an inexorable, almost inescapable sense of
obligation to engage in the products and processes of consumption. In the case
of The Tiller Girls, the choreographed and carefully recorded synchronous
movements destroy any individuality they may possess. They become
‘indissoluble girl clusters whose movements are demonstrations of mathematics’
(Kracauer 1995, 76). The forces of modernity, Kracauer seems to be arguing,
are producing a different kind of visual culture – one in which the technology
of production is playing a crucial role in forming a new aesthetic of modern
78 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

life. This is characterized, among other things, by the rapidity with which new
ideas are produced, absorbed, rejected and surpassed. Fashion and jewellery
can be seen as clear exponents of this tendency, but only part of this involves
consideration of new stylistic approaches to adornment. Kracauer’s idea that the
‘Mass Ornament’ (on film and on stage) was somehow a new way of thinking
about ornament for the mechanical age is interesting, because his contention was
that, ‘The ornament, detached from its bearers, must be understood rationally. It
consists of lines and circles like those found in textbooks on Euclidean geometry,
and also incorporates the elementary components of physics, such as waves and
spirals. Both the proliferations of organic forms and the emanations of spiritual
life remain excluded’ (Kracauer 1995, 77–8). So the mechanical age produces a
‘rational’ ornament in accord with the mass culture of the day. Unlike the lavish
abstractions of late nineteenth-century ornament, which often sought to embody
a spiritual or pseudomystical view of nature, mass ornament is produced by
mechanical means for widespread consumption. Whether interpreted through
image or object, this is a clear attempt to identify a cultural shift in thinking
about ornament and decoration under the influence of the forces of modernity.
For fashion historian Elizabeth Wilson, modernity ‘refers to things both
intangible and undeniably material: the atmosphere and culture of a whole epoch,
its smell, its sounds, its rhythm, while also pointing out that it is ‘not defined by
Reason, but by speed, mobility and mutability’ (2005, 9). The combined forces
of change and novelty brought about a good part of that mutability. We can
see this very clearly in the variety of costume jewellery that became popular
in the 1920s and 1930s as well as in the ranges of ‘high jewellery’ produced by
the major houses for a smaller, more exclusive market. However, any discussion
of the relationship between modernity and modernism in jewellery must also
be considered against the backdrop of attitudes to adornment, ornament and
decoration within the wider modern movement.

Ornament and modern design

Due to its nature as adornment, jewellery was largely excluded from the
emerging narratives of modernism because for many modernists it had no
purpose beyond the embellishment of a surface or a distraction from the pure
form of the body. It could not, by default, play any major role in the development
of the modern aesthetic because this had its origins in the new architecture and
 Modernism and Modernity 79

design responding to new conditions of material science, sociology, culture and

politics. Viennese architect Adolf Loos’s infamous but highly influential essay of
1908 ‘Ornament and Crime’, in which ornament was denounced as a primitive
urge and the domain solely of the criminal or the ‘degenerate’, was a plea for the
banishment of ornament from modern life on aesthetic, cultural and economic
grounds (Loos 1971). His call for the abandonment of ornament created some
of the cultural conditions for the growth of the modern movement in central
Europe and beyond after the First World War and fuelled the debate about the
place of decoration in modern design. This culminated in the publication of
numerous polemics against ornament in the interwar period typified by Le
Corbusier’s The Decorative Art of Today, his response to the 1925 Paris Exposition
des art décoratifs first published in the same year. Not only does he name-check
Loos and paraphrase the latter by asserting that ‘the more cultivated a people
becomes, the more decoration disappears’, Corbusier roundly attacks decoration
as ‘baubles, charming entertainment for a savage’ (1987, 85).
Ideas about the new architecture were at the forefront of attempts to
fundamentally question adornment and ornament. For example, in his 1924
essay ‘Towards a Plastic Architecture’, De Stijl painter and architect Theo van
Doesburg described the new architecture variously as ‘elemental’, ‘economic’,
‘functional’ and ‘anti-decorative’ (van Doesburg 1971). Henry-Russell Hitchcock
and Phillip Johnson’s Museum of Modern Art exhibition (and book) The
International Style (1932) contained a similar section that called directly for ‘the
avoidance of applied decoration’. In short, we would most likely be searching
in vain for any endorsement of the impulse to adorn, so central to the practice
of making and wearing jewellery, among the architects of the heroic period
of modern architecture. The polemics relating to the primacy of function,
rationality, purity of form and standardization of production dominated the
discourse of architectural modernism in the interwar years and it must not be
forgotten that this discourse often formed the basis for discussions in other areas
of the visual arts.
In his seminal book Towards a New Architecture, first published in 1923, Le
Corbusier writes uncompromisingly, ‘Decoration is of a sensorial and elementary
order, as is color, and is suited to simple races, peasants and savages . . . The
peasant loves ornament and decorates his walls. The civilized man wears a well-
cut suit and is the owner of easel pictures and books’ (1989, 143). Nevertheless,
Flora Samuel has commented how Le Corbusier later lamented the lack of colour
and ornament in men’s dress after Second World War, indicating a significant
80 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

shift in his thinking (Samuel 2004). But here in 1923, at the heart of his text lies
the kind of statement that was intended to identify culture and progress with the
rejection of ornamentation in the tradition of Loos: ‘Decoration is the essential
overplus, the quantum of the peasant; and proportion is the essential overplus,
the quantum of the cultivated man’ (Le Corbusier 1989, 143).
Mark Wigley identifies in the writings of Le Corbusier, Siegfried Giedion
and other modernists a strong desire to strip away the surfaces of architecture,
to remove ornament and to purify it of decorative elements. For Giedion, the
very idea of ‘fashion’ represented a ‘shield’ of surface appearances, sometimes
consisting (in an architectural sense) not only of old clothes covering new
structures, but also new clothes covering old structures (Wigley 1995). For
Giedion, both tendencies were equally regrettable. Wigley also contends that
for modernist architects like Marcel Breuer ‘the modern movement is the
architectural equivalent of the masculine resistance to fashion’ (1995, 119).
Writing in the Architectural Review for April 1935, Breuer stressed that the
clarity of modern architecture was the result of the ‘renunciation of all irrational
forms’ and that we have no use for beauty in the form of a foreign body, or
ornament’ (1935, 135–6). These comments were not aimed at jewellery per se
but they set the tone for considerations of adornment in general and a strong
echo of Flügel’s ‘great masculine renunciation’ can be heard here (see Chapter 1).
Arguments for and against ornament and decoration were to be regularly
played out in the arts and design magazines across Europe in the interwar
period. For example, monthly Parisian magazine Art et décoration devoted
considerable space from April to November 1933 to a survey entitled ‘Evolution
ou mort de l’ornement?’ (‘Evolution or Death of Ornament?’). This survey,
which included responses from prominent designers, aesthetes, critics and
industrialists, was intended to assess the state of ornament in modern design,
whether it was necessary economically, aesthetically or, indeed, psychologically.
A further discussion took place on whether there would ever be a return to
ornament and what role this might play in the formation of a French national
identity. Writer and critic Fabien Sollar summarized the views submitted to the
journal during the course of the survey. In his summary, he cites a number of
well-known French artists, designers and art commentators who had either
predicted the death or rebirth of ornament. Most of the commentary addresses
architecture and furniture and the contribution of jeweller Raymond Templier
was to emphasize that ‘even goldsmithing and jewellery are governed by the new
architectural aesthetic’ (Sollar 1933, ii). It was a common argument advanced
 Modernism and Modernity 81

by those jewellers influenced by the modern movement in design that in the

composition of modern jewellery, it was best to be guided by architectural or
mathematical principles and that this approach helped not only to render pieces
modern but also placed them on the same intellectual footing as architecture.
In a similar way, silversmith Jean Puiforcat was clearly able to demonstrate, and
promote, his use of the golden section and other mathematical techniques in the
design and manufacturing of his modern silverware (Bliss 2003). Naturally, not
all those who submitted responses to the Art et décoration survey were keen to
follow this line, as the views of Waldemar George reported by Sollar show: ‘art
has not evolved towards simplicity; it has evolved towards a form of machine
expression . . . it is the brutal and spontaneous expression of a culture of which
the factory is the centre of attraction’ (Sollar 1933, i). Nevertheless, courting the
influence of architecture was one way in which those involved in the ‘minor arts’
could gain respect for their craft within modernism. As Nancy Troy has pointed
out: ‘modernist discourse has consistently maintained a distinction between
high art and the decorative arts, embracing the former while keeping the latter
at a distance . . . One of the reasons for this is the idea of constraint within a
practice – whether commercial, technical or, indeed, artistic’ (1991, 1).
Parisian jewellery houses of the 1920s and 1930s gained a relatively large
amount of attention in the art and design periodicals of the day because of their
conscious attempts to have their work taken seriously outside of the traditional
confines of the jewellery trade. This is particularly the case with those firms
who were sympathetic to the modernist cause. Alliances with critics, editors,
organizers of exhibitions and the employment of photographers, interior
designers, artists and even poets in the service of promoting, displaying and
eulogizing their products served to put jewellery in an unlikely position at the
forefront of contemporary design in Paris. For a short time, the products of these
studios and workshops produced a revolution in jewellery design that was to
spread internationally. By 1930 it became possible to buy a piece from a modern
jeweller that had attained a status beyond that of an objet d’art, towards a piece
of design that was capable of being compared aesthetically, technically and
philosophically with modern paintings, buildings or furniture. Furthermore,
these pieces were able to take their place alongside the contingent aspects of
contemporary fashion, holding their own as accessories alongside the products
of the fashion houses.
Although the world of jewellery and jewellers perpetuated itself (then as now)
on the basis of its connection with ‘eternal’ values (both cultural and material),
82 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

these values – allied to current trends in modern design – were played upon to
create a situation where jewellery could be seen to almost divorce itself from
fashion. Being allied with an ‘architectural’ aesthetic no doubt helped this idea
to be perpetuated. Yet, writing of interwar fashion, Valerie Steele notes that ‘the
new fashions in dress were not based on functionalism or common sense any
more than avant-garde art was “functional” ’ and this is key to understanding
the relationship between fashion and modernism. Steele also writes that ‘like the
new painting, the new music, and the new literature, fashion was undergoing
an internal stylistic revolution. The so-called cross-fertilization between fashion
and art, however, has mostly been one-way’ (1998: 234). Jewellery’s relationship
with fashion is crucial, but it is interesting to consider whether the one-way
traffic described by Steele also applies to jewellery. There are countless examples
of jewellery that often slavishly adapt a modernist language of form in order to
appeal to a fashionable sense of being modern. But, as we have seen with the case
of Nancy Cunard, to be modern also means to be able to express an individuality
that is at odds with contemporary mores. In her case, recontextualizing African
jewellery as a language of adornment as critique also created a modernist
language of accessorizing much closer to the avant-gardist spirit of cubism than
that of ‘modernistic’ fashion. The choice of what to wear and how and when to
wear it is a strategy that can bring to the fore both the individual’s personality
and their raison d’être. If it is difficult to see any meaningful two-way traffic
between the worlds of fashion and art, what follows here aims to suggest that in
the case of jewellery the aesthetic, material and conceptual interests of jewellery
artists and designers were often of equal cultural significance and, in the case of
certain pieces of jewellery, sometimes at the forefront of avant-garde practice.

Modernism and French jewellery

In France, jewellers of the modern generation became increasingly confident

in the direction of their work as the 1920s advanced. The 1925 exhibition gave
a significant impetus to the development of new trends in jewellery through its
strong displays of contemporary work (see Chapter 5). Furthermore, the markets
for jewellery of all kinds were becoming very successful for both the major and
minor firms. Although this boom was to end badly for many companies and
their workers after 1929 and into the early 1930s, the economic strength of the
jewellery trade in 1920s France and elsewhere should not be underestimated in
 Modernism and Modernity 83

relation to the development of new ideas. Here, we are concerned with the avant-
garde and concepts associated with modernism, but it must not be forgotten
that the so-called democratization of fashion in the 1920s had an impact on the
demand for both middle and luxury market items. As has been noted elsewhere
in this book, at its height in the mid-1920s, the French jewellery industry was
making a considerable contribution to the French economy, particularly in
export markets. A study published in 1929 provides statistical evidence for this,
along with the assertion that:

With the progress and improvement of social conditions . . . goldsmithing and

jewellery have become more and more prevalent in all classes of society. To satisfy
an increasing consumption, extremely varied in its needs, the jewellers and
goldsmiths were able to create styles appropriate to the demand of the clientele,
increasingly moving towards specialization in each genre, a condition which was,
moreover, indispensable to an important production. (Lanllier 1929, 21)

The ‘specialization’ referred to by Lanllier meant that from the top to the bottom
of the trade, firms were trying to reach consumers not just through pricing,
but through considerations of materials and, often, new design languages.
Pioneer modernist jewellers such as Gérard Sandoz had very clear ideas about
how luxury items such as jewellery should be considered in relation to modern
design. Writing provocatively in La Renaissance de l’Art Français et des Industries
de Luxe in August 1929, Sandoz declares: ‘Today, a piece of jewelry, inspired
directly by our contemporary aesthetic, must be simple, severe and constructed
without superfluous ornament. Provided its technique and manufacture are
beyond reproach, a well-designed piece of jewelry costing two hundred francs is
as beautiful as an equally well-designed one costing two millions’ (Raulet 1985,
173). Furthermore, he is keen to question the use of precious materials for their
own sake: ‘There are very fine pieces of jewelry made simply of gold, and horrors
that are smothered in diamonds. Similarly, there are exquisite pieces in which
brilliants are cleverly distributed, and rubbish that looks like gold vermicelli. Let
us have no preconceptions as to materials’ (173). So for Sandoz design becomes
the pre-eminent aspect of contemporary jewellery. As major contributors to
the luxury industries, jewellers were keen to reserve their right to use all the
weapons in their armoury when designing and making – so long as materials
were used appropriately and in sympathy with the contemporary spirit.
Jean Fouquet was the compiler of an important visual record of French
interwar jewellery design which formed part of a series of nineteen volumes
84 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

on L’art internationale d’aujourd’hui (International Art of Today) published by

Parisian art editor Charles Moreau. Each volume was published as a primer on
a subject of interest in modern art and design by a different author and included
a short introductory essay followed by around fifty pages of carefully selected
illustrations. Authors included French designers who were devoted to the cause
of modernism, including Robert Mallet-Stevens, André Lurçat, Pierre Chareau,
René Herbst and Sonia Delaunay. Indeed, the collected volumes have been
dubbed a manifesto of interwar modernism covering such subjects as modern
tendencies in architecture, interiors, furniture, garden design, objets d’art,
metalwork, sculpture, the design of shops, advertising, carpets and textiles (Les
arts décoratifs 2014). The jewellers Jean Fouquet and Gérard Sandoz prepared
two of the volumes. Interestingly, the latter’s volume (number 14) was on the
subject of objets usuel (everyday objects). An intriguingly titled volume 18
La forme sans ornement (plain objects) is listed as being prepared by jeweller
Raymond Templier. The title alone suggests that the contents would be so
arranged as to promote the modernist (or indeed Purist) doctrine of functional
forms similar to the Corbusian notion of the objet type.
Produced in 1931, Fouquet’s volume Bijoux et Orfèvrerie (number 16 in the
series) contains a collection of high quality photographs of works by a small
number of well-established modern jewellers and their protégés from the
1920s and, most especially, since 1925. It is clear that the volume is intended to
demonstrate the substantial progress made in modern French jewellery since
the First World War (all of the examples included are French). Indeed a specially
printed issue signed by Fouquet himself was presented to Guillaume Janneau,
designer, writer and then administrator of the Mobilier National, France’s
national furniture depository and state-run art restoration service. This clearly
confirms the status of Moreau’s series as being very important in the attempt to
ally contemporary design with the French state.
The volume canonizes the work of Gérard Sandoz, Jean Fouquet (the
majority of works illustrated are from his family firm), Raymond Templier and
Paul Brandt. It also introduces works by students from the École de l’union
centrale des arts décoratifs and the École Boulle. In presenting his selection,
Fouquet makes his intentions clear: ‘This publication brings together models
or actual pieces that I hold only present the achievements of the modern spirit
. . . The work of the artist is a historic monument, I therefore eliminated that
which seemed to me not to be an expression of the current time’ (1931). In his
introduction, Fouquet reiterates the commitment of the jeweller to producing
 Modernism and Modernity 85

work that adorns the costume and, just as importantly, points out that ‘to fulfil
this role, I will repeat endlessly, the piece of jewellery must be composed of
elements that can be read at a distance. The miniature is detestable’ (1931). To
be ‘read at a distance’, a design must have a significant presence as an object and
designed accordingly. Scale may play a part in this, but so does composition, use
of materials, boldness of execution and the exploiting of different ways in which
jewellery catches the light. Examination of Fouquet’s work will bear this out.
We have already seen in Chapter 2 how Fouquet’s ball-bearings bracelet
exploited movement combined with a clear reference to an industrial component,
bringing together precious and nonprecious materials. In a brooch of c. 1937,
Fouquet produces a piece that will clearly work both close up and at a distance
(Figure 3.1).
In form, the three gold discs are linked together by an overlaid sliver
of rock crystal, which creates an opaque band that binds the three shapes
together. Smaller pearls whose edges slightly overlap the central disc flank
the large tourmaline. Unlike some other jewellery in the modernist vein, this
piece eschews asymmetry and makes a bold statement through its geometric
harmony – this was a preoccupation of a number of modernist jewellers and
silversmiths in the 1930s, notably the influential Jean Puiforcat. Close up, the
precision of the piece can be fully appreciated. From a distance, the bold, clear
execution gives the jewel another life as a composition augmenting an outfit.
Nevertheless, the tourmaline still expresses the social significance of jewellery.
Georg Simmel described this as being ‘located in the gleam of the precious stone

Figure 3.1 Brooch in gold, rock crystal, tourmaline and pearls by Jean Fouquet,
c. 1937. Width 5.5 cm. © Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim. Photo: Günther Meyer.
© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016.
86 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

which seems to go out to others like the flash of eyes that is directed towards
it’ (Pointon 2009, 4). Here Fouquet’s brooch almost literally expresses this idea.
An earlier design by Fouquet uses a language of form and materials that
demonstrates the increasingly assertive approach to defining the qualities of
modern jewellery which had become a feature of his work in the late 1920s
(Figure 3.2). The materials are gold with malachite (green) and black lacquer. In
each of the linked squares there are subtle shifts of level indicating a relationship
with abstract art of the period. One thinks of the constructed reliefs of the artists
Bart van der Leck and Ben Nicholson, for example, in which planar surfaces
are subtly distinguished by changes of colour, level and texture. The malachite
is set slightly proud from the surface of the gold but the black lacquer, though
ostensibly flat, introduces a change in texture and slight disturbance to the
smooth surface of the polished gold. It is easy to imagine how the fingers of
the wearer would seek out and explore these slight but intriguing changes in
the surface and temperature of the object. The square sections are identical but
alternately rotated a half turn creating a pattern reminiscent of the Dadaist Hans
Richter’s 1921 film Rhythm 21 in which a series of rhythmic movements are
played out by animated geometric forms. Chapter 2 has shown how Charlotte
Perriand’s jewellery was influenced by avant-garde film and there is something
about the regular sequences of elements that recalls the frames of a strip of
celluloid film.
Other influences on these forms, which can be seen in many examples of
French modernist bracelets (such as the one by Paul Brandt illustrated at the
bottom of Figure 1.2) come in the form of typographic vignettes, such as those
produced for the Parisian printing company Fonderies Deberney et Peignot. The
graphic artist and jeweller known as ‘Cassandre’ (actually the Ukrainian-born

Figure 3.2 Bracelet in gold with malachite and black lacquer by Jean Fouquet, 1929.
Height 2.5 cm, width 19 cm. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London © ADAGP, Paris
and DACS, London, 2016.
 Modernism and Modernity 87

Adolphe Mouron) worked for the Fouquet firm in the mid-1920s, later
developing typographic designs for Peignot. This culminated in the creation of
the ‘Bifur’ and ‘Le Peignot’ typefaces which were used for the lettering of the
pavilions at the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la
Vie Moderne in Paris. Deberney et Peignot were a hugely successful company
in the interwar years, offering a vast range of typographic solutions to both
traditional and more progressive clients. The catalogues of Deberney et Peignot
from the mid-1930s show a collection of vignettes commissioned from designer
Alfred Latour (1888–1964), later to become a member of the Union des artistes
modernes alongside Charles Peignot.
Latour’s vignettes (ornaments for the page) were designed for Peignot in
1929 (Figure 3.3). They could be printed from metal plates or woodblocks. He
designed them in such a way that, like in Fouquet’s bracelet above, sequences
of the same simple forms are repeated and/or rotated to form bands of modern
geometric ornaments for the page as alternatives to the usual vegetal motifs
beloved of more mainstream printing houses.
There is something about both the scale and appearance of these abstract
designs that makes them highly suitable for use by the jeweller seeking to
produce pieces that flatter and adorn the body while avoiding the traditional
symbolic motifs usually associated with jewellery. The same could be said of the
typographer seeking to adorn the page in a way that complements the use of a
modern typeface. In addition, an accord can be seen here between the way a
jeweller such as Fouquet would draw up a final design at 1:1 scale and the work
of the typographer – both worked precisely and in a measured way to convey
their ideas. Latour’s vignettes are little abstractions of linked elements that form
elegant modern patterns across the page. In the form of jewellery, the links of the
bracelet define the volume and limits of the human limb it is intended to adorn.
It is quite clear that a synthesis of the arts is at work here, perhaps promoted by
the contemporary desire to clear the ground for a new approach to form and
ornament in which disciplines were encouraged to learn from one another and
seek common solutions.
As pointed out already, references to the forms of the new architecture by
modernist jewellers were part of the effort to ally themselves with the forces
of progress in modern design. These forces included a celebration of the very
physical manifestations of the virtues of speed, dynamism and mechanical
motion. The image of the car was an important one for the modernist sensibility
and the pride of car ownership and the potential of speed was something
88 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 3.3 Designs for graphic vignettes by Alfred Latour, 1929. From Volume 1 of the
Spécimen général des Fonderies Deberny et Peignot, Paris, c. 1935. © Victoria and Albert
Museum, London. Image used with kind permission of Claude Latour.
 Modernism and Modernity 89

increasingly recorded and commented upon in the press, in literary sources and
on film. In this respect, it is worth considering two accessories that celebrate the
image of the car as modern icon.
The brooch representing Captain George Eyston’s car Thunderbolt was made
in 1937 and presented to the driver’s wife after her husband had broken the
world land speed record in the same vehicle (Figure 3.4). It reached a speed of
over 500 km/h on the Bonneville salt-flats on 19 November (Phillips 2008).
The details of the air intakes, wheels and cockpit are very carefully delineated.
The proportions of the car, when judged against contemporary photographs
of Thunderbolt reveal that the maker has rendered the overall form of the
vehicle with great accuracy and with considerable skill. Nevertheless, as a
commemorative brooch, it is conceived as a miniature. The streamlined body
of the car, so impressively evocative of raw power in surviving photographs,
is rendered somewhat static by the profusion of diamonds scattered over its
surface. The clouds and the salt flats are given the same treatment, resulting in
an overall image that is less an evocation of speed than the canonization of the
object itself as an icon of one specific aspect of the history of human audacity.
In this sense, it is a very traditional way to commemorate the event through

Figure 3.4 Brooch in platinum set with diamonds commemorating the breaking of
the world land speed record by Captain George Eyston in 1937. Designer and maker
unknown. Length 5.9 cm, width 3.1 cm. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
90 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

the association of human endeavour with the timeless qualities of precious

materials. The vehicle and all its potential for a barely controllable, violent and
noisy trajectory is held captive within the frame of a traditional brooch. It is
perhaps unfair to judge the piece in such terms, but the representation of the
vehicle suggests that something has happened and that everything associated
with this epochal event is now instant history.
By contrast, a design for a cigarette case by Gérard Sandoz, illustrated in
Fouquet’s Bijoux et Orfèvrerie, provides a different interpretation of a car built
for speed, this time introducing a strong element of style and a unique approach
to the depiction of the automobile and its occupants (Figure 3.5). When applied
to this more utilitarian object, it becomes possible for the theme to be absorbed
instantly into contemporary fashion. The work of the French interwar jewellers
is often characterized as being purely concerned with abstraction but figuration
was actually a strongly persistent theme.
In the cigarette case, Sandoz manages to produce a rare depiction of a
speeding automobile from the front. Typically, modernist representations of

Figure 3.5 Cigarette case by Gérard Sandoz, illustrated in Jean Fouquet’s Bijoux et
Orfèvrerie (Jewellery and Metalwork), 1930. Bibliothèque des Arts décoratifs, Paris.
© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016.
 Modernism and Modernity 91

speeding machines tend to concentrate on the image (or even after-image)

of the vehicle as it passes by, leaving either a series of fragmented images
suggesting the eye’s inability to fully capture the dynamism of modern motion,
or an impression of mechanical bluster and disturbed air. This was certainly the
case for Italian Futurist painters such as Giacomo Balla and Umberto Boccioni.
Sandoz gives us an image of the car as an elastic form whose wheels appear to
be forced outwards as it enters a corner. The terrain is rough, the background
angled to suggest the torque of the cornering manoeuvre. The inhabitants of
the cockpit appear more as racers, anonymous and of indeterminate gender
due to the driving cap and goggles. As an expression of the car culture of the
1920s this small accessory is very significant, managing to convey the sense of
excitement and danger with the fashion sensibilities at work in the decade. This
design could have appealed equally to both men and women, given the latter’s
growing interest in both smoking and car ownership. Even though its avant-
garde credentials may be somewhat eclipsed by some of the abstract imagery
used on the contemporary cigarette cases by Raymond Templier and Jean
Dunand, Sandoz’s case still manages to combine a modernist sensibility with
the expression of contemporary fashion. This is emphasized by the nonprecious
materials used; enamel, lacquer and egg shell. Here the materials are subservient
to the qualities of the image.
The text of Fouquet’s Bijoux et Orfèvrerie, though short, makes some crucial
points about the role of jewellery in relation to fashion. As has been shown in
Chapter 1, the goal of producing a parure that harmonized with contemporary
fashion trends was an important one for commentators and designers. Fouquet
goes further and states that ‘jewellery is to our clothing what silverware is to
our dwelling’ (1931). This suggests a much wider concern for the integration of
modern forms with contemporary culture. In choosing to illustrate Paul Brandt’s
jewellery for hats (see Chapter 1) and Raymond Templier’s parure designed
for the film actress Brigitte Helm (see Chapter 4), Fouquet was attempting to
demonstrate the variety of new contexts in which modern jewellery could be
seen and worn. Throughout the volume, the viewer is left in no doubt that the
new approach to jewellery is indebted to both a reductive approach to form,
resulting in most instances in the use of a rigorously geometric visual language
and demonstrating a familiarity with contemporary abstract painting. The
drawings sheet by Paul Brandt displays both of these tendencies, producing
a design language strongly related to the compositions of the Orphic cubist
paintings of Frantisek Kupka and Sonia and Robert Delaunay (Figure 3.6).
92 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 3.6 Designs for jewellery by Paul Brandt, illustrated in Jean Fouquet’s Bijoux
et Orfèvrerie (Jewellery and Metalwork), 1930. Bibliothèque des Arts décoratifs, Paris.

Brandt’s drawings are presented without any suggestions of scale, materials

or construction method. As such, they do not constitute design drawings that
could be handed over to a manufacturer. Rather, they must be read as a plea for
the adoption of a contemporary language of form on the part of both jeweller
and consumer. Behind Fouquet’s talk of the new epoch, the new spirit and the
promotion of the stripped down, geometric (if not utilitarian) forms that he
hoped would change the course of modern jewellery design, there remained
for him the frustration that the jewellery industry still continued to employ
archaic making processes. In order to progress further, ‘jewellery and pieces
of silversmithing must constitute works of art, while responding to the same
needs as industrial objects’ (Fouquet 1931). Understandably, there follows no
manifesto for the full mechanization of the jewellery trade, but it is clear that the
tension between traditional hand crafted approaches and forays into the arena of
mass production may not have been far from Fouquet’s mind.
In 1929, Fouquet, along with Paul and Raymond Templier, Louis and Jean
Puiforcat and Gérard Sandoz were founder members of the Union des Artistes
 Modernism and Modernity 93

Modernes (UAM) which grew out of dissatisfaction with the Société des Artistes
Décorateurs (SAD). Raymond Templier was appointed secretary and among the
active members were listed Eileen Grey, Charlotte Perriand, Pierre Chareau,
Man Ray and Gerrit Rietveld. Benefactors and donators were Louis Puiforcat,
Paul Templier, Le Vicomte de Noailles, André Levy and the publisher Charles
Moreau – all important patrons and allies in the modernist cause. The first
notable manifestation of the UAM was an undated press release (probably from
late 1929) that explained the mission of the newly formed group as a reaction
against the widely differing trends and qualities to be found at the annual
Parisian salons. Further, the statement emphasizes that the group is not to be
understood as a ‘chapel’ or ‘cenacle’ (distancing itself from the quasimystical
tone of, for example, the original Bauhaus proclamation of 1919) but of strong
minded individuals, ‘the best of their time’, who are also team players (Barré-
Despond 1986, 46). Membership was not limited to French nationals and a
number of foreigners were admitted. Nevertheless, in order to gain membership
as an active participant of the UAM it had to be granted by a unanimous decision
of the General Assembly. Those wishing to join had to demonstrate that they
were ‘artists particularly sensitive to the beauty of our time, completely free from
ornamental formulas, repudiating ornament for ornament’s sake and practising
new techniques, generating new means of expression and beauty’ (46). It is
interesting to note the direct emphasis placed on ornament. We have already seen
how topical a subject this was among architects, but how would a jeweller be able
to fare in an organization that repudiated ornament for the sake of ornament?
Certainly, most nineteenth-century jewellers would have been perplexed by this
such was the alliance of ‘art’ with ornament and decoration. But the UAM was
concerned with generating new ways of finding and expressing beauty in the
contemporary world and that meant a rejection of the traditional vocabulary
of ornamental forms. Further, there were attempts to create a specifically social
context for art as a reaction against the perceived conservative mindset of the
SAD. However, as Kerssenbrock-Krosigk puts it, ‘the endeavours to socialize art
were paradoxically accompanied by a boom in an artistic production prodigious
for its luxury and élite appeal. Probably only in France could a personality such
as the jeweller Jean Fouquet, combine his predilection for communism with
such ruthless exclusiveness as a designer’ (2001, 371).
But it was not only in France that this was the case. The 1930s, a decade
characterized by deep political, social and economic divisions, provoked an
interest in Communism as a way of embracing freedom of expression, social
94 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

solidarity and anticolonialism. So in the era before disillusionment with Stalin

set in, the communist cause was, for many, a noble one. In France, as in England,
the cultural élite were attracted to the Left as it became clear that the rise of
European fascism was a threat to both cultural freedom and the peace and
stability of Europe itself. The arts in their modern form could express a new
sense of usefulness and political purpose that embodied the possibility of social
change. In furniture design, the commitment to metal over wood on the part of
Charlotte Perriand (see Chapter 2) was a clear statement of this, questioning the
usual relationship between material and form. We have seen how Sandoz and
Fouquet fundamentally questioned the use of precious materials in jewellery,
critiquing this as an unthinking reflex on the part of both the maker and the
consumer. In place of the exclusive use of precious materials, they favoured
a plurality of approaches, led by design intelligence rather than hidebound
practices and prejudices.
Clearly, we would search in vain for ‘communist jewellery’ issuing from the
workshops of Paris in the 1930s. But it would also be wrong to assume that
those on the political left eschewed all interest in decoration, ornamentation
or, indeed, jewellery and accessories. There was, however, a predilection for
approaches to jewellery that could affirm an allegiance to a particular cause
or way of life through an affiliation with mechanical forms. The case of Jean
Després will bear this out and his silver ‘connecting rod’ brooch of 1930 is a good
example of this tendency (Figure 3.7).
Després’s experiences of aviation mechanics in the First World War led to a
collection of pieces (including his bijoux moteurs) being produced from the late
1920s. As the name suggests, these were directly modelled on machine parts. Their
names were unambiguous (‘Cam’ bracelet, ‘Cam’ ring) and were shown at the
exhibition L’Aéronautique et l’art at the Pavillon de Marsan in 1930. We have seen
in Chapter 2 that reactions to this kind of work were mixed. Gabardi mentions
that a whole collection of modernist work by Després was refused by the Salon
d’Automne in 1928, but by 1929 his startlingly modern work had begun to receive
critical recognition (Gabardi 2009, 32). Stark as some of Després’s pieces are from
this time, they are a unique expression of modern machine culture in jewellery
by a designer who had direct experience of mechanical engineering. In an engine,
the connecting rod connects the piston to the crankshaft and is, therefore, the
mechanical element through which the energy from the combustion cycle is
transferred to create motion in a vehicle. As an element encountered in isolation,
as in this brooch, it becomes a symbolic device only as it is stripped of its original
 Modernism and Modernity 95

Figure 3.7 Brooch in silver by Jean Després, c. 1929. Length 8 cm, width 2 cm. Image
used with kind permission of the Musée de l’Avallonnais, Avallon, France.

purpose as a form. Although this piece in its vertical position bears more than a
passing resemblance to the Eiffel tower (an icon of modernism for artists since
the beginning of the twentieth century) its shape is closely modelled on the
original engine part. In certain contexts this would have been a striking piece to
wear (perhaps by men as well as women) and worn, as was Charlotte Perriand’s
ball-bearings necklace, as a sign of allegiance to machine culture, the factory and
the contribution of the engineer to technological and social progress. As part of a
parure it could also conceivably be the starting point for the creation of an outfit,
rather than an embellishment to an existing costume. In any event, pieces like this
would certainly have asked questions of the wearer’s choice of outfit and would
have had to be worn carefully.
The major French jewellers discussed thus far were all members of the UAM
and rallied around their manifesto. Strangely, in the era of art manifestoes, the
UAM’s contribution to this quintessential interwar art and design practice did
not finally appear until 1934, some five years after the organization’s foundation.
The text ‘Pour l’Art Moderne, cadre de la vie contemporaine’ (for modern art,
framework of contemporary life) was written in collaboration with the author
Louis Cheronnet. A version of the text appeared in full in Art et décoration
for January 1934. This defiant polemic calls on artists and designers from all
disciplines to consider how they may produce work in the contemporary
96 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

spirit, respecting tradition where it has shown itself to be capable of adapting

to technical and social progress. Above all, the manifesto states, ‘Nous aimons
l’équilibre, la logique et la pureté’ (‘We love balance, logic and purity’) (Union
des Artiste Modernes 1934, 83).
The UAM had already held its first exhibition in 1930 and the founding of
the organization put the ideas and energies of several influential jewellers and
silversmiths at the heart of the international debates about formes utiles (useful
form) and the general direction of modernism in design. Like all secessionist
artistic groups, the UAM was launched with great fervour, but members were
keen not to completely alienate their artistic parents. To this end, the exhibition
was held in June and July 1930 at the Pavillon de Marsan, the wing of the Louvre
that since 1905 had hosted the Musée des arts décoratifs. The catalogue, published
by Charles Moreau, lists the contributors by name and type of work. The
jewellers Després, Fouquet, Sandoz and Templier have their works listed merely
as ‘bijoux’ (Union des Artistes Modernes 1930). It contains advertisements for
some of the enterprises owned by members, including Raymond Templier whose
company is described as ‘Bijoux Modernes de Raymond Templier exécutés par
P. & R. Templier Joailliers-Fabricants’ (‘modern jewellery by Raymond Templier
made by P & R Templier, jewellers and manufacturers’) (Union des artistes
modernes 1930). That the Templier firm was describing itself in this way – as
producing specifically modern jewellery – is significant because two years earlier
the company had employed a unique method of publicizing their collections of
uncompromisingly modern work.

Modern poetry, modern jewellery

French modernist poet Blaise Cendrars was acutely aware of the fact that to
understand the modern world and how it was changing, it was necessary to
embrace the fleeting and the accidental, the commercial and the ephemeral,
the new modes of production and consumption that were increasingly defining
modern metropolitan experiences for all classes of society. He was particularly
interested in the role of jewellery in this process and he turned his attention to
this in the late 1920s. In his text Publicité = Poésie, included in his collection
Aujourd’hui of 1931, Cendrars asks the fundamental question ‘qu’est-ce qu’un
bijou moderne?’ (what is a modern jewel?) and immediately starts to answer the
question by stating what it is not: ‘A modern jewel is not a bolt that one mounts
 Modernism and Modernity 97

on a pin . . . It is not a ball bearing that one puts under glass in a living room . . . It
is not a longitudinal section of an aircraft engine . . . It is not a luminous fountain,
neither the Eiffel Tower nor incandescent pearls of advertising’ (Cendrars
1931, 217). The text, in two parts, was originally written in 1928 for ‘Mr. R. T’,
the jeweller Raymond Templier whose modern work had come to the fore at
the 1925 exhibition and was regularly being featured in widely read monthly
magazines such as Art et décoration. True to the spirit of the title, Cendrars’s
words served as advertising copy for the firm of Paul Templier and Sons of 3,
Place de la Victoire, Paris (Mouillefarine and Ristelheuber 2005, 49–50).
The text is a fascinating one for those looking to find a wider cultural
interpretation of the relationship between modernism, modernity and jewellery
because, as others had done, he forcefully rejects the idea that modern jewellery
should be characterized by mimicking objects produced by the machine age.
He is clearly trying to distance himself from those who wish to see modernism
in jewellery and accessories as a primarily aesthetic project driven only by
formal invention. In doing so, he recognizes the fact that the modern designer
must come to terms with the themes of the modern world as experienced in
contemporary life in order to produce work that reflects a state of mind rather
than a particular ‘look’. We have already seen that Cendrars had chosen S.K.F. ball
bearings as one of his seven wonders of the modern world (see Chapter 2).
Equally importantly, he had obviously seen Gerald Murphy’s S.K.F. ball bearings
‘under glass’ in the latter’s Paris apartment. For Cendrars, these objects seem
to lose their potency out of context and merely fetishized the products of the
machine age. In addition, his reference to the ‘luminous fountain’ in ‘qu’est-ce
qu’un bijou moderne?’ could well be a reference to Lalique’s water feature of
the same name made for the 1925 exhibition or, indeed, the ‘Fountain Dress’
made of long strings of pearls and wire by Paul Poiret modelled by the Marchesa
Casati in 1920. Such excesses held no interest for Cendrars. But in contrast to
others, he did not reject the fetishization of machine parts in jewellery in order
to produce a reactionary critique. On the contrary, his view of the relationship
between modern jewellery and the forces of modernity comes across clearly in
his choice of words in the poetic section of the text for Raymond Templier where
he describes the requisite qualities of contemporary jewellery. The list includes
allusions to objects associated with precision engineering (‘a set square’, ‘a line
of sight’, ‘a propeller’, ‘a helix’); words and phrases that suggest feelings (‘a look’,
‘a thrill’, ‘joy’, ‘a whisper’) and references to mechanical devices and materials
(‘start-up and click’, ‘chromium’, ‘platinum’) (Cendrars 1931, 217–18).
98 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Cendrars’s use of imagery is very important here. He mentions objects,

materials and devices of the machine age, but he interweaves this with the
eternal human qualities associated with jewellery: love, emotion, the erotic, joy
of living. The shiver of pleasure that a modern jewel might produce may also
be related to its cool, uncompromising engineered geometry and the peculiarly
modern sensation of the touch of chrome or platinum on flesh. Equally the
‘start-up and click’ of the modern machine becomes like the finely engineered
clasp of a necklace, brooch or bracelet.
Here, Cendrars conveys the spirit of Baudelairean modernity where the
eternal and the fleeting come together. His literary style helps to reinforce
this through the montaging of human characteristics and emotions with the
material and physical properties of jewellery objects. Significantly, chromium
and platinum take the place of silver, gold and precious stones.
What use would these poetic texts have had for the firm of Templier and
Sons? Clearly, Cendrars was trying to convey the message that the jewellery of
the Templier firm was absolutely contemporary in order to evoke a sense of their
uniqueness. He was also trying to convey something of the timeless character
of jewellery. Like the poet Apollinaire before him, Cendrars was looking to
identify the eternal characteristics in the fleeting and transitory experiences
of modern life with which he was surrounded. However, he does not do this
through evoking a sense of alienation as Apollinaire does, for example, in his
1913 poem Zone. Rather, Cendrars applies his modernist literary style (with all
its fragmentary images and seemingly bizarre juxtapositions) to contemporary
commerce in producing the crucial alliance that he was to describe in the title
of his essay: Publicité = Poésie. The association with Cendrars, though seemingly
brief, would have established the Templier firm’s credentials among those of the
cultural élite who had a vested interest in the promotion of avant-garde culture.
If ornament and modernism were strange bedfellows in jewellery, then perhaps
jewellery and avant-garde poetry can be seen at this moment to have had a
happy and mutually beneficial arrangement.
The poetry of Raymond Templier’s work from the mid-1920s and into
the 1930s lies firmly in the conscious attempt to ally elements of traditional
techniques and use of materials with innovations suited to the taste of both the
modern consumer and the follower of avant-garde tendencies. A study of some
key examples will bear this out. The brooch of c. 1930 uses a variety of materials
typical of the kind of combinations favoured by the Templier firm in the
interwar period (Figure 3.8). Here, white gold, brilliant-cut diamonds, onyx and
 Modernism and Modernity 99

Figure 3.8 Brooch by Raymond Templier in white gold, brilliant-cut diamonds,

onyx and coral, c. 1930. Height 6.4 cm, width 2.3 cm. © Victoria and Albert Museum,
London. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016.

coral combine to create a design that is uncompromisingly modern. The various

elements are carefully distributed across the surface of the brooch to create a
dynamic, off centre composition in which the three coral domes are the main
visual attraction. But the composition is still a synthesis of nature and culture
that represents the eternal qualities of all jewellery. All the materials are carefully
manipulated but the natural origins of the material are not romanticized or given
a traditional symbolic treatment.
The reverse of the brooch is also of great interest (Figure 3.9). Most brooches
are not meant to be seen in reverse and, normally, must be fixed to the clothing
and face resolutely forward. Some necklaces and pendants can be appreciated
whichever way they happen to fall or swing about. Indeed this can be a
fundamental part of their effect. Looking at the brooch by Templier from behind,
we see not only the workings of the clasp (which clicks into place with the spring
mechanism à la Cendrars’s poetic evocation) but also the supporting ‘architecture’
of the structure of the brooch. We can see how the onyx bands are kept in place,
the settings of the brilliants and the coral. It would perhaps have been easy to
seal the back of this brooch, but something about the exposure of the methods of
construction tells us this is an object which has been assembled. It is not ‘magic’,
neither is it metaphysical poetry or dream, or invitation to contemplate the
mysterious forces of nature. In leaving the structure exposed, Templier invites
the wearer to consider the manufacturing process and to recognize the various
origins of its components in a similar way that a functionalist architect might
choose not to hide and, indeed, make a feature of structural components.
Gaston Varenne carefully explained the sober approach of Templier in
a feature on some of the jeweller’s recent works in a 1930 edition of Art et
100 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 3.9 Brooch by Raymond Templier in white gold, brilliant-cut diamonds,

onyx and coral, c. 1930 (reverse). Height 6.4 cm, width 2.3 cm. © Victoria and Albert
Museum, London. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016.

décoration. He sees Templier’s jewellery as a rejection of sentimentality in favour

of a ‘spiritual’ approach based not on mysticism, but on ‘a harmonious suite of
plans and volumes offering themselves to play in the light’, where the jewellery
should be understood not as the superficial flickering of shiny materials but as
‘wisely calculated light and shadow’ (Varenne 1930, 57). Indeed one of Templier’s
trademark treatments at this time (seen in the firm’s cuff links and bracelets
in particular) was to contrast silver or grey gold with black enamel, creating a
strong contrast of light and shade reminiscent of cubist and, most especially,
contemporary abstract painting (Figure 3.10).
In the bracelet from c. 1930 at Köln, Templier exploits the implied movement
of mechanical forms in order to put a dynamic twist on the idea of the moving
bangle as it rotates around the wrist with wearing. Further, the clasps and hinges
are left exposed and allowed to express themselves as an important element in
the function of the piece. For Templier, it was clearly not the intention to create
the illusion that a piece of jewellery had been born ‘pure’, without seams or joints
or even that the thinking of the designer should not, in some way, be visible.
The introduction of moving parts into modern jewellery, in a self-consciously
contemporary way as in Després’s rings with rotating bezels, was an important
moment and proved influential for later generations of modern jewellers. Much
of Després’s work of the 1920s and early 1930s shows a very keen awareness
of contemporary art movements, from cubism to geometric abstraction. His
remarkable repertoire of forms also included some figurative pieces made in
collaboration with ceramicist Jean Mayadon, a regular contributor to the modern
jewellery and metalworking scene in Paris. Although abstract painting had a
 Modernism and Modernity 101

Figure 3.10 Bracelet in silver and black lacquer by Raymond Templier, c. 1930. Height
3.6 cm, diameter 6 cm. © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS,
London, 2016.

great influence on jewellery and accessories, it is far from the case that the figure
disappeared from interwar work with the impact of modernism. Indeed, the
figurative tradition takes on a new set of characteristics under this influence. In
this example from c. 1935 the contrasting materials of silver, pearls, lacquer and
faience tell a story of the often vast differences in value that individual materials
may represent when combined in a single piece (Figure 3.11).
It can be argued that each material used here has both symbolic and material
value that exists in a dialectical relation. Silver and pearls are precious materials
and possess a clear (if ever fluctuating) market value. Lacquer work is not
necessarily expensive materially but it can be in terms of time-consuming labour.
Faience (tin-glazed ceramic) is a fine material, but only becomes so in the hands
of a competent craftsperson. Here, Mayadon’s artistic contribution, the reclining
nude figure painted on to the ceramic, is characteristically indistinct but it recalls
the themes present in neoclassical tendencies in the art of this period. The theme
of the return to nature in interwar modernism has already been mentioned
in Chapter 2, but the stark simplicity produced here by Després, working as
102 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 3.11 Brooch in gold, silver, pearls, lacquer and faience by Jean Després, c. 1935.
Faience plaque by Jean Mayadon. Width 6.7 cm. © Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim.
Photo: Günther Meyer.

a frame for Mayadon’s figure also provides the opportunity to contemplate, in

modern form, some of the lasting qualities of jewellery expressed in an updated
classical idiom. Unlike some of the figurative pieces by artist-jewellers of the
time, these collaborative pieces by Després and Mayadon do not suffer through
comparison with work on a larger scale or in a different medium by the same
makers because these forms were created specifically on a small scale for more
intimate contemplation.
Works such as these give rise to questions about whether there is a symbolic
language of form and materials to be found in modernist jewellery. Does a pearl
perform the same symbolic role in a piece by Després or Fouquet as it might do
in a piece of renaissance jewellery? The ubiquity of pearls during the interwar
years has already been noted (see Chapter 1) and they certainly represented a
continuity of tradition in jewellery wearing. But the moderns tended to use the
pearl as a strategic element in design, as a formal spherical element that was able
to be used as a way of visually organizing a composition as in the examples by
Fouquet and Després discussed earlier. Only a perfect pearl can do this. There is
 Modernism and Modernity 103

no denying its association as a symbolic (and materially valuable) thing, but the
sparing way in which they were often used is an important element in modern
jewellery where, as we have seen, design was as important an element in judging
a piece as cost.

Modernism and the market: Affordable jewellery

Jewellery houses that moved with the times, like their equivalents in the fashion
world, did so partly to keep up with market trends. The very expensive materials
that were used, albeit sometimes in different combinations, by modern as well as
more traditional jewellers, maintained the idea of luxury. Some of them did adapt
their forms and materials to appeal to different segments of the market. A case
in point is the English manufacturer H. G. Murphy. Most of the company’s more
traditional interwar work – designed by Harry Murphy himself – has its origins
in the arts and crafts movement and responded to Scandinavian influences, to
the Egyptomania of the 1920s and some modern French and German influences.
But Murphy’s work in gold was often more traditional that that produced in
silver. A ring from the 1930s features a bezel which is an entirely plain tablet and
strikingly modern (Figure 3.12).
As Atterbury and Benjamin pointed out, Murphy may have ‘allowed himself
the luxury of using silver only for inexpensive experimental jewellery whilst gold
was retained for more formal and commercially acceptable pieces appropriate
for his retail market’ (2005, 71). Certainly, the highly reflective ‘silver’ surface
(whether actually silver or not) was much more emblematic of modernism than
gold. In addition, some makers of costume jewellery, if not always experimental,
responded to modernist forms in surprisingly daring ways.
In general histories of jewellery produced before the advent of postmodernism
(and certainly before the New Jewellery movement of the 1970s and 1980s
started to fundamentally question the whole idea of what actually constituted
jewellery and body adornment) costume jewellery is rarely taken seriously. The
reasons for this are obvious. What might be called the ‘institutional’ view of
jewellery has been used to set up a material (and class) divide in relation to the
wearer. Here, body adornment through jewellery is subject to the assumption
that the aspiration to own and wear precious materials, allied to a sense of ‘good’
design sets the wearer apart. Unlike fashion, however, fine jewellery feeds off
values represented by the myths associated with materials – stones in particular.
104 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 3.12 Tablet ring in silver by H. G. Murphy, 1930s. Image from Paul Atterbury
and John Benjamin’s The Jewellery and Silver of H. G. Murphy. Image kindly supplied
by John Benjamin.

Longevity is a key characteristic and lends much precious jewellery its meaning
as well as providing opportunities for marketing slogans that trade on the
elemental and indestructible nature of some precious materials. Even in relation
to design, authors have been suspicious of costume jewellery. Here is jewellery
historian Joan Evans writing in 1970:

Design, to be worth anything, must be portentously serious. Even rocaille was

designed with the whole heart and mind: it is light as comedy, but it is neither
flippant or cynical. Yet there is something in the ephemeral and meretricious
quality of modern ‘costume’ jewellery which seems to invoke both these qualities
in the designer. What the modern world needs in its jewels – as in all else – is the
serious pursuit of beauty. Without it all is lost. (184)

Evans laments the fact that jewellery could only have a future as an ephemeral
art whereby a piece may only have a very short life span – perhaps only that of
the costume that it adorns – an intriguing notion now, perhaps less so for Evans.
Her views are far from the ‘democratic’ conception of modern jewellery
identified by Barthes that, as has already been pointed out in Chapter 1,
provides us with a way of identifying and discussing changing attitudes to
 Modernism and Modernity 105

the materiality and fashion-related functions of twentieth-century jewellery.

Evans’s pessimism aside, her views on design are worth considering when
exploring the relationship between costume jewellery and modernism in
the interwar years. We have seen that the designers working for the great
jewellery houses were very serious about their designs (even ‘portentously’
so) and that they saw them as representing a way of bringing together the
eternal and the modern – basing some of their collections on modern
themes, geometric configurations and hitherto unexplored combinations of
materials. But their markets were still the rich, wealthy and powerful élites
of the day. Costume jewellery sought to serve markets in different ways and
it would be wrong to suggest that the costume jewellery produced in Europe
and America in the 1920s and 1930s was produced entirely without quality,
serious intent or design sensibility. It is as easy to find examples of absurdist
design produced without irony by the purveyors of ‘high jewellery’ as it is
to encounter examples of ‘meretricious’ costume jewellery. However, some of
the major interwar European manufacturers of costume jewellery, such as the
Pforzheim-based company Fahrner Schmuck were able to combine a modern
design sensibility with mass production techniques to produce what the
company proudly proclaimed on one of their 1920s posters as ‘der schmuck
unserer zeit’ (jewellery of our time) (Buxbaum 1992, 102).
Cornelie Holzach has written that ‘thanks to the emancipation of costume
jewellery, many women were able to afford to “wear a fortune that is worth
nothing” ’ (2008, 16). She also points out that the ranges of jewellery produced
by the larger companies in Germany were both affordable and modern. Some of
the materials used (such as ‘galalith’ made from casein and formaldehyde) were
hard plastics which could be cut, drilled and coloured to imitate gem stones or
simply stand for itself. Across Europe and America materials such as bakelite
and celluloid, originally developed as substitutes for other more expensive
materials (such as ebony, ivory and shellac), quickly became suitable for use in
new languages of design. For example, German jeweller Jacob Bengel, based in
Idar-Oberstein, produced ranges of cheap, flexible, industrial-standard products
in which ‘substitute’ materials were used to great effect. These were large pieces
of jewellery which brought together the visual syntax of the metalworker’s shop,
the precision of the engineer, the aesthetic of the standardized product and the
experimentation of the chemist’s laboratory. As Holzach suggests, materially
these pieces were worth relatively little, yet in their own way are as modern as
anything produced by Parisian interwar jewellers. Indeed, the large neckpieces
106 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

produced by Bengel provide for a flexibility of wearing that few fine jewellery
producers could match.
In contrast to Evans, Deanna Farneti Cera’s later definition of costume jewellery
is less damning, referring to the use of nonprecious materials, mass production and
affordability, yet she still refers to the fact that ‘their only value was as decoration,
and they were designed for short-term use as they were rapidly rendered obsolete
by shifts in fashion’ (Cera 1992, 11). She also asks the question whether it was
possible that costume jewellery could break new ground stylistically. Although
referring to American work, it is clear that in Europe the designs of Fahrner
and Bengel would prove that this could be the case. Her assertion that costume
jewellery was ‘a symbolic expression of modern life’ remains a telling one (12).
In material terms, those innovations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries that made jewellery more accessible across a range of markets is a vital
development in the creation of new types of both commercial and experimental
jewellery. For many, however, metal remained the best material to express ideas
about the modern world in material form.

The Bauhaus: Jewellery and adornment

At the Bauhaus the metal workshops were noted for their attempts (successful
or otherwise) to produce utilitarian items for mass production by German
industry. But students and staff also produced jewellery, even though this was
never considered to be a formal part of the curriculum or constitute a substantial
mission of the workshops. When László Moholy-Nagy was appointed to take
over the running of the metal workshop at the Weimar Bauhaus in 1923 (as
Master of Form) he was tasked with changing its direction towards that of
industrial design. Writing in 1938, Moholy-Nagy states:

Until my arrival the Metal Workshop had been a gold and silver Workshop
where wine jugs, samovars, elaborate jewellery, coffee services, etc., were made.
Changing the policy of this workshop involved a revolution, for in their pride the
gold- and silversmiths avoided the use of ferrous metals, nickel and chromium
plating and abhorred the idea of making models for electrical household
appliances or lighting fixtures. (Whitford 1992, 170)

In fact, it is not clear how much ‘elaborate jewellery’ was ever manufactured
in the early years of the metal workshop. Former Bauhaus student Howard
 Modernism and Modernity 107

Dearstyne states that due to lack of money, the Weimar metalworkers tended to
use the cheap alloys ‘German silver’ and tombac along with copper (1986, 190).
So if the jewellery was elaborate, it may not necessarily have been executed in
precious materials. But two things are interesting about this statement. First,
that Moholy-Nagy’s disdain for traditional making practices and forms is made
patently clear and, second, that the (stubborn) ‘pride’ associated with working
in precious materials was perceived to be holding back progress in design. For
Moholy-Nagy, breaking with the use of precious materials was the best way to
advance, even if his narrative may have overemphasized how radical the shift
from precious to nonprecious materials may have been. Either way, jewellery
for Moholy-Nagy would not have constituted an important aspect of work for
either the metal workshop or the Bauhaus as a whole. The need to engage with
an ideology of machine production (or hand working that resembled machine
production) meant, for some modernists, the rejection of individualism and the
promotion of the cult of the collective. Arguably this reached its peak at the
Bauhaus under the leadership of Hannes Meyer, whose disdain for the decorative
arts also carried overtones of misogyny, when he referred to decorative rugs
produced by students of the weaving workshops as embodying ‘young girls’
emotional complexes’ (Siebenbrodt and Schöbe 2015, 139).
But jewellery was made at the Bauhaus, particularly in the early years. On
13 March 1923, Walter Gropius admonished jeweller and metalworker Naum
Slutzky for accepting ‘a sizable commission for 12 brooches without informing
the Bauhaus and involving the administration in the commission’ (Whitford
1992, 103). At Weimar, metalworkers were allowed to accept commissioned
work using the Bauhaus’s facilities in return for accepting a journeyman’s wage
on top of their normal guaranteed income. This incident does suggest that even
if jewellery was not a major part of the curriculum, students and staff were
producing pieces for commission on a semi-private basis. The pieces produced
by Slutzky at this time were made of different combinations of materials such as
rosewood, ivory, silver and combinations of semiprecious stones. Some of these
pieces were produced in line with the early Bauhaus philosophy of the unity of
craft and art and have a distinct expressionist character. One of Slutzky’s pendants
reproduced in Weber’s catalogue of Bauhaus metalwork features concentric
circles of wood and ivory bounding a ‘burst’ of silver which, in turn, surrounds
a large citrine (Weber 1992, 265). It is a sun motif, a symbolic statement of a
shining future that recalls Feininger’s expressionist woodcut for the cover of the
original 1919 Bauhaus proclamation as well as some of the star and sunburst
108 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

motifs and colour wheels made popular by Weimar Bauhaus teachers such
as Johannes Itten. It has the appearance of a talismanic, cult object evoking
connotations of folkloric rituals rather than modernistic experimentation.
Slutzky produced a piece of jewelry much more in the spirit of Moholy-
Nagy’s metal workshops when, in 1924, he produced a ring with a setting that
was designed so as to permit the changing of stones (Weber 1992, 267). This is an
interesting essay on both the potential for customization of a piece of jewellery
as well as introducing a modern notion of the jewel as a series of component
parts that, perhaps like other accessories, can be adapted by the individual
wearer. Although jewellery is often melted down to provide the material for
new pieces, here, the wearer is able to change the stone for personal, seasonal
or aesthetic reasons. Something of the spirit of this idea can be seen in a British
Pathé newsreel from 1936 in which Birmingham-made platinum jewellery
features stones that can be unscrewed from each ‘trinket’ and reassembled in
another (Pathé 1936). These pieces are quite conventional in form but the idea
of customization is the same.
One of the features of life as student or teacher at the Bauhaus was participation
in the regular series of themed parties. These were held at the Bauhaus in all three
of its locations. Each occasion gave students, staff and their invited guests the
opportunity to demonstrate various aspects of their visual acuity. Perhaps the
most celebrated of these events was the Metal Party of 9 February 1929. Originally,
the party was to have been themed around the idea of a festival of bells (and this
remained on the invitation card) but this idea was dropped because, according
to Oskar Schlemmer, ‘the very thought of cacophony made it impossible to
hear one’s own thoughts’ (1972, 238). Instead, a more general theme of metal
was stressed which, ultimately, allowed all attendees to express themselves in a
more unrestricted way, allowing for an exploration of metal in terms of body
adornment, since all the Bauhaus parties required guests to arrive in some form of
fancy dress. A further challenge was added by guests having to negotiate a series
of puns on metals and metallic subjects presented on the invite (probably written
by Bauhaus student Xanti Schawinsky) exhorting them to arrive dressed as (or
not dressed as) characters or themes related to all things metallic or metallurgical.
Many of these puns are difficult (if not impossible) to translate, but they clearly
indicate that the event was conceived with considerable humorous intent and a
spirit of irony. One of the printed flyers for the party proudly proclaimed that it
would feature ‘alles blech’ or ‘everything cheap and trashy’. So the emphasis was
not on a glorification of the precious metals associated with fine workmanship,
 Modernism and Modernity 109

it was industrial metals in use at all levels of society that were being celebrated.
Peter Nisbet points out that although metal was ‘the hard, sharp emblem of
modernity’ it was also ‘the reflective stuff of the fun house’. He added, ‘Metal not
only made objects, it also made immaterial experiences: sounds (of bells, chimes,
and jingles, or church bells, doorbells, and other bells) and, more importantly, the
ephemera of reflected images’ (Nisbet 2002, 15).
There are a number of aspects of the Metal Party that are interesting for the
study of jewellery and modernism at the Bauhaus. First, the inventiveness of
some of the costumes are worthy of note. Schlemmer’s memoirs paint a vivid
picture of the Bauhaus on the evening of the Metal Party. We meet some
interesting characters, their costumes and accessories. According to Schlemmer,
the best costumes were

a death’s head Hussar in black, with an aluminum pot and scoop as a helmet,
his breast garnished with two crossed tin spoons; a woman in flat metal disks
who coquettishly wore a screwdriver on a bracelet and asked each new escort to
tighten her loose screws; a pair of brothers wearing beards and hair made out of
bronzed wood shavings and metal funnels on their heads, in the point of which
each had a cigar which he puffed on through a metal hose leading to his mouth!
(1972, 239)

These are typically inventive costumes for Bauhaus students and have more than
whiff of Dada about them, as surviving photographs of the Party ascribed to
Walter Funkat and others demonstrate (Valdivieso 2005, 118–19). Amusing as
the costumes are, they also show a strong concern for the relationship between
objects and the body which are either based on extending existing preconceptions
of things (the bracelet as a ‘home’ for a screwdriver), repurposing commonplace
objects (tin spoons as a decorative coat of arms) or representing one material as
another (bronzed wood shavings for hair). Only at the Bauhaus, perhaps, could
a screwdriver take on associations of coquetry.
Second, we also see how the Bauhaus building itself becomes the object of
adornment. In order to enter the party it was necessary for guests to negotiate

a children’s slide covered in white sheet metal past innumerable gleaming silver
balls, lined up and sparkling under spotlights . . . but then on to the realms of
true metallic pleasure. Bent sheets of foil glittered and reflected the dancers in
distortion, walls of silvered masks and their grotesque shadows, ceilings studded
with gleaming brass fruit bowls, everywhere colored metallic paper and the ever-
beautiful Christmas-tree balls, some of enormous size. (Schlemmer 1972, 239)
110 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Strangely for a building so often characterized as an object of functionalism in its

own right, it would seem that the urge to decorate it on the part of the students
was overwhelming. Contemporary photographs give some idea of the way the
building was transformed or, indeed, accessorized, for that February evening in
1929 (Figure 3.13). The use of the large spherical metal or glass balls with their
capacity to reflect light and create an ever-shifting pattern of distorted reflections
produces an effect that must have been quite startling. Obviously, these forms
were carefully chosen to provide a form of decoration that complemented the
space and provided a spectacular repetitious ensemble of gently moving parts
that was part machine-inspired and part decorative treatment. In fact, the
accessorizing of the Bauhaus for the Metal Party provided an opportunity to
demonstrate another kind of mass ornament.
Writing longingly of the Bauhaus as if it were an amorata from times past,
Schlemmer says, ‘the Bauhaus looked lovely from the outside, radiating into
the winter night’ (1972, 239). Seemingly, for one night only, this reputedly
uncompromising entity was allowed to yield to the effects of the many

Figure 3.13 Decorations for the Metal Party at the Bauhaus, Dessau, 9 February
1929. Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Gift of Howard Dearstyne,
BR50.32.B. Photo: Imaging Department. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.
 Modernism and Modernity 111

adornments temporarily applied to its structure and surface, allowing itself to be

carefree and abandoning itself to the night. The baubles hung from the ceiling
represent an age-old tradition of covering institutional buildings with temporary
ornament to create a festival atmosphere. The body of the Bauhaus was, like
any other body, not immune to being embellished for the purpose of being the
centre of attention. This adornment of the building is also a demonstration of
the Wagnerian concept of the gesamkunstwerk (total work of art). This idea
was of crucial importance to the development of early modernism’s cultural
programme and is an appropriate way of thinking about the manner in which
the ‘University of United Form’ (Schlemmer’s description of the Bauhaus) was
often striving for a unified vision.
Third, the Metal Party produced one of the most striking examples of
modernist jewellery and body adornment in the form of a collection of pieces
made especially for the occasion by the then acting head of the metal workshops
Marianne Brandt. Oskar Schlemmer, as head of the Bauhaus stage department,
was keenly aware of the relationship between objects and the body. The costumes
for his ballets and Bauhaus dances show how both the use of objects and the
specially designed costumes might be used to affect the movements and physical
capabilities of the performers (Birringer 2013). Something of the spirit of these
ideas can be seen in Brandt’s pieces. Her photographic self-portrait wearing
these objects is discussed in Chapter 4 (see Figure 4.5) but the qualities of the
objects themselves are what concerns us here as well as understanding the
effect that wearing them would have had on the body. The pieces themselves
are an aluminium hat with an adjustable silvered paper chin strap, a neck ring
of light chromed brass onto which a simple catch has been soldered and a light
metal ball. The latter piece is now missing, but appears to have been attached to
Brandt’s dress by a piece of black ribbon. The pieces are obviously meant to fit
with the theme of the party and, like most fancy dress, also designed to be worn
for a particular effect, albeit for a short duration of time. Nevertheless, they can
be read as a hybrid form somewhere between jewellery and accessory. Their
scale means that they would have had an effect on the wearer, perhaps changing
both posture and gesture, though the individual pieces are light in weight. In this
respect, they are close to Schlemmer’s experiments.
It is conceivable that all of the pieces were assembled quickly from fragments of
materials Brandt found in the workshop. The hastily improvised soldered catch on
the neck ring would seem to bear this out. They are made to a very high standard
with few hammer marks visible on the surface and are typical representations
112 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

of the surface finish preferred by the leaders of the metal workshops at the
Bauhaus under the influence of Moholy-Nagy and, latterly, Brandt herself. As
George H. Marcus has pointed out, the effort to present objects made by hand
in the Weimar Bauhaus metal workshops as if they were made by machine was
carried out both in the making and the photographic recording of the pieces for
the purpose of promotion and publicity (Marcus 2008). In her party costume, the
surfaces of both Brandt’s neckpiece and hanging ball are finished in the manner
of machine production. If they were assembled rather than specially made, these
pieces may have been selected for adaptation based on their highly polished
surfaces and resemblance to machine forms. French silversmith Jean Puiforcat,
in an article in L’Art Vivant for the same year as Brandt’s pieces, pointed out that
although his own uncompromisingly modern silverware was all handmade, ‘one
should never leave visible the marks of the hammer’ (Bliss 2003, 143). Brandt’s
headpiece (or metal halo?) is clearly an ad hoc affair, although consideration
has been made for weight in the choice of aluminium. The piece may have had
its origins as part of an unfinished bowl or proto-industrial object produced by
Brandt (or someone else) in the metal workshop. Whatever the case, it is clear
from surviving photographs of the party that metal headgear was worn by other
revellers and, perhaps, they may have been aware of a precedent set by German-
born Dadaist Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. In 1917 the baroness
famously attended a New York concert reception wearing ‘the top of a coal scuttle
for a hat, strapped on under her chin like a helmet’ (Anderson 1930, 194).
In Brandt’s self-portrait of 1929 it is just possible to see part of an earring,
made especially for the occasion, hanging from her left ear and protruding from
below her chin. A close examination of the object reveals a fascinating set of
influences and intentions behind this often overlooked piece by Brandt. Chief
among these is the influence of photomontage. As Elizabeth Otto has shown,
Brandt was constantly experimenting with photomontage during the 1920s and
although these pieces were largely private works, it is clear that they had a large
influence on the way Brandt was developing her formal language as a designer
as well as expressing personal feelings about her own life and times (Otto 2005).
Of all modernist innovations in the visual arts of the interwar period montage
was perhaps the most radical and had the most profound impact on all forms
of visual expression. This is particularly true from the Dada period onwards
(i.e. from 1916) and was a particularly potent form of visual expression for
German Dadaists. Its capacity for producing strange juxtapositions, innovative
compositions and formal experimentation, often using ephemeral materials,
 Modernism and Modernity 113

obviously appealed to Brandt’s fertile imagination. Significantly, it was also a

form of visual expression favoured by women avant-garde artists as both Otto
and, later, Hemus have pointed out in relation to women Dadaists (Hemus 2009).
Brandt’s montage Untitled (with Anna May Wong) of 1929 includes a
number of elements that are closely related to the earring made for the Metal
Party (Figure 3.14). In the late 1920s, many of Brandt’s photomontages are
structured around large circular forms. This is particularly the case in
compositions such as Tempo-tempo, progress, culture (1927), Cirque d’hiver
from the same year and Palucca Dances (1928). The circles, whether flatly
abstract or configured from recognizable forms, create a centre from which
many of the compositional elements are centrifugally flung out into the rest of
the picture space. The composition of Untitled includes, among the newspaper
clippings, a glass disc, a piece of celluloid and a number 8 made from a piece of
punched out card. In paying homage to film through the inclusion of the glass
‘lens’, Brandt also gives the film actress Anna May Wong a large transparent
earring, that hangs below the level of her chin. The film references continue
with the inclusion of the diagonally placed strip of celluloid that helps to
reinforce the dynamism of the composition. The celluloid is fixed over some
of the women’s heads, slightly obscuring them and creating a sense of depth as
well as the idea that their images have been captured and transformed by the
medium of film.
In contrast to the other parts of Brandt’s costume for the Metal Party, the
earring uses only a small amount of metal parts (Figure 3.15). The design
consists of two pieces of plexiglass on to which are fastened two small metal
wheels (one a small clock gear which can spin around) and a small bell (which
still tinkles). The latter is clearly a reference to the original theme of the party. All
the elements of the earring are held together with three split pins. The resulting
object has a strong relationship with two major manifestations of modernist art.
First of all, it develops the visual language of using images of machine
parts that had emerged from cubist and, particularly, Dadaist art practice.
The paintings, collages and constructions of Picabia, Marcel and Suzanne
Duchamp from 1915 onwards were often concerned with mechanomorphic
imagery, that is to say works where machine imagery (real or invented) is given
anthropomorphic qualities. Further, many of these imaginary machines do not
‘work’. Indeed, the irony of these pieces, fully conceived in the spirit of Dada,
is that these are images of machines (or machines themselves) that produce
nothing while appearing to be, at least at first sight, logical, working mechanical
114 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 3.14 Marianne Brandt, ‘Untitled [with Anna May Wong]’. Photomontage, 1929.
67 cm × 50 cm. Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Purchase through
the generosity of the Friends of the Busch-Reisinger Museum and their Acquisitions
Committee, Richard and Priscilla Hunt, Elizabeth C. Lyman, Mildred Rendl-Marcus
and Sylvia de Cuevas, 2006.25. Photo: Imaging Department. © President and Fellows
of Harvard College. © Artists Rights Society, New York. © DACS, 2016.
 Modernism and Modernity 115

Figure 3.15 Marianne Brandt. Earring for the Metal Party at the Bauhaus on 9
February 1929. Gear wheel, small wheel and bell, nickel-plated brass, celluloid sheet.
Length 11 cm. Bauhaus-Archiv, Berlin. © DACS, 2016.

entities. Hemus discusses a particularly good example of this kind of work by

Suzanne Duchamp, her mixed media piece of 1916 Un et une menacés (A Male
and Female Threatened). It features depictions of a number of structural and
mechanical components including a large clock gear, a real plumb bob and metal
rings to produce a work with elements ‘that allude to industry and technology
and that transgress the boundaries between science and art, handcrafted artwork
and mass production’ (Hemus 2009, 139). Although Brandt had spent some time
in Paris in 1920 and 1926–1927, it is not clear whether she would have known
116 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

the work of Suzanne Duchamp. She was, however, clearly aware of developments
in modern art during her time as a student and master at the Bauhaus, either
directly or through her peers and her mentor Moholy-Nagy.
Returning to the earring, it is interesting how it uses similar references to
machine parts in order to produce a wearable modernist accessory for the body.
It hangs perfectly due to the use of the bell counteracting the weight of the wheel
and gear. The overlaying plexiglass in the shape of an inverted teardrop also
helps to achieve this. The bell, logically placed at the bottom of the earring,
literally rings in the ear. In spite of the fact that it was probably made to be worn
once only (and would have been difficult to wear for a long period of time) it is
a clever piece of construction and plays with the conventional understanding of
what an earring is as well as exploiting the ironies of reusing the functional parts
of mechanical devices to celebrate metal and its contribution to machine culture
in, ultimately, an object whose primary purpose is adornment. In its context as a
party accessory, the overall theatricality of the piece should also be noted.
The second and arguably most important characteristic of the earring is
that it is also an essay on the principles of modernist photomontage in three-
dimensional form. At the Bauhaus, photomontage had developed a post-
Dada characteristic whereby the chaotic juxtapositions of Dada compositions
(including the use of texts) were replaced by a concern for a more orderly
and primarily visual approach. This is clear in the works of Moholy-Nagy and
Marianne Brandt from the 1920s. Although both started their careers as painters,
working and studying at the Bauhaus allowed them to experiment freely with
many different techniques so that, in effect, photomontage became a way of
working that provided a means of personal expression and a way of working out
compositional ideas. Otto has shown how Moholy-Nagy, such a key influence
on Brandt, had begun to see photomontage as a part of the process of creating
‘photosculptures’, the original montages being rephotographed to create a single
image (Otto 2009). The process of creating a single photographic image from the
Dada-style glued compositions of the immediate post-war period nevertheless
still allowed the artist to produce an image which is, according to Moholy-Nagy’s
book Painting, Photography, Film, ‘pieced together from various photographs
and are an experimental method of simultaneous representation; compressed
interpenetration of visual and verbal wit’ (96). Brandt would certainly have been
familiar with this text as it was published by the Bauhaus as the eighth in its
series of Bauhausbücher in 1925. Indeed, the red ‘8’ in Brandt’s Untitled is the
same ‘8’ that appears on the cover of Moholy-Nagy’s book.
 Modernism and Modernity 117

Brandt’s earring contains both the ironic humour and wit of the
mecanomorphic nonfunctioning machine parts of Picabia and Duchamp
combined with the visual experiments of montage techniques – layering,
transparency, translucency, metaphorical and real sound. Above all, there is a
strong sense of spatial ambiguity here created by the use of plexiglass. Unlike
traditional jewellery, the mass of which is important in the way it hangs, moves
and catches the light, Brandt’s earring, though large, allows views of the body to
be seen through it. The use of plexiglass effectively confronts the notion that a
piece of jewellery should be understood as a solid mass. Here it is a modulator of
light, gently swinging and by turns reflecting and distorting images of both the
subject and the outside world.
Otto notes that, after her return from her second trip to Paris in 1927, Brandt
‘seems to have worked in parallel in montage, metal and photography’ (2009,
103). The earring can be seen, therefore, as a unique distillation of three main
preoccupations of the Bauhaus. As in her photomontages, and with some humour
befitting an accessory to a party costume, Brandt produced a piece which can be
read as both a celebration of, and ironic commentary on, the failure of machine
culture – a bridge between the nihilism of Dada and the formal experimentation
of the constructivists.
The forces of modernism and modernity clearly had a profound impact on the
conception and creation of jewellery and other objects of personal adornment
in interwar culture. Kracauer’s dream-image, used to open this chapter, of the
forces of change as an inescapable fact of modern life can also serve to illustrate
the creative energy applied to many aspects of interwar cultural life. Not only
were the arts increasingly seen as being in ‘synthesis’, there were tendencies
(such as the promotion of the culture of the machine and the debates about
ornament) that were disseminated through growing international connections
and publications. The presence of jewellery designers alongside architects and
artists in the organizations that promoted the new tendencies is very significant,
but so are the various individual attempts to produce jewellery that responded
to or emerged from experiments in other disciplines. We can see jewellery being
used to reflect the many changes in the modern world and adapting its form
to various social, cultural and economic circumstances. Furthermore, through
experimental practices situated at the heart of avant-garde culture, we see objects
of adornment being used to critique the very nature of the modern world to
which it was increasingly becoming subjected.
 4

Representing Jewellery:
Photography and Film

American artist Man Ray only had one major claim to fame as a designer of
jewellery. At least that is the way he puts it in a letter to Marjorie Worthington,
ex-wife of American writer, explorer, occultist, BDSM aficionado and (alleged)
cannibal William Seabrook in 1941. Writing of the succès de scandale surrounding
his relationship with Seabrook in the early 1930s, Man Ray declares: ‘Even the
story; that I had designed special jewelry for you, is known, and I have now
the reputation of jewelry designer amongst my other accomplishments’ (Mileaf
2010, 78). Man Ray had indeed designed a high metal collar at the behest of
Seabrook for his then wife, probably in 1930. The silversmith who had earlier
produced Man Ray’s chess set of c. 1926 manufactured it. According to Man
Ray, ‘My silversmith made a very pretty job of it: two hinged pieces of dull silver
studded with shiny knobs, that snapped into place, giving the wearer a very regal
appearance . . . She was to wear the bauble at home to please Seabrook’s penchant
for fetishism, and because it became quite uncomfortable after a while’ (2012,
193–4).
On occasion, Marjorie Seabrook wore the collar at social functions and
apparently caused both a ‘sensation’ and a ‘furore’ (Ray 2012, 94). But this was
Man Ray dabbling with jewellery design, albeit for a very specific purpose. He
did produce, intermittently, some other designs for jewellery during his long
artistic career but these were often based on forms from his sculptural works or
images taken directly from his paintings such as the A l’heure de l’Observatoire –
les Amoureux brooch in gold of 1932–1934. In terms of design, the late
‘Lampshade’ earrings of the 1960s, famously modelled by Catherine Deneuve,
are true sculptural pieces and have been reproduced at a variety of scales and
in a number of different materials. Man Ray’s attempts at jewellery design were
largely hampered by the fact that he lacked specific metalsmithing skills, leaving
120 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

the making to others. With some notable exceptions (Alexander Calder and
Georges Braque, for example) efforts on the part of twentieth-century painters
and sculptors to engage with jewellery design can be, in this sense, rather
disappointing. Certain galleries in the post-war period encouraged by now
famous contemporary artists to create works that, as H. C. Fabre puts it, ‘tried to
renew the art of jewellery’ and although museums were keen to buy these works,
they remained difficult to wear, sometimes poorly conceived and represented
a ‘divorce between idea and technical realization marring considerably their
aesthetic appreciation’ (Fabre 1969, 42). Though by no means an accomplished
maker of jewellery, Man Ray was very interested in jewellery objects. He deployed
them in his work many times either as a means of creating form or alluding to its
properties as charm, symbol or fashion accessory, combining this interest with a
variety of forms of representation. In this respect he was not alone, as the rest of
this chapter seeks to demonstrate.

The body and the modernist lens

Throughout the interwar years, jewellery often takes its place at the heart
of modernist experimentation with new visual practices and modes of
representation. Whether in ‘new vision’ photography, commercial imagery or in
more private experimental work in film and still images, jewellery (and here it
is defined in the widest sense as ornament, adornment and visual concept, both
‘designed’ and in the form of the found object) provided many with an opportunity
to explore new visual languages. In Weimar Germany, the photographer Yva (the
professional name of Else Neuländer-Simon) produced a number of important
contributions to the representation of jewellery and fashion. In 1926, at the start
of her career, she also produced one of the most striking self-portraits of the
interwar years. The picture is a double-exposure plate which combines an image
of her own head, shoulders and crossed arms with a painting by her collaborator
Heinz Hajek-Halke. It was one of the first images by Yva to have been widely
reproduced and is a strong, challenging representation of a young neue Frau
(new woman). She wears no jewellery or accessories and gazes straight out at the
camera. According to Mila Ganeva, ‘Yva is embracing the promised modernist
antedote to sexualisation and over-feminisation of women in art by emphasizing
the ungendered image’ (2003: 9). Yet Yva was to produce some highly sexualized
images of women, in which modern accessories, including jewellery, play a major
 Representing Jewellery 121

part. She examined this relationship between the female body and accessories in
a series of commercial and experimental images of the 1920s and early 1930s.
She concentrated, in one series, on hands – very much a common theme in
jewellery advertising of the interwar period. These parts of the body are often
shown in isolation, either ‘naked’, adorned with rings and bracelets or, on one
occasion, with jewellery worn over long black velvet gloves. In some examples,
sets of hands are often shown as active and not at rest, helping to suggest a kind
of animated conversation or dramatic gesture.
This kind of image was a common way of portraying jewellery in the 1920s
and 1930s both in studio shots and more experimental pieces. The photographers
Thérèse Bonney and Man Ray both used this technique as did Paris jeweller
Raymond Templier. In the reproduction of his work in Art et décoration for
February 1930, the photography studio Lecram-Vigneau preferred to show the
hand modelling of Templier’s modernist bracelet and ring in a passive way –
the ‘gesture’ being demure and almost acquiescent. Since physiognomy reveals
character, the absolute neutrality of this particular gesture is striking. In Thérèse
Bonney’s version, the setting is a bar as two hands model jewellery for men and
women by Gérard Sandoz (Figure 4.1).
The male hand flips the top of the lighter as he is about to light the woman’s
cigarette. His hand is much more active than hers as she passively waits for the
lighting of the cigarette. The couple are clearly on intimate terms and there is a
suggestion that something beyond a tête-à-tête may be forthcoming. Sandoz’s
jewellery is made clearly visible, but the emphasis is on the role they play in
the relationship between the couple, the intimate setting and the myth of
metropolitan glamour. Focusing on the hands allows the viewer to concentrate
on how the jewellery ‘works’ on a familiar part of the body and how this may
promote strategies of adornment. Man Ray used real hands as well as those of a
mannequin in an advertisement for Cartier jewellery published in the September
1935 edition of Harper’s Bazaar. But the concentration on particular parts of the
body (whether real or fabricated) as sites for the display of jewellery must also
be understood in the context of fetishism. As Susan Buck-Morss writes, ‘just as
the much-admired mannequin has detachable parts, so fashion encourages the
fetishistic fragmentation of the living body’ (Meskimmon 1999, 59).
Yva’s photograph known as ‘Hands Study’ of c. 1929 shows only certain
fragments of the model’s body – two bejewelled arms emerging from what seems
to be a long coat or wrap (Figure 4.2). Ganeva claims that these fragments, rather
than objectifying the female body, allow the product itself to be subjected to ‘the
122 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 4.1 Jewellery by Gérard Sandoz; photographed by Thérèse Bonney, late 1920s.
Courtesy of the Smithsonian Libraries, Washington, DC. © UC Regents, The Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley.

expert woman’s eye’ (2003, 16). This may explain Yva’s interest in the close-up
(an emerging trope of modernist photography) or, indeed, the demands of the
client’s brief. Either way, in the context of advertising images of jewellery, it
should not be forgotten that such objectifying imagery was commonplace in the
1920s in spite of the emergence of the new woman.
In Germany, as elsewhere, the place of the neue Frau within capitalism is
ambiguous in the sense that any positive aspects of the portrayal of what is also
known as the ‘Modern Girl’ became an opportunity for further exploitation.
Poiger points out that ‘so-called neue frauen in Germany . . . raised both hopes
and fears about forces of modernity. Neue frauen or “girls” in bobs, short, loose
dresses, or sports outfits did indeed become a pervasive social presence across
classes in 1920s Germany’ (2008, 320). However, there was money to made by
perpetuating the image of the neue Frau as rebellious and willing to challenge
‘preexisting ideologies of female subservience and self-sacrifice’ in a way that
‘reworked modern heteronormativity’ (Weinbaum et al. 2008, 52). As we have
seen in Chapter 1, the new woman, whether femme moderne, garçonne, neue Frau
 Representing Jewellery 123

Figure 4.2 Elsa Neuländer-Simon (known as Yva), ‘Hands Study’, c. 1929. Gelatin
silver print. 19.69 × 14.29 cm. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Purchase.
Photograph: Don Ross.

or Flapper could as easily be portrayed in advertising or popular film as empty

headed, vacuous, dizzy or vain as she could be strong-willed, independent, active
or intelligent. The exploitation of the image of the neue Frau also becomes, for
some, problematic within the contemporary institutional critiques of capitalism.
As Meskimmon puts it, the ‘elite, masculine critique of consumerism’ created a
situation whereby:

the New Woman was evacuated of her potentially liberating aspects, paraded as
a mere image in the media and described as the duped consumer by male critics.
This left no space in which to take seriously the women who were emerging as
independent agents in the period and their negotiations of the tropes of the neue
frau, spectatorship and consumerism. (1999, 180)

Returning to Yva’s ‘Hands Study’ it is an extraordinarily unique image in the

recent history of the representation of jewellery. If, as is highly likely, the image
124 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

was intended for use in advertising it presents an intriguing way of promoting

this particular jewellery collection (which remains unidentified). The principal
interest here is how the model ‘performs’ in this regard. An examination of the
pose is worth undertaking. To cross the arms at the elbows means that the model
must be leaning forward and resting her left arm on her left knee. The right hand
crosses her upper body and rests on the shoulder. The jewellery itself consists of
a ring on the right ring finger (the traditional German placement for a wedding
ring) and two large bracelets, both able to move up and down the arm. The scene
is indeterminate. Is it a studio shot? Is it a street? Is it at night? Is the woman
coming home from an evening out? Are the crossing arms protruding from the
coat a gesture of protection or a flamboyant demonstration of a young, supple
frame? We cannot see the model’s face as she leans forward due to the cropping
of the picture, but her body is athletic – how else could she perform this pose?
The whole gesture is theatrical and this is a theme that was regularly explored
by Yva up until the early 1930s. According to Moortgat and Beckers, ‘Yva
made her photo models appear to be on stage, so as to fix a moment which
was capable of suggesting movement, even in the static image’ (2001, 231). The
key characteristic of motion in modernist aesthetics (whether actual or implied)
is important for both fashion and jewellery. Increasingly, designers in both
domains were aiming to exploit movement either in the pieces themselves or
in their strategies of representation. Karl Toepfer, in his commentary on early
twentieth-century German body culture, refers to how ‘modern bodies project an
ambiguous historical function: bodies are modern because they create significant
instabilities of perception’ (1997, 6). The new ways in which the modern body
was to perform itself can be seen in a variety of photographic representations in
Weimar culture. In Yva’s work, we encounter contemporary applications of the
modernist body applied to representations of fashion, advertising, sports and
performing arts. In spite of the fact that Toepfer considers such things as ‘fashion
and machines’ to be things that are imposed on the body, he also says that there
was ‘an ambitious attempt by the culture to physicalise modernity within the
body and to view the body itself as a manifestation of modernist desire’ (7). This
view has significance for understanding the way that Yva’s bodies perform both
the objects that they are wearing and the body itself. When Yva photographed
the nude female form in attitudes suggestive of the modern German body
culture described by Toepfer, but with the crucial addition of jewellery objects,
she was using one aspect of body culture (the new female physicality) to
showcase another (modern body adornment). Unlike in conventional fashion
photography, here it is the nude body not the subject’s costume or outfit that is
 Representing Jewellery 125

being accessorized. Thus we may see in this form of representation the use of the
accessory to not only increase the erotic potential of the adorned body (and to
give it identity as fashion does), but also to position the modern body firmly in
the realm of contemporary culture as supple, mobile and free.
Toepfer states that German body culture produced ‘the most turbulent dance
culture in history’ and that there was uncertainty within this culture about
whether ‘modernity was ultimately an ecstatic condition of nudity or an ecstatic
release of movement’ (1997, 7). One of the consistent physical characteristics of
jewellery is how it moves with the body. In Yva’s photography, jewellery detracts
from the ‘pure’ form of the nude figure, moving our perception of the body away
from consideration of its anatomical form towards a cultural appreciation of
adornment. In some of Yva’s photographs this process is very evident.
One in particular shows a naked model wearing nothing but a series of gold
bangles on her wrists. Her twisted head-down pose renders her anonymous,
but the flexible pose shows off her athletic modernist body (Moortgat and
Beckers 2001, 110). Bodies like this (expressions of what was known at the
time as körperkultur) constitute characteristic forms of interwar visual culture,
emphasizing an active, healthy, flexible body. These bodies, apart from possessing
athletic potential, were also capable of modelling modern accessories with
ease. Similar to the series of Man Ray’s photographs of chanteuse Suzy Solidor
(see Chapter 1) there is a significant reference here to the practice of wearing
jewellery à l’ésclave (like a slave). Originating in nineteenth-century orientalism,
the tendency to depict women in passive poses as captives wearing highly ornate
jewellery (and often little else) was popularized, among others, by the painter
Ingres. The erotic barely adorned body has, though, undergone a transformation
in these modern images. The women here are not portrayed as passive victims,
even though they may still be seen as being objectified. Their role is to model
products and to use their modern bodies to emphasize the qualities of specific
pieces of jewellery in the service of modern commercial enterprise.
Carmel Finnan argues that Yva’s ‘Hands Study’ ‘reduces the female body to
a display medium for the consumer objects that adorn it, transforming this
passive object with her camera into a sensual and sexualized image’ (2006, 131).
Indeed the technology of modern photography (the close-up lens, more sensitive
film) together with the aesthetics of modernist visual practices (fragmentation,
assemblage, collage) provided a number of ways in which female body parts could
be objectified in both commercial and avant-garde representation. In Yva’s work,
this is also the case with some of her more conventional photographs of models
wearing jewellery and is more strikingly obvious in her commercial photographs
126 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

of stockings where often only the model’s legs are shown with, sometimes,
close-up shots of the pattern or weave of the fabric. Many of these photographs
by Yva are composed along the lines of shop window displays, where display of
the product is supremely important. Her images of models sporting different
ranges of jewellery are strongly reminiscent of those of the society and fashion
photographer Dora Kallmus (known as Madame D’Ora) who had produced
commercial images of avant-garde jewellery in Germany and France in the 1920s.
When considering Yva’s representation of the body, the influence of Dada
and surrealism cannot be discounted, as the tendency to objectify parts of the
female anatomy (adorned or unadorned) was common in experimental film,
photography and assemblage and exercised some influence on Weimar visual
culture. But Yva’s only significant written statement about her photographic
practice, produced for an exhibition of her work in Berlin in 1927, reveals that she
was interested in trying to ‘utilise the artistic possibilities of pure photography’,
indicating that the photographic apparatus (in particular the lens) should be
used objectively to reveal ‘the image’s own aptitude for composition’ (Moortgat
and Beckers 2001, 206). There is a strong flavour of the Kunstwollen (will to form)
here, a kind of self-actualization of the photograph under the strict conditions of
modern techniques. The development of the new photography in the 1920s (and
what Lucia Moholy refers to as ‘object photography’) provided creative impetus
for the exploration of new photographic languages in both the artistic and the
commercial realm. As Witkovsky writes, ‘rather than valuing photographs
above all as artefacts of technological progress, or differentiating between the
creative and the commercial realm, this new theory declared photographs of all
kinds and uses . . . to be part of an ever-modern and inherently experimental
field of imagery’ (2007, 53). For Moholy ‘the object in the picture became self-
assertive; and so did the details of the object. Nothing was without significance.
The minuteness of detail became essential . . . The texture of the object, its own
surface, were emphasized’ (1939, 164).

Florence Henri and Marianne Brandt: Objects

and self-representation

Lucia Moholy and fellow modernist artist and photographer Florence Henri
produced a number of portraits and object photographs in the 1920s and 1930s
which, through exploitation of new photographic practices, demonstrated a
 Representing Jewellery 127

Figure 4.3 Florence Henri, advertising photograph for Lanvin perfume, 1929.
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Florence Henri. © Galleria Martini e
Ronchetti, Genoa.

keen interest in recording jewellery as a modern fashion accessory. Henri also

used visual references to jewellery as a spur to the formal inventiveness of her
images. For example, when Maison Lanvin introduced its iconic boule noir
perfume bottle in 1927 (to contain the new ‘Arpège’ scent) Henri produced a
striking image using a single bottle and mirrors to produce a representation of a
necklace based on repeated reflections (Figure 4.3).
Henri explained that she used mirrors to ‘introduce the same subject seen
from different angles in a single photograph so as to give the same theme
a variety of views that complete each other and are able to expound it better
by interacting with each other’ (du Pont 1990, 20). This is reminiscent of the
strategies employed by the cubists, but also the various experiments with light and
reflections undertaken at the Bauhaus by Marianne Brandt and others. The result
is a visual construction of a necklace (not an illusion since the reflections create
an idea of a necklace and not any necklace in particular) and is an interesting
128 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

way to connect the product and its glass container to produce a promotional
image of a highly desirable brand. Of all small objects of vanity, perhaps scent
bottles are the most gendered (and remain so to this day). The Lanvin boule noir
with its fluted gold stopper and glittery fabric bow is both a mythic object (with
classical overtones recalling Roman glass), Christmas decoration and (in Henri’s
constructed image) glass bead necklace. Henri’s advertising image transposes a
simple form into a multivalent jewellery image, the image of a jewel that evokes
the transformatory powers of the scent and, at the same time, introduces a new
dynamism to still-life photography. For a while, both Henri’s commercial and
private photographic practice employed the use of mirrors for portrait and still-
life photography.
Martin Jay has written that photography’s ability ‘to preserve a moment
that inevitably passes, an event that has happened only once, is one of the
most powerful claims the medium has on us’, while also adding that ‘what it
shows is irretrievably gone, and yet doggedly still present in a lingering image’
(2015, 10). Henri’s repetition of the Lanvin perfume bottle through the use of
mirrors arguably produces an image of a ‘jewel’ that is full of the potential for
movement. After all, one of the uses of jewellery in costume is to produce the
restless sensation of movement through the accumulation of points of reflection.
For example, a feature in Vogue magazine for March 1937, showed small spears
of rhinestone flowers available from Saks, Fifth Avenue, that are promised to
‘quiver convincingly as you move’.
Compared to Henri’s representation, Thérèse Bonney’s 1929 photograph of the
same Lanvin bottles, illustrated in A Shopping Guide to Paris, straightforwardly
shows them more straightforwardly as a family of objects arranged according to
size and thus constituting a fairly traditional point of sale image (Bonney and
Bonney 1929, 26–7). However, Henri’s bottles form a dynamic visually linked
sequence that must be completed in the mind to be appreciated as a necklace.
The bottles are repeated so that they either confront themselves or complete
their pattern in the mirror world, thus making it possible to produce what might
be called a partially formed ‘trans-real’ necklace, where a sense of immediate
perception of a real object is translated into a conceptual model of a familiar
but, ultimately, unobtainable one very much in the spirit of surrealism. It should
be noted once again that the fascination with the mirrored surface is a clear
feature of much Bauhaus photography and Henri’s use of mirrors is a further
development of this interest. Herself Bauhaus trained and with many contacts
in avant-garde circles, Henri’s visual experiments with capturing reflections
 Representing Jewellery 129

of objects in shiny surfaces was one way to produce the strikingly modern yet
disconcerting imagery characteristic of full-blown modernist photography.
Diana C. du Pont writes of Henri’s portrait photography that it ‘dramatizes
the New Vision techniques of shooting close up, from above, and at an angle,
by setting the subject’s face against the designs of modern textiles and jewellery’
and that ‘these photographs suggest that for the modern woman clothes are
more a reflection of personality than of class, and that through her appearance, a
woman can make and remake herself ’ (1990, 41). Thus jewellery here becomes,
if not a completely classless item, then at the very least a means by which an
assertion of personality (or personalities) can be made within the dictates of
modern fashion. As Richard Godden writes ‘fashion is always disintegrative; it
aims to give us several selves, thereby providing capital with a diversification of
markets’ (1998, xxii). It is also interesting how so many photographic portraits
of artists and writers of the 1920s and 1930s (e.g. those of Man Ray and Cecil
Beaton) feature the use of clothing and accessories as a way of creating alternative
images for the sitter.
In portraits of Florence Henri by Lucia Moholy and Max Peiffer Watenphul,
she is often shown wearing jewellery (both commercial and, probably, made by
herself from found objects) which complements her style of dressing. Henri’s
choice of clothing usually featured a personal taste for strong, bold patterns
or geometric weaves befitting a student of the Bauhaus. This is clearly shown
in Moholy’s 1927 photographic portrait of Henri (Witkovsky 2007, 81). Here
she wears an earring that appears to have been made from a found object,
possibly a lightweight industrial component. This is a sign of her artistic spirit,
unconventional approach to adornment and independence of mind. Witkovsky
writes of this image that ‘the sitter is unequivocally modern, but to be modern
means to present oneself as a screen of equivocal possibilities’ (81). These
possibilities are partly the result of modern capitalism (and the ‘diversification’
referred to by Godden) but also points to the way that many Bauhaus students
and masters often invented different personalities for themselves, either through
self-portraits, manipulated images or dressing up for themed parties such as the
1929 Metal Party (see Chapter 3).
Godden’s contention is a useful way of considering the commodification of
modern forms of jewellery in Henri’s portraits and in portraits of her by Moholy.
Henri’s ‘Portrait Composition (Woman with Three Bracelets)’ of 1930 is a good
example (Figure 4.4). Three bangles (probably of celluloid) are modelled as a
structural modernist adjunct to the arm. They are carefully positioned to fully
130 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 4.4 Florence Henri, ‘Portrait Composition: Woman with Three Bracelets’, 1929.
Gelatin silver photograph, 29.3 × 22.2 cm. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
Purchased 1986. Florence Henri © Galleria Martini e Ronchetti, Genoa.

show themselves to the camera. The model’s simple spotted dress provides a
geometric patterned area to the right of the picture. The texture of the dress is
underplayed in the image so that the white dots are read as pure shapes without
the distraction of texture. The model also wears a simple necklace of thick wire
(similar to that worn by Meret Oppenheim in Man Ray’s 1933 photograph
‘Erotique voilée’) echoing the curve of her chin, softly modelled by the light. She
disengages from the viewer and stares, not without interest, out of the frame. She
exhibits the demeanour of someone at ease with her surroundings and confident
in her choice of modern clothing and accessories. Underneath the bangles is
a striped fabric serving to demonstrate, once more, a clear connection with
modern design.
In other examples by Henri from the same year, such as the ‘Portrait
Composition (Margarete Schall with Hairnet)’, the sitter directly returns the
camera’s gaze, her hairnet and elasticated metal choker providing unusual and
 Representing Jewellery 131

contrasting personalized accessories that play a significant part in the formation

of the image of this particular neue Frau. Some of Henri’s studies show the
female nude wearing a small number of items of adornment. In the case of the
series of photographs of Honor made in 1934, the model wears only a buckled
leather belt around her waist and a ring on the ring finger of her left hand. She
seems unencumbered by this, kneeling and reaching up to fix her hair, leaning
backwards with hands behind her back and staring up and out of the frame,
confident and only minimally accessorized. These nudes are all wearing either
very simple jewellery or accessories. They are not adorned, as in many fin-de-
siècle representations of the nude, with heavy jewels intended to create an erotic
effect based on notions of the exotic or the oriental. They are a very different
kind of nude study where the modern accessory is deployed not only to distance
the representation of the nude from these previous associations but also, as in
Yva’s work, to delineate and define specifically modernist bodies.
Bauhaus designer Marianne Brandt produced a series of important
photographic self-portraits in the late 1920s in which objects and backgrounds
are used in combination with her own image to create new formations of her self.
Through performance and masquerade and, as Chadwick puts it, by ‘blurring
gender boundaries by using coded signs, the meaning of which shifts from
historical moment to historical moment’, it was possible for Brandt to represent
herself in a unique way (1998, 27). We have seen in the previous chapter how
her set of body adornments for the Bauhaus Metal Party were used to create an
image of herself which, perhaps at first sight, appears ambiguous in terms in
gender identity, an aspect that is reinforced by the metallic forms themselves
(Figure 4.5). The headpiece is not worn in the conventional way or, indeed, at
a conventional angle. Its strap produces a reaction in the sitter to lift the chin
at an awkward angle. The neckpiece, a heavy geometric affair of circular and
spherical forms, departs from any ‘normal’ considerations of weight and scale.
To complete her ‘performance’ Brandt adopts cropped hair and wears a simple,
black sleeveless dress. It can be argued that there is nothing here that has been
directly ‘lifted’ from the masculine world. In fact, through the representation of
a particular object–subject relationship, Brandt’s jewellery helps to promote a
strong image of modern femininity rather than anything that directly signifies
masculinity.
As has been demonstrated in Chapter 2, Charlotte Perriand used jewellery
to help define herself as a confident, professional, modern woman. However,
unlike Perriand, Marianne Brandt, it is claimed, was unsuccessful in presenting
132 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 4.5 Marianne Brandt, ‘Self-Portrait in the Studio with Jewellery for the Metal
Party, Bauhaus Dessau’, 1929. Gelatin silver print, 19.7 × 13.7 cm. Bauhaus-Archiv,
Berlin. © DACS, 2016.

herself in this way. As Magdalena Droste points out, ‘It was difficult for Brandt
to develop a professional female habitus as a designer even in the relatively
liberal environment of the Bauhaus. The development of a female habitus was
more promising in the weaving workshop . . . But the metal workshop was a
male territory: a battleground among men’ (2009, 218). Evoking Bourdieu’s idea
of habitus as behaviour specific to particular social groups, Droste argues that
Brandt failed to effectively conform to the type of behaviour (and to develop
the skills of self-promotion) that were necessary for artistic success both during
and after her time at the Bauhaus. Crucial to this success was the ability to take
control over the authorship and ownership of work produced and to project
a convincing image of autonomous artistic practice. Tensions at the Bauhaus
emerged when director Walter Gropius, who was in favour of cooperative
working and the promotion of Bauhaus designs anonymously, clashed with staff
and students about the ownership of their work. All this has relevance to the
 Representing Jewellery 133

way Brandt chose to represent herself in the photographic image. She made self-
portraits on numerous occasions during her time at the Bauhaus and later in her
life. However, the only self-portraits to feature herself with her own work are
those which were made at the time of the Metal Party in 1929. These were works
produced for a single social occasion and, unlike much of her applied craft and
design work, never achieved any significant status as works of body adornment.
They do, however, reveal something about Brandt’s methods and intentions of
self-representation. She was, above all, interested in the way metal works as a
hard, reflective surface. Sometimes this is shown in her photographs of curved
surfaces, often featuring reflections of herself behind or with the camera as
in ‘Das Atelier in der Kugel’ of 1928–1929 (Bliss 2013, 180). In these images
her body shape is often distorted. This can be interpreted as a response to the
formalist doctrine of defamiliarization, but the relationship between herself and
her immediate surroundings also seems to be uncomfortable. The ‘controlling’
metal of the pieces for the Metal Party present Brandt in a unique way, but this
is not an image of a professional artist: ‘Brandt’s behavior tells us that she was
unable to imagine or invent a professional habitus in the way [Marcel] Breuer
and [Herbert] Bayer had done, even as a photographic subject. Not even at the
symbolic level did she find a model which unified her professional abilities and
her gender’ (Droste 2009, 218). Brandt’s self-portrait wearing the Metal Party
accessories shows her as an awkward subject, in an unflattering pose with
objects that seem to be controlling her. Whether this was done with wry humour
or not (and this should not be discounted given her gift for visual wit) it is a long
way from Henri’s portrait compositions where the subjects are at ease with their
surroundings and the objects that serve to form their identities.

Man Ray and jewellery

As a photographer, Marianne Brandt was primarily interested in exploring the

compositional devices which were important in the development of her vision
of the world as one which was in flux due the impact of the forces of modernity.
She was also able to comment ironically on the machine culture that so many of
her colleagues were enthusiastic proponents of. However, the surface remained
something very important for Brandt in both her photography and her object
making. By contrast, Man Ray’s photographic practice objects are often represented
as forms of material reality. However, their material reality is acted upon by light
134 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

to produce ‘an abstract rendering of the object from which it emanates’ (Knowles
2009, 130). This is particularly true of both the Rayographs and certain passages
in Man Ray’s experimental films, where jewellery often plays a significant role. In
the Rayographs, objects are shown as shadows, mysterious traces of the objects
themselves, often without human scale and always out of conventional time and
space. Man Ray worked as a commercial photographer from the early 1920s and
published some of his Rayographs in French Vogue as early as 1926 (‘Études en
blanc et noir’, 1926, 34). His attempts to gain visibility for his more experimental
work could easily have had a direct impact on the work of more commercial
photographers. One of the plates published in the Vogue piece includes a pearl or
mock-pearl bracelet, perhaps one belonging to his then partner Alice Prin, better
known as Kiki de Montparnasse. Many of the objects used by Man Ray in the
Rayographs are ordinary everyday objects and, as has been pointed out, Man Ray
‘did not leave home in search of his material, but instead chose items that were
intimately domestic in character’ (Neusüss and Heyne 1998, 191). These included
objects such as jewellery, pieces of lace, cooking utensils, flowers, hair (from all
parts of the body), pins, wire and fabric mesh. In other words, objects often taken
from the feminine ‘sphere’ that were both ready to hand and of an appropriate
scale to be placed on the photographic paper. Such objects may also have had
a very strong fetishistic character for the photographer. Vogue was sufficiently
intrigued by the four images to declare that the results of Man Ray’s experiments
showed ‘the results of a comical modernism, hallucinatory, disconcerting and a
little mysterious’ (‘Études en blanc et noir’, 1926, 34).
Objects, whatever their provenance, often appear disembodied in Man Ray’s
images, as is the case in the 1927 Rayograph ‘Necklace and Bracelet’ (Figure 4.6).
At first sight, this image seems disconcerting as it appears to be a conventional
photograph of a bracelet around which has been drawn a starburst. On closer
inspection, the starburst is the necklace – an affair made from thin metal tubing
crudely joined together. In fact, this may not be a necklace at all and may have
originally had another function as a more utilitarian object. It stands for a
necklace here and its shape serves to contain the half-shadow, half-reflections
emanating from the elasticated bracelet. There is no attempt to give these
objects human scale or any spatial or narrative context. They create a graphically
complex and spatially ambiguous composition. These ‘jewels’ have a life beyond
the body, in a time and space of their own.
The bracelet featured in this photograph appears to be the one worn by Kiki
in Man Ray’s 1928 film l’Étoile de mer. In a scene at 13′15″, the bracelet is very
 Representing Jewellery 135

Figure 4.6 Man Ray, ‘Necklace and Bracelet’, 1927. Gelatin silver print. 22.9 × 17.6 cm.
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. © Man Ray Trust/ADAGP, Paris and DACS,
London, 2016.

prominently displayed on Kiki’s right wrist as her character climbs a stairwell,

knife in hand, with murderous intent (Ray 2007). A starfish is superimposed
over the frame. At 15′25″ in the same film, Kiki is shown sleeping wearing only
a pearl necklace at the throat and a linked metal bracelet of brass, both good
examples of the contiguity of the traditional and the modern. In Man Ray’s earlier
film Emak Bakia of 1926, Kiki is shown wearing elaborate costume jewellery as
she performs the famous scene at 19′30″ where, with open eyes painted on her
closed lids, she slowly opens the latter to reveal her real eyes before closing them
again and falling back into sleep or, indeed, death (Ray 2007).
In modernist film, jewellery is evoked in other ways. In Man Ray’s 1923
film Le Retour à la raison (The Return to Reason) images of a fun-fair carousel
shot at night show strings of electric lights whirl in concentric circles as
moving parts of the machine, recalling strings of pearls or the points of light
refracting from a necklace of jewels. There is very little background visible and
136 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

these ‘giant’ pieces of whirling jewellery are left to define the space. A similar
effect can be seen in Henry Chomette’s 1925 film Jeux de reflets et de la vitesse
(Play of Reflections and Speed) pinpoints of light form strings which dance
rhythmically on the screen, later revealed to be the lights seen by the driver’s
cab of a metro train inside a tunnel. In a similar vein, a photograph of the Bal
de la couture held at the Paris Opera in 1929 shows the interior of the hall lit
by strands of electric lights, reminiscent of strings of pearls and vast sautoirs
(Evans 2013, 121). In the foreground, a group of mannequins wait to go on
stage. This liaison between the historic and the modern (the Opera, the pearls,
the electric lights, the mannequins and the fleeting fashions) together with the
spectacle of the event itself are a clear expression of Baudelairean modernity.
Man Ray’s ‘straight’ photography of jewellery made for fashion periodicals in
the 1920s and 1930s sometimes featured jewellery modelled by mannequins,
or parts of mannequins. These slightly disconcerting images give the product
human scale, but disconnect them from the material realities of the everyday
under the influence of the surrealist techniques of evoking the uncanny. Man
Ray foregrounded these ideas in his experimental practice, for example, the
dice-rolling mannequin hands in his 1929 film Les Mystères du Château de Dé.
The photographs Man Ray produced to illustrate Russian émigré novelist Elsa
Triolet’s book Colliers (Necklaces) are an interesting case of how these aspects of
his photographic practice were brought together. They also shed further light
on Man Ray’s interest in representing jewellery and accessories, in this case the
materiality of Triolet’s collection of idiosyncratic pieces.
Triolet wrote Colliers in the early 1930s in her native Russian. For reasons which
are not altogether clear, this version was submitted to a publisher in Moscow, but
was never published there. Subsequent editions have appeared in French (Triolet
1973) and German (Triolet 1999) both of which include Man Ray’s four original
illustrations. Her necklaces were made from a combination of found, cheap and
‘poor’ materials which was to lend surrealist credibility to her designs. The text of
Colliers describes how the piecemeal work involved in producing these accessories
was a way of making a meagre living for Triolet and her partner, French surrealist
writer Louis Aragon. He rose at 5 am every day to sell them to representatives
of international fashion houses such as Lelong and Schiaparelli. The latter was
particularly keen to buy them because her intuition, sharpened by the impact of
the new straightened economic circumstances of the 1930s, was that ‘public taste
called for an impoverished chic’ (Mackinnon 1992, 79). The couple lived in a small
flat which, for a time, became Triolet’s workshop. The situation is described in a
 Representing Jewellery 137

section of Aragon’s poem Cantique à Elsa written in 1942: ‘You were making jewels
for sale and at night / All turned into necklaces under the spell of your hands /Any
bits of old rag any bits of old glass / Necklaces as lovely as light / Lovely beyond
belief ’ (Adereth 1994, 46). Aragon writes that he sold them to dealers from all over
the world but their material value was far from that associated with conventional
jewellery: ‘Those jewels made from nothing by your gold-washing fingers / Those
pebbles which looked like flowers / Carrying your colours’ (46).
A collection of forty-seven of these pieces has survived and has been held by
the municipality of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, France, since 1987. They are not
on permanent public display but an examination of images of extant pieces clearly
reveals the variety of materials that Triolet used in their creation (Les Colliers
d’Elsa Triolet: Exposition virtuelle, 2017). In various combinations, these include
velour, leather, glass, bone, cotton, imitation mother of pearl, silk, horsehair, glass,
plastic, Bakelite and a range of cheap soft metals in a variety of finishes. Some
of them are clearly influenced by Louis Aragon’s collection of African artefacts.
They exhibit the qualities of chance inherent in the found object combined with
a mysterious, often unsettling character in the spirit of Dada and surrealism.
Perhaps this is because of the origins of the materials themselves; fascinating and,
at the same time, slightly repellent. For Triolet, obtaining the small amounts of
materials needed to make the pieces required her to visit some unsavoury parts
of the city of Paris and do deals with some unscrupulous characters, who felt
their livelihoods were threatened by foreign competitors. As an impoverished
émigré Russian sympathetic to the cause of the Communist Party, yet herself
from a bourgeois family, the contrasts between the poverty she experienced in
certain parts of Paris and the millionaires she encountered in the fashion houses
contributed significantly to the establishment of her political position for the
rest of her life. As with the case of Nancy Cunard, jewellery played a significant
part in the growth of Elsa Triolet’s political consciousness. Like Cunard, Triolet
was often photographed wearing quite conspicuous pieces of costume jewellery
in a variety of decidedly nonprecious materials. In Colliers Triolet refers to her
work making costume jewellery as being part of the industrie de sourire (smiling
industries) and contrasts her experiences of east and west: ‘While in the Soviet
Union all trades offer the possibility of making a subsistence living, in the West
there are some professions reserved for millionaires’ (1973, 12). Nevertheless,
she describes her determination to embark on a career: ‘I decided to make and
sell necklaces. I had not the least idea how this could be done. If only I had
known!’ (12).
138 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Before examining Man Ray’s images of Triolet’s work, it is important to

understand that her relationship with the world of fashion was highly ambiguous.
Triolet liked fashion, but disliked the world of fashion: ‘high fashion panders
above all else to today’s Parisian snobbery’ (1973, 42). She saw the irony of both
Schiaparelli’s exploitation of poverty through l’allure pauvre (poverty chic) and
her own complicity in this process by providing cheaply produced pieces that
retailed at a high price while affording herself the most meagre of existences.
There is something of this irony present in Man Ray’s images as well as an
attempt to present Triolet’s necklaces as avant-garde developments in jewellery
design. The four necklaces photographed by Man Ray for Colliers are made of a
variety of materials including mother of pearl, white porcelain, nickel rings and
white horse hair. Triolet herself models the necklaces in porcelain and nickel.
One of these images is, in effect, a solarized portrait of Triolet (reproduced
on page 43 of the 1999 Ebersbach edition). However, Man Ray’s technique, in
which the photographic image (or more usually part of it) is reversed in tone,
serves to provide the visual means by which the porcelain links of the necklace
are enhanced in their whiteness, surrounded by deep shadow and providing
a filigree outline of Triolet’s neck. The space she inhabits is ambiguous, there
is no background and her hair appears to be dissolving into the shadows. The
overriding impression is that of an object (the necklace) that seems to be in the
process of taking over its wearer. As will be shown later, this sense of threat is a
common feature of Man Ray’s representation of jewellery.
Of Man Ray’s four photographs, the most intriguing is the one which represents
Triolet’s necklace and armband made from white horse hair (Figure 4.7). It is
one of the finest examples of the technique of rayography and is an arresting
representation of one of Triolet’s most enigmatic necklaces.
The photographic technique lends itself perfectly to drawing out both the
uncanny nature of these objects and the seeming fragility of their substance.
Without the body as reference and, therefore, without scale, they exist in their own
world. The forms appear to float in a half-world of representation reminiscent of
the way a scientific photographer may study images of microscopic life forms in
the laboratory. The careful composition of the two pieces on the photographic
plate plays with their meaning and nascent ambiguity: they are ‘jewels’ to be worn
but have another life as part of a fantastical chimerical image. Their materiality
appears negligible in Man Ray’s photograph where the bow, in particular, seems
barely to be bounded by any substance at all. It reinforces the irony that the
market value of these pieces was completely out of proportion to their material
 Representing Jewellery 139

Figure 4.7 Man Ray. Rayograph of horsehair necklace and bracelet by Elsa Triolet,
c. 1931. The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford, REP.F.3193, facing p. 101. ©
Man Ray Trust/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2016.

value. Man Ray’s image seems to play with this notion through defamiliarization
and dematerialization of the object.
One of the traditional uses of horsehair in clothing was as a lining (crinoline;
le crin in French being horsehair) used to stiffen fabrics. Here, the material
traditionally used to add stiffening and structure to a garment is reduced by Man
Ray’s technique to an image of something almost without physical substance.
Triolet said of these pieces: ‘I invented almost imponderable necklaces, in
white horse hair, of which we wrote, when they were exhibited at the salon des
Artistes Modernes, that they were necklaces of snow and dream’ (1973, 101). The
necklace becomes, through its fragile materiality, an evocative image worthy of a
surrealist poem – Man Ray’s response to the objects emphasizes the evanescent
and fugitive qualities of ice crystals and fleeting hallucinations.
Triolet’s necklaces were born of poverty and dire need and sold as accessories
to the haute couture fashion houses of Paris. They have subsequently taken their
140 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

place as objects struggling with the dual forces operating within both surrealism
and capitalist society. As Adereth has noted, ‘looking at the Parisian world of
haute couture with the critical eye of a foreigner from a socialist country, Elsa
was able to reveal the life of the idle rich and that of the working poor’ (1994,
160). To put it another way, Triolet’s pieces invite consideration of the notion
that subjective creation and modern capitalist society were in a dialectical
relationship. As Ulrich Lehmann writes, ‘Embracing dialectical materialism,
initially for political reasons . . . brought the surrealist object closer to a materialist
meaning within a culture that had not yet been “liberated” by structural
change – politically, socially or economically’ (2007, 23). The materiality of Elsa
Triolet’s jewellery was partly determined by circumstances, partly by choice. As
Aragon’s poem and Triolet’s memoir shows, she was forced to use almost entirely
worthless materials but also chose to work with them in a way in which she
felt unencumbered by the traditional and, perhaps, hidebound making practices
of the jeweller. As she writes in Colliers, she did not care to be judged against
the standards of professional jewellers or by the way in which their work was
often appraised purely in terms of material value: ‘I did my best to manufacture
necklaces from a material that had not yet been used, so no one could teach me
the technique. Likewise I had to adapt the tools to be suitable for doing the work’
(Triolet 1973, 34). So in not allowing herself to be judged against traditional
practices, Triolet was able to freely create unhampered by convention and by
the ‘norms’ of technique. Man Ray was able to utilize his radical techniques of
representation to present this unusual collection of accessories as a mysterious
synthesis of form and the uncanny. Happily for Triolet, the House of Schiaparelli
became one of her most regular clients, the latter’s penchant for Surrealism
surely being a factor in this.
At around the same time Man Ray was making images for Colliers, he
produced a series of photographs of Lee Miller modelling a large necklace
made from sea sponges at Juan-les-Pins, further evidence of his interest in the
potential of the uncanny object and a new materiality of jewellery. Later, in 1938,
Man Ray’s mannequin at the international surrealist exhibition stands next to
an enamelled street sign for the (fictional) Rue d’une perle. The mannequin is
adorned, among other things, with large glass tears. These are a variation on
the smaller glass ‘tears’ he used for his photograph Larmes of 1930–1932. In his
1935 essay ‘Surrealist Situation of the Object’, André Breton wrote that ‘to aid
the systematic derangement of all the senses, a derangement recommended by
Rimbaud and continuously made the order of the day by the surrealists, it is my
 Representing Jewellery 141

opinion that we must not hesitate to bewilder sensation’ (1969, 263). This had
been a central tenet of surrealism from the very beginning of the movement,
but any successful attempt to reconcile jewellery objects with surrealism must,
however, rely on more than just bewilderment. One of the reasons why self-
conscious attempts to produce so-called surrealist jewellery (such as those by
Dali) consistently fail is because they merely graft a surrealist approach on to
already existing conventional jewellery forms. Forms from paintings or already
existing surrealist objects are reused out of context as pieces of jewellery with a
hollowness to the irony. In the found object, however, the surrealists were able
to capture the irrationalities that underlie rational thought. This is difficult to
achieve in design, but not so in representation. Indeed, design and surrealism
are uncomfortable bedfellows, except in the arena of the constructed image,
where the relationship between the wearable object, the body and its context
can be used to capture the essence of the surreal. When jewellery is examined
through the lens of the camera it becomes a truly mysterious and enchantment-
laden phenomenon because its reality and formal language can be subverted for
both powerful artistic and commercial ends.
As stated at the beginning of this chapter, Man Ray appears to have been
very interested in jewellery as an erotic and darkly powerful force in the late
1920s and early 1930s, linked to his brief association with William and Marjorie
Seabrook. It is also possible that an earlier acquaintance with the Marchesa Casati
(whom he photographed draped in a boa-constrictor) may also have promoted
this interest. The relationship between adornment and fetishism, according
to Walter Benjamin, is clear: ‘In fetishism, sex does away with the boundaries
separating the organic world from the inorganic. Clothing and jewellery are its
allies. It is as much at home with what is dead as it is with living flesh. The
latter, moreover, shows it the way to establish itself in the former’ (1999b, 69).
In images such as Le collier tragique (the tragic necklace) which appeared on
the front cover of Vu magazine on 23 July 1930, Man Ray depicts Mademoiselle
Dorita (performer at a Montparnasse cabaret) attempting to repel the apparently
murderous advances of a boa-constrictor. The accompanying text reads: ‘all the
anguish of a horrible death is painted on the face of this young woman who is
about to be strangled by a snake’ (Leenaerts 2010, 118). The idea of dereliction
and death through (or by) jewellery, is an interesting one that recurs a number of
times in well-known depictions such as these. In 1926 Man Ray depicted Nancy
Cunard, arms covered by her trademark African bracelets, in a pose suggesting
self-strangulation. In a photograph of 1932, Lee Miller, Marie-Berthe Aurenche,
142 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Max Ernst and Man Ray himself are shown in a vertical group pose. Each has
one arm locked around another’s neck suggesting, at the very least, collective
strangulation.
In the fin-de-siècle, jewellery was an accessory that, according to Barthes,
effectively identified women with traditional notions of evil, sorcery and the
destructive powers of the femme fatale (Barthes 2013, 56). Biblical text also
directly connects the wearing of precious stones with the power of women
to corrupt (Rev. 17:4). In Man Ray’s photograph, the woman appears to be
destroyed by a living object of adornment rather than it leading men to their
doom. Medusa wore snakes in her hair as accomplices to evil – here the snake
causes the destruction of the woman. The theme of jewellery and death is,
therefore, not just an aspect of fin-de-siècle culture. Former Bauhaus student
Irene Hoffman’s Dame mit kette (Woman with Necklace) of 1932 is an interesting
example. The image has the appearance of a crime scene (jewellery and crime
are natural bedfellows in the popular imagination) but also something more
sinister. The pearl necklace emerges out of the mouth of the prone woman like
a parasite leaving its host in search of a new victim. The ‘chain’ is something like
the cord of life, connecting the physical body with the soul. Here, it appears to
have been severed. In a less melodramatic fashion than Man Ray, Hofmann has
nevertheless still produced an image of a ‘tragic necklace’.
Man Ray had produced a number of bondage-themed images (some
commissioned by Seabrook) in the 1920s and 1930s. He wrote candidly in his
autobiography of his violence against women, including his first wife Adon
Lacroix (known as Donna) whom he beat with his belt on discovering her
infidelity (Ray 2012, 94). Mileaf ’s view is that ‘Man Ray was oddly more willing to
claim alliance with the actual abuse of women, which he associated with creative
prowess, than he was to claim the performative violence of sadomasochistic
sex practices, which in other cases might more easily be understood as
benign’ (2004, 20–2). Man Ray clearly had an interest in objects and devices
which restricted movement, hampered the body in some way and were either
physically or mentally controlling. Whether at the behest of a client or not, he
was often concerned with representing the darkly erotic side of jewellery as
BDSM accessory: amoral, coolly and clinically objectifying its wearer.
In the more prosaic, commercial world of the Parisian visual arts magazines,
some attempts were made to represent modern jewellery in a way which evoked
avant-garde practice. Clearly attempting a radical envisioning of two pieces
of modern jewellery by Raymond Templier, photographers Lecram–Vigneau
 Representing Jewellery 143

produced dramatic images for Art et décoration where the shadows cast by the
rings appear to have an independent life of their own (Varenne 1930, 51). Here,
a deliberately avant-garde sensibility is at work, the use of the shadows recalling
Man Ray’s practice through the projection of the shape of the rings as an abstract
amorphous shadow.
Erwin Blumenfeld’s advertising image for Cartier jewellery, published
in Harper’s Bazaar in September 1939, has been described by Lehmann as ‘a
perfect example of fashion’s ironic quotation from its own past’ (2000, 231).
Blumenfeld used an enlarged negative of a nineteenth-century fashion image
into which real jewellery (tiara, earrings and pearl necklace) were inserted
and then rephotographed. It is an interesting take on the cycles of fashion and
also suggests, as a real hand reaches out to clutch the necklace and (perhaps)
tear it from the neck of the sitter, a way of referencing the destructive power of
modernity. As Lehmann puts it, ‘What the fashion commodity can achieve . . . is
to escape its demise by ironically advancing its death and perpetually renewing
itself. When the design has been accepted into the sartorial mainstream, the
actual innovation dies and the process of inventing and promoting a new style
or look begins anew’ (232). In the image, the Cartier pieces are not in themselves
modern – that is, they do not possess a modernist aesthetic. The pearl necklace
had been a staple item of jewellery for women since the early nineteenth century
and, as has been shown in Chapter 1, continued to be adopted in the 1920s as
an accessory that was compatible with a variety of outfits that could be worn at
any time of day and in a variety of contexts. Since fashion must always rewrite
its own history as it develops, the hand in Blumenfeld’s image reaches out to
reclaim the necklace for now, since fashion must always be in the present and
never in the future. As an advertising image, Blumenfeld’s piece may not be that
successful, but it creates an intriguing way of representing the constant push
and pull between fashion and its past and between the real commodity and its
representation. Here, Walter Benjamin’s idea of the ‘aura’ is significant because, as
he argues in his essay ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’,
the unique aura of a work of art is lost in modern reproduction techniques,
leading to the viewer’s disconnection from materiality and ‘authentic’ experience.
Although the reproduction of works of art has always taken place, it was the
speed with which modern techniques could capture and endlessly reproduce
art works that was so significant (Benjamin 1999a). The spatial and temporal
ambiguities in Blumenfeld’s image point also to a surrealist sensibility as well
as the idea formed by Baudelaire in the 1860s that modernity is characterized
144 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

by a simultaneous experience of the transitory and the eternal: ‘By “modernity”

I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other
half is the eternal and the immutable’ (Baudelaire 1995, 12).

Jewellery on film

In the visual arts, jewellery and related accessories can be seen as being
consciously used to reinforce radical techniques of visual representation,
discourses of commodity culture, notions of real and fictional identities as well as
forming part of the personal preoccupations and obsessions of individual artists
and designers. In the interwar years, the newer art form of film also became a
medium through which discourses relating to jewellery and accessories could
be explored. In more mainstream interwar cinema, jewellery has many uses
as a plot device. The relationship between crime, sex, death and disaster is a
common one. Johnathan Faiers links the portrayal of jewellery and fur on screen
as performing an ‘unassailable’ function in the creation of filmic spectacle, but
the mores of mainstream cinema also dictate that retribution is ‘brought to
bear on those who either display or covet such items too obsessively’ (2013,
60). An example from early Hollywood, Edwin S. Porter’s 1905 production
The Kleptomaniac presents a moral tale of injustice whereby a wealthy woman
is apprehended stealing jewellery and stockings in a department store only to
be let off by the same judge who condemns a poor woman to a jail sentence
for stealing bread for her hungry children. The fact that the woman who steals
‘unnecessary’ items for pleasure escapes punishment points to the importance
and economic significance of the luxury trades. As Michelle Tolini Finamore
writes, the film is ‘a melodrama about injustice related to class difference and
different conceptions of “need” ’ (2013, 30).
In Clarence Brown’s 1931 film Possessed the kept woman (Marian Martin/Joan
Crawford) is shown pulling leaves from a calendar from 1928 to 1930. The shot
is close in on her arm and the calendar. As the years pass, so additional gem-
encrusted bracelets appear on her arm. It is, in the traditional sense of jewellery
giving, supposed to be a sign of her ‘value’ to her lover, but one that can never be
made public: ‘The montage sequence seems to ridicule the practice of hanging
wife or lover with as much gold and fur as possible as the bangles pile up comically
one after another with relentless predictability’ (Faiers 2013, 61). For Faiers,
there is a connection to be made with Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure
 Representing Jewellery 145

Class, in which the provider (male) and wearer (female) both form part of their
‘maintenance of societal status’ (61). Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption
is part defined through his outlining of the purchasing, exchanging and display of
precious materials and other luxury items. The dangerous mobster Tony Camonte/
Paul Muni in Hawks and Rosson’s 1932 film Scarface continually accessorizes as we
follow his ascendancy. In his pomp he wears an elaborate signet ring on his right
hand and a diamond-encrusted horseshoe tie clip. These are all temporal symbols
and point to the fragility of his position. His permanent physical scarring remains
as a sign of his psychopathic state. Ultimately, the possession of fine accoutrements
in film can symbolize the potential for a significant fall from grace.
The descent into corruption, violence and criminality is a central concern of
Marcel L’Herbier’s 1928 film L’Argent. Adapted from Emil Zola’s 1891 novel of the
same name, the film features costumes by Paul Poiret and jewellery by Raymond
Templier. It is not necessary to outline all of the intricacies of the plot here, save
to say that two successful Parisian financiers, Saccard and Gunderman, vie for
supremacy at the Paris stock exchange. The latter, who coolly professes never
to resort to gambling as a strategy for making money, ultimately triumphs over
Saccard, who is more impulsive and reckless with his (and others’) investments.
The film features jewellery as an important symbolic device on a number of
occasions.
Saccard’s mistress, the Baronne Sandorf played by Brigitte Helm (fresh from
appearing as Maria in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis the previous year), receives a bracelet
from him in an early flashback scene. When she later becomes Gunderman’s
mistress, he too provides her with a large ostentatious bracelet. She wears both at
the same time at a meeting with Saccard, which enrages him when he discovers
who has purchased the other bracelet. A struggle ensues (Figure 4.8).
Here, the bracelets (as in Possessed) point to the Baronne’s status as a kept
woman. She is happy to wear both bracelets in anyone’s presence and turns them
into symbols of her power and control over her lovers even though convention
would dictate that this power relation should be the other way around. The
flawed Saccard falls in love with his business partner’s wife, Line Hamelin, and
attempts to win her with a bracelet that he buys at a jeweller for 125,000 francs.
He tells her that it is second hand and is only worth 15,000. She accepts the
bracelet, believing Saccard’s lie that it is being paid for through her husband’s
bank account. She immediately wears the expensive bracelet as she shows
Saccard out of her apartment. The final shot in the scene is a close up of the
bracelet. The very next scene opens with a close up of the Baronne’s hands on
146 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 4.8 Pierre Alcover and Brigitte Helm in Marcel L’Herbier’s film L’Argent, 1928.
Screenshot.

which she wears both lovers’ gifts. Here, jewellery implicates everyone because
at some point in the film, all of the characters demonstrate a love for money
and material possessions that brings them nothing but difficulty. The bracelets
work as symbols of power, ambition, lust and of capital itself. Film historian
Noel Burch has said that L’Argent is a film that deals with ‘the eroticization of
financial dealings’ and the jewels of Templier certainly play a significant role in
this (Marcel L’Herbier: Poète de l’art silencieux, 2007). As an interesting parallel,
the German satirical magazine ULK for 26 October 1928 featured a cover
illustration by Dörte Clara Wolff (a.k.a. ‘Dodo’) entitled The Hero, in which a
prosperous businessman accompanies his mistress through the city. Like Helm,
she is dressed in furs. The businessman touches her left hand which is protruding
from the fur coat to reveal a gold ring and a bangle (which match up with her
earrings and gilded cloche hat). All proof of his ownership. Dodo’s depiction
shows the couple to be apparently entirely satisfied with the arrangement as she
satirizes this encounter between capital, accessories and sex.
On a visual level, Helm’s performance in L’Argent is the highlight of the film
as she literally glitters in some way every time we encounter her on screen. In
 Representing Jewellery 147

this respect, she differs from Line who, apart from her brief adoption of Saccard’s
glittering gift, only wears a discreet engagement ring and wedding band through
the entire film, seemingly eschewing all other types of jewellery. It is an effective
and telling contrast. In the brief scene at the jeweller’s shop, a sign for work by
Gustave Sandoz (the firm for which the modernist jeweller Gérard Sandoz was
artistic director) can clearly be seen between Saccard and the salesman, perhaps
constituting an early example of product placement. L’Herbier’s earlier film
L’Inhumaine (The Inhuman Woman) of 1924 showcases the French decorative
arts of the 1920s in a way which foreshadows the 1925 Paris exhibition. It
includes prominent displays of modern furniture, fashions and interiors in
a way that is absent from L’Argent (with the exception of the climactic party
scene). The treatment of fashions and accessories in the later film is much more
sophisticated, contributing to the drama less as props and more as essential
elements in the narrative drive of the film.
The image of moving mechanical parts, established in cubo-futurist paintings
before the First World War, given an ironic aspect in the works of the Dadaists
and the surrealists and canonized in the works of the constructivist artists of
the interwar years, was a major feature of experimental film. The obsession with
movement, speed and dynamism focused on moving parts almost to the point of
it becoming fetishized. Murphy and Léger’s Ballet mécanique clearly exemplifies
this, making a close liaison between machine and flesh, inorganic and organic
movement. Bodies and machines are depicted performing the same repetitive
actions. The interest in dynamism and motion, fundamentally modernist
concerns, can be seen in the rotating metal dishes in Henry Chomette’s Jeux de
reflets et de la vitesse and Duchamp’s 1926 film Anémic Cinéma which consists
of painted rotating discs creating less of a dynamic montage and more, in true
Dada fashion, of an ultimately futile mechanically induced hallucination. The
former certainly brings to mind Jean Després’s kinetic bagues moteurs with all
their evocation of machine forms.
Film, in its ability to capture movement, to overlay and montage different
sequences was often a perfect medium for portraying ideas about modern
adornment, whether in the form of clothing, jewellery and other accessories.
The latter’s representation through printed images or on the screen is an
important aspect of the way that jewellery can be understood in interwar
culture. It can sometimes give us a full understanding of the way individuals
wish to be seen by others, or how the objects themselves can be presented
to an audience or consumer. The relationship between fashion and film,
148 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

for example, is as old as film itself. As Adrienne Munich puts it, ‘cinema
has been one of modernity’s – and even postmodernity’s – messengers. The
relationship between fashion and film contains layers of meanings – aesthetic,
commercial, patriotic, political . . . To investigate fashion and film in tandem
reveals that the two cultural performances have been connected and mutually
enrich each other both materially and aesthetically’ (2011, 2). The position of
jewellery can be equally significant and should not be overlooked. It can work
in the same way that costume may identify a character’s identity, narrative
purpose or ultimate destiny. In Billy Wilder and the Siodmak Brothers’ 1930
film Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday) non-actors were hired to
portray two women and two men spending a leisurely Sunday in and around
Berlin. It is shot in semi-documentary style and shows, with humour and wit,
two young couples living very much for the moment with, as it turns out, no
firm plans to meet again. One of the characters, a film extra played by Christl
Ehlers, wears a large piece of modern costume jewellery in the form of a
necklace throughout the film. It becomes her signature from the first moment
she appears on screen until the last shot. At times, it features significantly in
close-up shots (Figure 4.9).

Figure 4.9 Christl Ehlers in Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer’s film Menschen am
Sonntag, 1929. Screenshot.
 Representing Jewellery 149

What is interesting about the fashions in the film is that they appear to come
directly from the characters themselves and not from the wardrobe department,
though input from the latter cannot be discounted. The believability of the
characters is due to a striking naturalness in front of the camera, including the
way they dress, undress and adorn their bodies. Ehler’s jewellery is a significant
element of continuity for her character as she effortlessly portrays possibly the
Weimar Republic’s most natural on-screen Modern Girl.
Jewellery has the unique ability, through its materiality and its portability,
to be charged with meanings that go beyond conventional strategies and
notions of adornment. Jewellery’s place in film and the new photography is
proof of this. That jewellery figures as the inspiration for a number of avant-
garde experiments in visual culture and, through its signification of both the
extraordinary and the everyday, makes its relevance on screen and in the printed
image vital. The representation of the object itself and its relationship with the
body offers the opportunity to examine jewellery at the heart of modernist
visual representation. The ability of photography and film to manipulate scale
and to explore materiality and wearability is a major theme in both avant-garde
and more mainstream visual practices. The photographer Yva’s representations
of the body were usually related in some way to wider commercial ambitions,
but she was also keenly aware of the fact that it was possible to make modern
accessories a major element in her exploration of body culture. Just as advertising
images utilized the latest technological developments in photography, so the
compositional innovations of the experimental photographers were employed
to represent accessories in new ways. This could take the form of joyous and
sensuous images of modern accessories on display, such as those of Thérèse
Bonney or Florence Henri, or the darker more esoteric images of Man Ray where
the object often occupies its own world, referencing loss, melancholy desire and
a distinct absence of love.
 5

Displaying Jewellery 1920–1939

In the summer of 1929 Henri Clouzot, writing in La Renaissance de l’art français

et des industries de luxe, expressed his view that:

Once reserved for an élite, the jewel has spread during the last ten years among
all classes of society. Some buy them, others desire them, and of this last group,
as with motor cars, there are perhaps those who, above all, love to look at them.
But this passion is reasoned. The public has become knowledgeable. It is no
longer sufficient for him to love, he wants to know why he loves. (1929a, 371)

Clouzot was referring to the impact and importance of the exhibits at the
Exposition de joaillerie et d’orfèvrerie held at the Musée Galliera in Paris in the
summer of 1929. Opened on 27 May with a formal inauguration on 7 June, this
was an extensive exhibition of mainly French jewellery and silverware mounted
to demonstrate progress in the art since the 1925 Exposition des arts décoratifs.
Clouzot captures the mood of the period beautifully. Audiences were curious
about new trends and new approaches, were ready to believe that new fashions,
accessories and luxury objects were no longer completely out of their reach. Even
if they were nigh impossible to purchase, these objects could be seen in public
and exhibited in ways that brought them to life as desirable objects. At the very
least, they could be understood (and loved) if not bought. Events such as this
exhibition, staged at the well-frequented Musée Galliera in central Paris, were
intended to make very public statements about both the quality and availability
of jewellery to a wider cross section of society. Perhaps crucially, Clouzot alludes
to the fact that these objects were now becoming part of mainstream culture
and had a life away from adorning the bodies and costumes of the ruling class,
wealthy industrialists and film stars. In short, jewellery could, in the modern
forms referred to throughout this book, communicate directly to a mass
audience through the medium of display.
This chapter discusses a number of methods used to present jewellery in the
public arena in the 1920s and 1930s and considers some of the contemporary
152 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

critical reactions to these methods. It focuses on display, retail and exhibition

design in order to demonstrate the contexts in which the general public may
have encountered jewellery. It is concerned, therefore, more with a consideration
of the spaces created to view jewellery and the techniques used to display it than
with the objects themselves. One of the ways in which both the consumer and
the art lover might have experienced jewellery in the flesh is through the shop
window, in a display case or at a public exhibition. Increasingly, jewellery could
also be viewed on the bodies of shop mannequins.

The mannequin

The mannequin is usually associated with displays of fashion. Whether real

or static, the model has played a major part in the retailing of clothing and
accessories since the mid-nineteenth century. As Caroline Evans writes, ‘taking
her name from the nineteenth-century lay figure that she came to replace in the
dressmaker’s salon, her status hovered uneasily between that of a subject and an
object, animate and inanimate, live woman and dummy’ (2005, 125). Indeed,
the ‘lay figure’ or jointed wooden model was traditionally a way for artists to
draw the human form in the absence of a real body. But fashion and jewellery,
usually in combination, required either a live model or a very close substitute for
the effect of a garment or parure to be shown to a customer. Charles Frederick
Worth is credited with the innovation of showing his designs on live models
from the 1850s in Paris and the English dressmaker Lucile pioneered the first
London mannequin parades in the 1890s (Evans 2005, 125). By the 1920s, the
mannequin (both live and artificial) was the established way in which a collection
was modelled and observed by potential consumers of European and American
fashion. In addition, as has been shown in Chapter 1, live models were sometimes
used to demonstrate the impact of a particular jewellery collection. As part of
the development of modern commerce, consumption and the experience of
modernity, the use of the mannequin has many significant characteristics, placing
the three dimensional form of women, men and children at the centre of the
display system of garments and accessories and at the heart of modern capitalism.
For Evans, the mannequin represents a Taylorist approach to the use and
presentation of the modernist body. For example, the American models recruited
by fashion designer Jean Patou in 1924 were chosen to work as members of
a team whose sole raison d’être was the slick, efficient and unflinching display
 Displaying Jewellery 153

of his collections. And they were certainly worked hard. One model, Lillian
Farley, recalled that twenty of Patou’s models showed five hundred dresses in an
evening and that their shows became a significant part of the social scene in Paris
(Evans 2005, 139). The introduction of movement into the patterns of displaying
and selling haute couture was, irrespective of how modern the fashions may
or may not have been, a clear sign of the forces of modernity at work. Evans’s
discussion of the live model reveals a crucial aspect of the impact of modernity
on fashion merchandizing. It also has wider cultural manifestations, as film
and photography were also beginning to play a major part in the promotion
of fashion and accessories, either directly or indirectly as ‘placed’ products, as
we have seen in the previous chapter. The major fashion and jewellery houses
were able to directly engage mannequins with their clientele in a way that mass
retailers or small business owners were not able to. They relied on the mannequin
‘dummy’ and on window display as a way of reaching their no less discerning but
less affluent customers. The mannequin also had a significant role to play in
jewellery retail alongside that of fashion.
In interwar London, a major commercial player in retail display was the firm
of E. Pollard and Co. Ltd. It specialized in all kinds of display equipment and
techniques for the retailer, from the smallest point of sale detail (printed labels
for generic jewellery types) to a full architectural, interior design and shop fitting
service. Company catalogues from these years give an interesting insight into
strategies of display available for the fashion and jewellery retailer. Pollard’s
General Display Equipment catalogue of 1925–1930 presents a full range of wax
mannequins available to the fashion retailer representing women, men, boys and
girls. In the form of women there are ‘English’ and ‘Continental’ models, each
given their own characteristics and names. For example, some of the English
female mannequins are ‘Irene’, ‘Amy’ and ‘Ruth’, the latter part of a set of ‘Matron
Figures’. As a mature woman, ‘Ruth’ is shown wearing a long pearl necklace with
a single knot – an easy way to add a level of sophistication befitting a mature, but
fashion conscious woman (Figure 5.1). She is posed against a modernist chevron
background and wears a fashionable drop waist dress typical of the late 1920s.
The ‘V’ of her necklace is a visual echo of the modernist chevron design.
As for the Continental models (‘Antoinette’, ‘Cécile’, ‘Yvonne’) the catalogue
is clear that these are made abroad ‘by artists in their own environment’ and are
clearly younger looking (E. Pollard and Co. 1925–30, 10). All the Continental
mannequins wear short and simple strings of pearls which contribute to their
essential new woman-like appearance, both ‘Yvonne’ and the slightly stern
154 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 5.1 Mannequin ‘Ruth’ from the E. Pollard and Co. Ltd catalogue General
Display Equipment, c. 1928. © The British Library Board (shelfmark YD.2004.b.1041).
Image used with kind permission of www.pollardsinternational.com.

looking ‘Cécile’ both sport simple modern metal bracelets. Pollard’s male
mannequins are totally conservative in their dress and actually highly typical of
the restrained, respectable sartorial styles of the 1920s. Apart from the occasional
cane, hat, pocket-square and cigarette, these mannequins sport no accessories
and definitely no jewellery. Perhaps befittingly, these drone-like characters are
given no names, only numbers.
In Paris, the most celebrated interwar retailer of mannequins was the firm of
Siégel. Among their catalogues, those from 1927 and 1934 are interesting in the
 Displaying Jewellery 155

way they promote both the company’s products alongside fashion collections
and certain pieces of ‘high jewellery’. The later catalogue contains, in the spirit
of Blaise Cendrars’s texts for Raymond Templier, a short celebratory account
of Siégel’s products by novelist and fashion commentator Colette (discussed
later) – part of her lesser-known career as a writer of slogans and copy for a
number of commercial companies including Ford, Perrier and Lucky Strike.
In 1927, the company were keen to promote their products off the back of
their success at the 1925 exhibition and the 1927 Exposition Française de Madrid.
In collaboration with French Vogue, Siégel announces the presentation of the
mannequins as follows: ‘Did we say work of art earlier? Our models still aspire
to this through what they evoke of psychological life and complete adaptation
to the setting which suits the outfit being presented, the beach or the race track,
the theatre box or the sports ground’ (1927). Emphasis is, therefore, placed
on the mannequins’ lifelike appearance and ability to be recognized by their
psychological state. Restrained as these states may be, they nevertheless represent
bodies that are capable of being believable in a variety of costumes, poses and
circumstances. After the text, there then follows a series of photographs of the
mannequins dressed by contemporary fashion designers and jewellers. The
jewellers represented are Jean Fouquet, Mauboussin, Van Cleef and Arpels,
Boucheron and Cartier. Each one is meant to illustrate a key characteristic of
the Siégel mannequin through legends printed at the top of the page such as
‘Une oeuvre d’art industrialisée’ (an industrialized work of art), ‘Toujours en
harmonie avec la mode’ (always in harmony with fashion), ‘Le mannequin
de notre temps’ (the mannequin for our times) and ‘En accord avec l’étalage
moderne’ (in keeping with the modern show window) (Siégel 1927).
The example illustrated here (Figure 5.2) is reproduced under the legend ‘En
union étroite avec le décor’ (in close union with the décor). The mannequin
wears a hat by Rose Valois, a silvered fox fur and dress by Yteb and appears
in front of a fabric backcloth by Primavera. The jewellery is by Mauboussin
consisting of two bracelets and a three-strand pearl choker.
This ensemble, put together by Vogue for the shoot, clearly attempts to portray
the mannequin less as an inanimate object and more as an active player in the
consumption and outward display of both haute couture and haute joaillerie. The
contribution of Mauboussin’s jewellery should not be underestimated and it is
interesting how the pose of the mannequin is used to amplify all the elements on
display. As the mannequin checks her make up in the compact mirror she does
so from a distance in order (we are to imagine) to take in both her own image
156 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 5.2 Mannequin from Siégel’s Album publicitaire, 1927. Bibliothèque des Arts
décoratifs, Paris. George Hoyningen-Huené/Vogue © Condé Nast.

and that of her costume and her chic surroundings. In doing so she exposes
Mauboussin’s jewels against a backdrop of modernist fabric. Furthermore, the
mannequin wears the bracelets over the top of her gloved hands, making no
contact with her ‘skin’. Wearing bracelets over gloves was not uncommon at this
time, but introducing a barrier between metal and flesh serves to emphasize
further the erotic quality of this display. The fabric of the bow of the mannequin’s
hat hangs carefully to expose the only elaborate element of the pearl choker – the
intricate clasp.
The aforementioned text by Colette for the 1934 Siégel catalogue responds, like
the photographs of Atget from a decade earlier, to the mysterious characteristics
of the mannequins who, behind glass, appear at one on and the same time
to be both alive and dead. In a remarkable piece of writing for a commercial
catalogue, she extols the virtues of the vitrines of Paris as her living museums,
enlivening her regular walking routes about the city by their constantly changing
displays. The mannequins have a major part to play in this and, in particular,
those of Siégel are (naturally) made in such a way that that they are capable of
tricking the viewer into believing that they are alive. Furthermore, for Colette,
they exhibit national characteristics: ‘they are French in their grace, desirable
 Displaying Jewellery 157

and so woman-like that you stop, having thought to see lifelike hair move, a
glowing mouth smile, and I am not certain that a lovely throat had not, under
the silk, been breathing’ (Siégel 1934).
The uncanny nature of the shop mannequin also strongly appealed to the
imagination of the surrealists. This was given full expression at the February 1938
Exposition internationale du Surréalisme at the Galérie Beaux-Arts, Paris. Here,
celebrated surrealist artists (including Arp, Dali, Duchamp, Ernst, Man Ray and
Miró) displayed individually ‘dressed’ mannequins in ways that demonstrated
the development of surrealism’s approach to the body. Critics and historians
are divided in their opinions of the motives for this and, also, the success of
these experiments with the ‘almost alive’. Marquard Smith, author of The Erotic
Doll: A Modern Fetish, regards the whole exercise of displaying the sixteen
mannequins of 1938 as a master class in advanced misogyny, as the ‘kidnapped’
mannequins (to use Man Ray’s phrase) were subject to their body parts being
objectified, electrified and, in some cases, sexually violated (Smith 2013, 145).
He is particularly critical of the relationship between surrealism and fashion
which, at the time of the 1938 show, was becoming a strong one: ‘the complicity
between Surrealism and fashion is born of a shared and undemanding sense of
the appeal of the mannequin as an uncanny, fetishistic and perverse inanimate
human form, tied to mimeticism, materiality and time, but only ever in a non-
specific way’ (148). So the surrealists’ dressing of their mannequins shows them
at play with the process of adornment but for no real end other than to satisfy
their own desires.
From the mid-1920s, the tendency of some mannequin producers
(including Siégel) had been increasingly to produce stylized rather than
mimetic representations of the human form. According to Gronberg, ‘this
defamiliarisation of woman involved not only a reconfiguration of expressive
parts of the body (such as face and hands) but also a transformation of surface;
the modern mannequin might have “skin” that was “gilt” or “silvered over” ’
(1997, 379). Referred to critically as a ‘physiognomy of effacement’ it is also an
indication of a reductivist attitude to representing the human form that can be
found in the contemporary paintings of Oskar Schlemmer, for example, whose
female heads show striking similarity to both the traditional artist’s lay figure
and the modern mannequin. The gilding or silvering of the surface of the
mannequin’s skin, however, provided a new way to link the human form with the
machine aesthetic and the reflective qualities of the metallic surface. An effect
captured in some of Thérèse Bonney’s photographs of mannequins from this
158 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

time, their bronzed surfaces and expressionless attitudes provide an alternative

to the disturbingly cadaverous characteristics of more traditional mannequins.
The latter, of course, appealed much more to the surrealist imagination.
If Siégel’s mannequins, as Smith says, transfer the consumer’s gaze to the
commodity (and thus fulfilling their proper modern commercial function) then
did the objects used by the surrealists to adorn their mannequins work in the
same way? Perhaps the process is reversed? Smith is less interested in the way
the 1938 mannequins are adorned, but for this study it is useful to consider the
ways in which the mannequins were used to experiment with unusual ways of
adorning the body. Some of the mannequins were adorned with either found
objects or specially adapted materials in ways which prefigure developments in
avant-garde fashion, jewellery and accessories that we are perhaps more familiar
with from the 1960s and 1970s onwards.
According to Ingrid Pfeiffer, the mannequins at the 1938 Exposition
internationale du surréalisme ‘displayed the motifs and processes of surrealism,
which used concealment and exposure to articulate suppressed desires, the
power of subconscious urges, and the violation of taboos’ (2011, 61). In contrast
to Smith’s damning critique, where the ‘violation’ of the object stands for the
violation of women not the taboo of violation itself, Pfeiffer emphasizes the way
the mannequins themselves were adorned, through a visual presentation of the
photographs of these objects taken by Man Ray, Denise Bello and Raoul Ubac
during the installation at the Galérie Beaux-Arts.
The found object was a key feature. Everything from fishing nets, goggles,
shark teeth, live snails, tea spoons, pins, wigs, mesh food covers, electric lights,
magnets, stuffed animals, bird cages, candles, rope, shrouds and models of
insects were draped, fixed or inserted into the forms of the mannequins. Many
of these objects served to emphasize a contrast between hard and soft materials.
Metal objects were used to adorn the mannequins too, although this usage was
probably deliberately intended not to set up any associations with conventional
jewellery forms. They do, however, point to the act of adornment of the real or
substitute body with objects as an act in which ritual, fetishism and a darker
element of coercion might be present. In spite of their surrealist credentials, the
mannequins were lit and then photographed in ways that recall both fictional and,
increasingly, filmic characteristics associated with the already well-established
horror genre in which victims (often women) are subject to abjection.
Julia Kristeva in her 1982 essay on abjection states that ‘so many victims of the
abject are its fascinated victims – if not its submissive and willing ones’ (1982,
 Displaying Jewellery 159

9). Can this explain the strangely accepting attitudes of the mannequins when
being so crudely, if not violently, adorned? Did the surrealists aim to exploit
this apparent appearance of jouissance, of pain and pleasure, in experiencing
both captive circumstances and enforced adornment? The nature of the
mannequins’ facial expressions, produced in the maker’s workshop to high
commercial standards, nevertheless produced the ‘mechanical smile’ which was
exploited by the surrealists in their crude adorning of their bodies. They appear
as willing victims of the artists’ unskilled and vicious strategies of adornment.
Kristeva considers abjection as perverse ‘because it neither gives up nor assumes
a prohibition, a rule, or law; but turns them aside, misreads, corrupts; uses
them, takes advantage of them, the better to deny them’ (1982, 15). In this
sense, the mannequins also allow the denial of all kinds of rules: social, sexual
and, crucially, those of adornment. The mannequin dressed by Spanish writer
Agustín Espinosa at the Galérie Beaux-Arts can be usefully examined in this
context (Figure 5.3).
The figure is largely ‘naked’ from the waist down, save some strips of black
fabric wound around the left leg. There are clusters of large pins at the knee, to the
right of the groin and on the left arm and hand. From the waist up, Espinosa has
created an ensemble featuring a number of disconcerting adornments seemingly
at odds with the mannequin’s fixed smile and distant gaze. The hat features a
large part of an animal’s skull (skull cap?) hopelessly at odds with the normal
expectations of the weight and sartorial appearance of a hat. The eyebrows
and lashes are painted gold. Around the neck, as a kind of absurdist cravate
ornament, is positioned a stone sculpture. On the shoulder, a large butterfly is
pinned to more black fabric. At the lower part of the neck and directly inserted
into the left nipple are two more clusters of large-headed pins. At the throat is
positioned a coloured light bulb. Pinned at the waist is the tiny figure of a child.
However we might wish to interpret the meaning (combined or singularly)
of the accessorized body of Espinosa’s mannequin, it cannot be denied that
this seemingly random collection of objects tells us something about surrealist
attitudes to the dressing of women’s bodies as well as what might be suitable
for adorning the body in the first place. When Lalique made carefully jewelled
insects and dragonflies as corsage ornaments at the end of the nineteenth
century, he would probably not have anticipated that lifelike specimens
might turn up to challenge his exercises in the translation of nature into
culture. Indeed, in the autumn of 1938, Schiaparelli, inspired by the work of
the surrealists, produced a flexible, circular neckpiece of clear plexiglass with
160 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 5.3 Mannequin dressed by Agustin Espinosa for the Exposition internationale
du surréalisme, Paris, 1938. Photograph by Raoul Ubac. The Image Works. © ADAGP,
Paris and DACS, London, 2016.
 Displaying Jewellery 161

lifelike insects crawling around it, now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York. When a dressmaker uses pins (themselves jewellery objects) to help
sketch out a garment on a mannequin or client, the proximity of the sharp
metal to the surface/flesh adds an element of uncertainty, risk and danger to
the exercise. Here, the pins are clustered at key points in an ‘attack’ on selected
parts of the body. As jewellery is often inserted into the body, and probably has
been since its inception, Espinosa references a quintessential cultural practice.
(Today, who would be surprised by a pierced nipple or a tattoo produced by
mechanical needles?). The stone ornament, once again too heavy to be worn
‘for real’, calls in to question what should be the desired weight, scale or material
of any kind of body adornment, anticipating the work of the revolutionary New
Jewellery movement and its later followers by several decades. This is also true
of the strategically placed coloured light bulb.
There are numerous examples of similar incongruous and provocative
adornments among the other mannequins and it is clear that their display was an
influential part of what was possibly the high point of surrealist experimentation
at the 1938 Exposition internationale. If some of the objects displayed were,
among other things, part of a critique of conventional objects of adornment in
capitalism, as we have seen with Espinosa, then perhaps, as Lehmann suggests,
they become objects which ‘demonstrate the very history of the objectification of
the object’, a particular type of object-critique that was to achieve full flowering
in the latter part of the twentieth century (Lehmann 2011, 135).
Gronberg had earlier suggested that an interpretation of the 1938 surrealist
mannequins might usefully be that of a parody of contemporary considerations
of advertising (publicité) as a manifestation of the rationality of the modern urban
scene. Perhaps, inexpertly adorned with their found objects, clothing fragments,
absurdist jewellery and fetish objects, the mannequins demonstrate, as Gronberg
puts it, ‘the extent to which the mannequin involved not only economic but
also psychic investments’ (1997, 391). Without being divested of and then
redivested with alternative adornments, these figures would fail to express this
key contrast between ‘rational’ commerce and ‘unconscious’ modernity. As such,
the surrealists were keen to play with adornment to provoke the viewer into
considering these two ostensibly opposite worlds as, actually, complementing
one another. These works nevertheless ask of the viewer that they consider the
role of display in relation to adornment. Display design, ‘window dressing’ and
store design were part of a significant series of new developments in retailing
practice in the interwar years.
162 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Inside the jewellery store

In an American context of the retailing and display of consumer goods,

William Leach has described the ‘conditions for the emergence of display and
decoration’ as being based on the transformation of American capitalism from
an agrarian model to industrial capitalism in the period 1890–1920, creating ‘the
institutional basis for a consumer society’ (Leach 1989, 100). Consumer growth
was rapid and ‘far out-paced the needs of the population’ (101). Entrepreneurs
were keen to exploit this desire for consumption on the part of those ‘longing
for individual material well-being, happiness, and pleasure’ (101). As Veblen had
observed, many urban American consumers were, at the end of the nineteenth
century, able to arrange their lives through a combination of work, leisure and
consumption in which the display of goods played a major part. Leach also
considers the fact that America’s art schools, like some of those in France and
Germany, began to teach commercial skills (including retail display) as part of
their curriculum, so that there were hard-headed applied skills being taught
alongside art school utopianism. In order to bring displays to life, the designer
also needed new technologies and spaces capable of being transformed by light,
colour and materials into places where the desire to consume can be inculcated.
Indeed, the design critic Reyner Banham observed that modern architecture
produced buildings that were best seen at night – when all the techniques of
modern illumination could reveal them from within (104). We have already
seen in Chapter 3 how the Weimar Bauhaus had made such an impression on
Oskar Schlemmer. In the realm of commerce and consumption, these activities
were no longer limited to daylight hours.
In modern consumer culture, glass is taken out of the realms of the mystical
and the courtly (cathedrals, palaces) and given full expression in commercial and
industrial architecture and new kinds of memorial structures. Leach considers a
number of American structures made out of ‘jewels’ (mostly coloured glass) that
were constructed around the time of the First World War – the 1915 Tower of
Jewels at the San Francisco World’s Fair, the jewelled arches of 1919 in Chicago
and New York constructed to celebrate America’s homecoming troops, and the
Fountain of Jewels built to honour the Silver Jubilee of the unification of the
five New York City boroughs. For Leach ‘these jeweled forms signified a new
way of life, welcoming Americans into the pleasures of a new consumer age’
(1989, 105). But they were also putting the ‘jewel’ on centre stage in the public
 Displaying Jewellery 163

realm and no longer in the private spaces of the wealthy and powerful. In this
respect, the Crystal Fountain by Lalique at the 1925 Paris exhibition was another
public manifestation of the idea of what we might call the ‘jewelled outdoors’.
The fact that these jewelled buildings were ersatz meant that they were perfectly
in keeping with the transformation of the modern jewel from privately owned
precious stone to public accessory. Also of note in relation to the public display
of the ‘mass jewel’ was the fashion designer Paul Poiret’s Fête du Théâtre et de la
Parure which took place in Paris in 1925. This event included the performance of
a dance piece The River of Diamonds by The Tiller Girls who, as Gronberg puts it,
‘enacted decoration not only on a human but also on a more monumental scale’
against a giant backdrop of a fake diamond-encrusted spider’s web (1998, 10).
The semi-private encounter with jewellery persisted, of course, in the form
of the jewellery shop or section of a large department store. The rebuilding of
Liberty’s store in London in 1922–1924 by architects Edwin T. and Stanley Hall
in the Tudor style brought in an approach to displaying goods which was a far
cry from the large, glittering, communal spaces of the Parisian department
stores such as the Bon marché or the Galeries Lafayette. Liberty’s rooms were
smaller and more intimate, creating a more domestic feel, but one which was
also more exclusive, if not secretive, in character. Alison Adburgham describes
the Fine Jewellery Room at the Tudor style Liberty’s as ‘a small panelled room
on the ground floor, with a heavy iron gate kept locked . . . a holy of holies
where important customers . . . used to be shown rare pieces. There was a
special sofa for Queen Mary’ (1975, 110). Here we encounter the association
of jewellery with intimacy, secrecy, privacy, privilege, situated well away from
the public gaze. The above description has something of the sepulchral about
it that may have appealed to the fin-de-siècle imagination two decades earlier,
but was a strangely anachronistic approach in the mid-1920s. This was a very
traditional way to display and sell goods in a metropolitan setting in an era
which was beginning to see the ‘bright young things’ wear their hearts on their
sleeves. But, in truth, Liberty’s clearly had a different generation in mind for
its fine jewellery department. This was a generation brought up on the idea
of jewellery as a traditional purchase made for particular purposes that were
not always fashion-related. For these consumers, pieces had to have material
value, longevity and heirloom potential. Gronberg reports that the spaces of a
Parisian design for a jewellery shop by Djo Bourgeois, part of the Place Publique
at the Salon d’Automne of 1924, exhibited qualities of mystery, secretiveness
and narrowness (Gronberg 1998). These were spaces, like those at Liberty, that
164 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

encouraged a kind of clandestine browsing, but also, as Gronberg suggests, ‘the

boutique becomes enigmatic in order to arouse the desire of the consumer, to
“seduce” ’ (1998).
The display of individual pieces or collections of jewellery in a store setting
was, of course, important for every retailer at whatever level of the industry they
were operating. Returning to Pollard’s catalogue, we see a collection of rings, a
bracelet and a watch by Bravingtons of King’s Cross, displayed on a variety of
pads and are photographed from a jaunty modernist angle. The accompanying
text is clear about the value of display in a retail context and contains advice to
the display designer:

For the successful and artistic presentation of jewellery, the designer must
have unerring taste, as well as an understanding and sympathy with his subject
unparalleled in any other branch of display . . . the spacing and design of its pads
must answer every requirement of stock and handling, yet be possessed of a
character and an individualism which will mark well the nature of the business
and stimulate its growth. (E. Pollard and Co. 1935, 72)

This cannot simply be dismissed as trade catalogue blurb, because the emphasis
here is that the display of jewellery requires a particular type of understanding.
The consumer’s experience of buying jewellery at this time is, naturally, always
compromised by fears about security. Furthermore, handing pieces made from
precious metals has to be balanced against the subsequent need to repolish the
item. So the emphasis is on looking and facilitating easy access by the shop
worker to the merchandise. The Bravington’s display is from the Pollard catalogue
Everything for the Jeweller Except Jewellery, produced in 1935. It uses some
striking modernist typography to introduce its customer base to their range of
shopfitting and display services. The emphasis is on the alliance between modern
commerce and innovations in display. There is a clear sense that the needs of the
modern jewellery retailer require both new technical solutions combined with
an appraisal of what the modern consumer of jewellery increasingly requires
in both spatial terms (i.e. the physical retail space) and in point of sale items to
assist purchase.
As far is display is concerned, much is made of Pollard’s own ‘invisible glass’
for use in shop fronts and display cases. According to the catalogue, Pollard
were the sole concessionary with ten patents for this material. For them, the
benefits are obvious: ‘the effect is startling – the jewellery looks as if on shelves
open to the street’ (E. Pollard and Co. 1935, 6). Furthermore, the grand claim
 Displaying Jewellery 165

that ‘it is the greatest advance in shopfitting since the introduction of plate glass
in the middle of the last century’ may actually have some foundation (7). Before
modern shopping became as much about looking as testing goods in advance of
purchase, most goods were not separated from the viewer by glass. But jewellery
must be secure, so reflecting glass is a problem in the modern store – particularly
if public display to passers-by is essential. Pollards also promoted this material
to exhibition designers. A letter from Pollard was written to the Goldsmiths’
Company on 6 February 1934 asking for the product to be considered for use
in the company’s displays at the 1935 British Art in Industry exhibition at the
Royal Academy (discussed later) insisting that ‘nothing is so intriguing as this
apparent unprotection’ (Goldsmiths’ Company Archive, 0.II.I).
Nonreflective glass is a way of achieving absolute transparency with the
minimum of interference with vision, thus making the object on display clear
and unambiguous. This attempt to reduce ambiguity is argued as being part of
the sales process. Ironically, it was photographers such as Atget and Man Ray
who utilized the reflections of normal plate glass when photographing objects
(such as mannequins) in shop windows. The reflections from the outside world
merge with the inner world of the store interior to produce a new world, but
this world is not the world of commerce. It is a world of mystery and half-
lives. In relation to the display of products behind glass, Jean Baudrillard
pointed out that ‘whether as packaging, window or partition, glass is the basis
of a transparency without transition: we see, but cannot touch. The message is
universal and abstract. A shop window is at once magical and frustrating – the
strategy of advertising in epitome’, adding that glass ‘allows nothing but the sign
of its content to emerge’ (1996, 42).
Once the potential jewellery buyer has understood the ‘signs’ of the contents
behind the glass, they must now negotiate the space of the store itself. In the
1935 catalogue, Pollard are very keen to promote their redesign of the Morabito
jewellery store at 346, rue Saint-Honoré in Paris (Figure 5.4).
It is described as ‘ultra-modern Continental style as depicted in a fashionable
Paris Jewel salon. The clever use of rich decorative hardwoods and brilliant
metalwork in modern design, the attractive lighting arrangement and layout of
the shop in general, symbolizes exclusiveness’ (E. Pollard and Co. 1935, 38). This
is modern design as luxury and the accompanying image is a clear demonstration
of how the company’s interior design service was promoting spaces where the
modern consumer might feel more at home. Compared with Liberty’s secretive
fine jewellery room, this promises to be a very different jewellery purchasing
166 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 5.4 Interior of the Morabito jewellery store, rue Sainte-Honoré, Paris, from the
E. Pollard and Co. Ltd catalogue, Everything for the Jeweller Except Jewellery, c. 1935.
© The British Library Board (shelfmark YD.2004.b.1104). Image used with kind
permission of www.pollardsinternational.com.

experience. There is freedom to see clearly what is on offer and the possibility
of browsing without having to engage closely with an assistant together with,
crucially, the potential to examine the objects at close hand in their cases. The
positioning of chairs in the photograph strongly suggests that buying was to
be considered a matter of discussion, negotiation and agreement on what was
appropriate. Time could be spent on this in a more relaxed way in the presence
of the assistant. The use of geometric shapes, the presence of a minimum
 Displaying Jewellery 167

amount of applied decoration (most of the decoration derives from the grain
and patterning of materials rather than applied ornament) combines with a
generous amount of floor space to suggest a new kind of modern browsing and
purchasing experience. Throughout the shop fitting section of the catalogue,
emphasis is placed on the use of modern materials; nonreflective glass, bronze,
metal, rubber floors and the installation of modern furniture (including tubular
steel). Acknowledgement of modernist approaches is clear, too, in the description
of the Dimmers jewellery store in Southampton, which the catalogue describes,
like the Morabito store, as achieving a perfect balance ‘unassisted by any attempt
at extraneous decoration’ (19).
Browsing is a key activity in modern consumption. The company knew this
very well and, in the design of the exterior of the jewellery store, browsing can be
improved by splaying windows on either side of the main entrance. This not only
features the entrance to the store more clearly, but it also increases the amount of
window space and allows for the possibility of slightly more discreet browsing on
busy thoroughfares, where customers can take relief from crowds and inhabit a
small arcade-like transitional space. Pollard’s redesigned store of John Angell, in
Tonbridge, Kent is a case in point. But perhaps the best example of a new spatial
arrangement for the jewellery store suggested by Pollard is their remodelling of
T. Pickett Ltd. in Portsmouth (Figure 5.5). This ‘set a new standard’ in jewellery
shopfitting: ‘ten windows are arranged round the arcade, including two on the
main frontage, each occupying its correct percentage of space. All is contained
within a frontage of 30ft’ (E. Pollard and Co. 1935, 23). This allows for a huge
amount of browsing capacity in a small space within an arcade. Here, the
relationship between Pickett’s goods and its retail space becomes both a public,
semi-public and private activity.
On a practical level, the amount of space devoted to the display of products
becomes extensive given the size of the shop window frontage, whereby 30 ft of
frontage becomes 80 ft with the creation of the arcade. The cruciform arcade
arrangement, here applied to an individual shop, also maximizes safe consumer
access, increases the perception of abundance (often the aim of high street
jewellery retailers to this day) and provides off-street semi-private browsing
space. It is also worth remembering that an element of private and discreet
contemplation on the part of individuals and couples is often required on the
occasion of the purchase of significant, personal and often expensive items
be they items of jewellery or silverware. This space allows for all that to take
place while allowing the products themselves to be retrieved from the rear
168 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 5.5 (Lower right) Plan of arcade at the entrance to the T. Pickett Ltd jewellery
store, Portsmouth, UK, from the E. Pollard and Co. Ltd catalogue, Everything
for the Jeweller Except Jewellery, c. 1935. © The British Library Board (shelfmark
YD.2004.b.1104). Image used with kind permission of www.pollardsinternational.com.
 Displaying Jewellery 169

of the display cases by the shop assistant. In contrast to many shop frontages
that attempt to push the inside of the shop out towards the consumer, this
arrangement deliberately invites the browser in, with no obligation to actually
enter the interior of the shop itself.
Although unlike the sort of Parisian arcade that interested Walter Benjamin,
this kind of spatial arrangement still provided for a kind of spectacle. In Graeme
Gilloch’s view, Benjamin identified the arcade as a private space which was ‘a locus
of the exclusive and of exclusion’. The display windows ‘presented commodities
not as objects for use, but as pure spectacle. The glass screen ensured visibility,
suggesting proximity, yet denied tactility . . . Within the arcade, commodities
became objects of unrequited desire’ (Gilloch 2002, 131). This could be said
of all emporia specializing in objects of luxury, but it is particularly pertinent
to the jewellery shop. In the semi-private space of T. Pickett’s jewellery arcade,
consumers could experience something of that strange, contradictory feeling of
repulsion and attraction in the presence of the exclusive.
Designer Frederick Kiesler’s contemporary polemical guide to modern
store design is an interesting account of the relationship between the customer
and new tactics for the display of goods. He stated that ‘contact between street
and store, between passerby and merchandise; this is the function of the show
window. After the passerby has halted, the silent window has a duty: to talk. To
demonstrate. To explain. In short: to sell’ (Kiesler 1930, 68–9). To make this point
he illustrates examples of modernist architecture (Mies van der Rohe, De Stijl,
Purism) to highlight the ways in which successful store design and shop window
displays can be achieved in the modernist vein. This includes exploiting the large
plate glass window, utilizing a single material where possible, applying modern
typography, electric lighting, asymmetrical arrangements, spatial complexity
and staggered entrances to shops. Glass is the key component, as the section on
‘the ideology of the show window’ reveals. It might be a long way from Kiesler’s
heady metropolitan modernism to the display of jewellery at T. Pickett’s Ltd
in Portsmouth, but the production of the kind of space produced by Pollard’s
design team to allow the extended functions of browsing and, ultimately, buying
as outlined above was seen as a key concern of the display of goods in modern
consumption. It will be made clear later that the display of jewellery in retail and
exhibition environments was subject to as much debate and controversy as any
other kind of exhibit or product.
Inside the jewellery shop, the consumer is faced with the finer details of
point-of-sale and a more direct experience of the objects themselves. The Pollard
170 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

catalogue duly obliges, containing a plethora of items to assist the retailer in the
display of jewellery. It is not necessary to list them all here, but an examination
of the display systems and all the items required to support the visual promotion
of jewellery and accessories is an indication of how seriously the retailing of
these items was taken. That Pollards included the type of furniture that might
be used in a jewellery store (some of it reminiscent of the tubular steel furniture
of the Bauhaus) reveals that all aspects of the experience of the modern retail
environment were being promoted. It offers advice, too, on how to display
particular items in conjunction with its own system of window display. The
‘Pollard rod dressing system’ is a system of rods, brackets and glass shelves
which enable the window dresser to produce a flexible display ‘by giving each
article or group of articles a shelf to itself ’ (E. Pollard and Co. 1935, 128). This
is interesting, because emphasis is on the objects occupying their own space
instead of the space allotted to them on a traditional long shelf. For Pollards,
the modern jewellery-buying experience must focus on each item occupying
its own space, so it can become, potentially, uniquely presented to an individual
customer, rather than one item of many heaped together on a shelf.

Exhibitions in Paris and London

The promotion of jewellery through retail display can be usefully compared to the
approaches taken by designers of major exhibitions, of which there were many
notable international examples in the interwar period. The great exhibitions of
manufacturing of the nineteenth century in Europe and America had paved the
way for a great variety of trade fairs and international gatherings all designed
to stimulate trade, promote innovation and, of course, to strengthen national
identities through conspicuous displays of the latest products. For the purposes
of this book, it is my intention to focus primarily on the displays of jewellery
at the Paris exhibitions of 1925 and 1929 and the 1935 British Art in Industry
exhibition, held in London.
As has already been mentioned, the 1925 Exposition Internationale des
Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris provided the impetus for the
development of jewellery that, for the first time, was clearly impacted upon
by modernism. But it is useful to note how, among all the other sections of
this epoch-defining exhibition, the organizing committee of Paris 1925 chose
to display the work of, principally, French jewellers. With the exception of
 Displaying Jewellery 171

the official material produced by the exhibition authorities (including the

Encyclopédie des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes au XXème siècle) the best
near contemporary source for an assessment of the jewellery and silverware
displayed at the 1925 exhibition is the 1934 tome La Bijouterie, La Joaillerie, La
Bijouterie de Fantaisie au XXe Siècle, edited by Emile Sedeyn et al. under the
direction of Georges Fouquet. This is an extensive account of the development
of French jewellery; part design history, part economic history and part survey
of the trade, which attempts to put into context the major achievements of the
French jewellery industry from 1900. Some of the texts are drawn, or adapted
from, earlier publications (particularly in relation to the 1925 and 1929 jewellery
exhibitions). The volume describes the setting up of bodies to promote and
organize the French jewellery trade along with some key cultural events which
contributed to its promotion, including the 1900 Paris exhibition, formation
of the Société des artistes décorateurs and the various salons d’automne. Also
cited as important artistic influences were the influence of the ballets russes
and the German werkbund. Many of these elements came together for the first
time at the 1925 exhibition. Jacques Guerin’s account of the organization of
the event explains very clearly that the organizing committee for the jewellery
section required that the attributes of the work selected had to include not only
originality but also new (i.e. modern) inspiration. Further, there were to be
no copies or imitations of previous styles allowed (Sedeyn et al. 1934, 164).
According to Guerin, in 1925 there were more than 400 bijoutiers-joaillers in
Paris, but only thirty firms or individuals were exhibited indicating that the
selection criteria were strictly enforced (Sedeyn et al. 1934, 168). The five
categories of exhibits for the 1925 exhibition were Architecture (1), Furniture
(2), Costume (3), Arts of the Theatre, Street and Garden (4) and Education (5).
Each category was subdivided into ‘classes’ and allocated spaces. The Pavillon
Bijouterie-Joaillerie was positioned as class 24 of the exhibits in the overall
‘Costume’ category, which also included clothing (20), accessories (21), fashion
and flowers (22) and perfume (23).
The introductory essay to the class 24 exhibit in the Encyclopédie, produced
to accompany the exhibition, aims to present a clear picture of the progress in
modern high and costume jewellery since 1900. The author reiterates the selection
criteria outlined above, but also presents the desired effect of the exhibition as
that which promotes reflection on the unity of design (geometric forms, modern
inspirations) between the major producers, that they are able to produce work
which is decorative yet possessing integrity and which, materially, is varied
172 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

and capable of delivering a modern sensibility to the consumer through design

rather than predominantly through the use of certain materials. The economic
strength of the jewellery trade in France is made clear through reference to a set
of statistics that reveal the huge success of the exportation of French jewellery
and French taste abroad (Encyclopédie 1977, 90).
For the 1925 exhibition architect Eric Bagge, himself a designer of jewellery
for the Fouquet firm, was commissioned to design the pavilion, which was
constructed inside the Grand Palais (Figure 5.6). The display was arranged
around an enormous central lighting fixture underneath which was placed some
seating, the whole space having its light subtly modulated by a canopy of fabric.

Figure 5.6 Pavillon de bijouterie et orfèvrerie at the Exposition des Arts décoratifs,
Paris, 1925, designed by Eric Bagge. Bibliothèque des Arts décoratifs, Paris, Collection
Maciet.
 Displaying Jewellery 173

The individual vitrines were viewable from all sides so that visitors could walk
through and turn back on themselves if they wanted to see more.
Jacques Guerin’s description of the use of colour emphasizes the importance
placed on the objects themselves through the intention to create an environment
in which the spatial design was not seen to dominate. He mentions the soft rosy
hues of the paint scheme and the grey carpet and seating, all of which ‘gave a nice
atmosphere to the hall and placed all the importance on the display cases, all of
the same model’ (Sedeyn et al. 1934, 168). There was seemingly every attempt to
create a sense of unity and luxury without overpowering the individual items, a
point further reinforced by Guerin when he suggests that in spite of the diversity
of the designs on display and the impact of the varied colours to be seen inside
the cases, the designers had created ‘un ensemble d’une rare distinction’ (172).
The effect of unity is helped by the fact that each display case was designed to
light objects from above using diffused light through etched glass. Furthermore,
a series of dynamic geometric motifs were etched into the glass inserted into
the upper section of the frame in each case (which also carried the names of
the companies exhibiting there) thus creating a visual theme of modern design
uniting the displays. This theme is further carried through in the central light
fitting and the wall coverings of the entrance to the pavilion.
Bagge’s 1925 pavilion had an independent life of its own within the vast
spaces of the Grand Palais. A few years later, in 1929, Bagge was asked to produce
designs for an exhibition of jewellery and silverware at the Musée Galliera. One
of his drawings of the scheme was featured on the front cover of a special free
supplement of the Figaro magazine, ensuring significant publicity for the show
(Figure 5.7). At the Galliera, the problem remained of mounting an exhibition
of small, often intimate items of modern jewellery in a space with a character
all of its own – the Palais Galliera was completed in 1894 in a neo-Renaissance
style. Unlike the Grand Palais, which was cavernous enough for independent
structures to be built inside, the Galliera was a different kind of space, but still
on a scale that presented a considerable challenge to the exhibition designer. As
Guerin noted, the major question was ‘how to bring together under the Italianate
painted vaults, between balustrades and porticos, the scintillating treasures of
contemporary jewellery and silverware?’ (Sedeyn et al. 1934, 147).
Clouzot’s description of the show in the Figaro article praises the designer
for rendering the interior of the Galliera unrecognizable and that Bagge had
hidden the renaissance character of the museum ‘under an arrangement of a
magnificent sobriety’ adding that the lighting seemed to come directly from the
174 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

Figure 5.7 Cover of the Supplément artistique of Figaro, 13 June 1929, featuring Eric
Bagge’s design for the jewellery exhibition at the Musée Galliera. Bibliothèque des Arts
décoratifs, Paris. © Le Figaro / 13.06.1929.

exhibits themselves (Sedeyn et al. 1934, 148). It would seem that visitors would
be in no doubt that the organizers of the exhibition (the Chambre syndicale
de la Bijouterie, Joaillerie, Orfèvrerie de Paris) intended the exhibits to have
maximum impact and to tell a now familiar story that the development of a
modern sensibility in jewellery had emerged, both in France and elsewhere.
This development also had economic and wider cultural value, too. Clouzot
stressed the fact that modern French jewellery was capable of expressing what he
considered to be the national characteristics of ‘order, moderation and reason’,
 Displaying Jewellery 175

and that the taste for jewellery is not just for the privileged. Furthermore, far
from being the preserve of the élite, taste in fine jewellery could also become the
preserve of ‘Monsieur Tout-le-monde’ (Clouzot 1929b, 589). As far as putting
jewellery in the public domain is concerned, he suggests that an annual jewellery
show could, like an automobile show, attract the curious in their hundreds of
thousands (Clouzot 1929b, 590).
Georges Fouquet, president of the exhibition, stressed in his contribution to
the Figaro supplement that ‘the characteristic of the life of the present time is
speed. It is necessary that the composition of a jewel is quickly understood, and
it must therefore be designed with simple lines, devoid of sentimentality and all
superfluous detail’ (1929, 607). As we have seen in Chapter 3, this was a familiar
mantra from this particular jewellery firm, but how does Bagge’s vision for the
display of jewellery help to promote the modernist sensibility so clearly stressed
by the organizers of the Galliera show? From the evidence of Bagge’s drawing it is
clear that he was trying to manipulate a very traditional exhibition space in order
to achieve ease of circulation, minimum of distraction from the exhibits and an
overall sense of restraint in the décor. The drawing as it appeared on the cover
of Figaro is very close to those descriptions contained within. The design is clear
and the articulation of the space, the display cases and the lighting suggest that
the most obvious aim of the design, that of visitors’ concentration on the quality
of the exhibits, was achieved. The room is populated with modern, fashionable
people, dressed quite soberly. They are obviously products of the changes in
fashion and design that had dominated the 1920s. In giving each of his viewers
one window to themselves to view the exhibits, Bagge respects the fact that a
person viewing a piece of jewellery is so much wider than the piece he or she is
looking at. This is not usually a problem in exhibitions of paintings, but represents
a real challenge to the designer of jewellery exhibitions, as acknowledged by
noted exhibition designer Margaret Hall in her book On Display (1987). Bagge’s
scheme has the gravitas of an exhibition without the clutter and overabundance
of the jewellery shop. In keeping with the theme of luxury (never, as we have
seen, a quality completely abandoned by modernist jewellers) the cases are filled
in such a way that individual pieces can be appreciated for both their technical
mastery and their aesthetic effect.
The exhibition was opened by Fortuné d’Andigné, former president of the
Conseil Municipale de Paris, who later reproduced a number of his speeches made
at the opening of exhibitions at the Musée Galliera in his 1931 book Mon beau
Paris. His speech at the formal opening of this particular exhibition on 7 June
176 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

1929 is of interest in a number of ways. He refers directly to Bagge’s exhibition

design, referring to it as a temple of jewellery where, although the spaces are
dressed with majestic columns and grey sails, the lighting is unobtrusive but
powerful. Further, he refers to a sense of uniformity in the design which, far
from being boring ‘creates charm and arouses wonder’ (d’Andigné 1931, 202).
A final plea to viewers of the exhibition is to remember that without being worn
(and worn by women in particular) jewels are cold museum pieces that can only
be brought to life by the viewer through imagining the life of the objects beyond
the display case and on the body (204).
In Sedeyn et al.’s account of the show, men are permitted a small part in the
narrative. However, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this book, the range
of jewellery available to men was limited. In this exhibition, rings and small
ornamented cases for men are briefly discussed, but emphasis is placed on how
these items are made and decorated rather than how their design and use may
relate to the gender of the wearer (Sedeyn et al. 1934, 152). It was obviously
thought more appropriate for men to be interested in manufacturing techniques,
rather than the adornment potential of the pieces themselves. In contrast, the
new jewellery for women was described very much in terms of how it can be
worn by active women, whose sun-browned necks and athletic bodies require
different types of jewellery, forms which do not get in the way while grasping a
tennis racket or golf club (149).
The Galliera show was not the overtly modernist design triumph that, for
example, characterized the salon d’automne of 1929 when Le Corbusier and
Charlotte Perriand displayed their furniture and objects in a pure modernist
interior. This is a more pragmatic conception occupying a space often used for
the display of fashion, textiles and other crafts. Bagge makes a subtle intervention
into this space. An exercise in extreme asceticism would have made little sense
for a display of modern jewellery. As the exhibition organizers said, they were
keen to illustrate to the visitor ‘the general tendency of jewellery towards
simplicity’ (Sedeyn et al. 1934, 148).
As indicated at the start of this chapter, the public exhibition of jewellery was
one way in which to introduce the general public to the economic and cultural
importance of the jewellery industry. Events in France were not unique in this
respect. In Britain, part of the interwar drive to create alliances between art and
industry (usually a byword for the encouragement of a modernist approach
to design by such bodies as the Design and Industries Association) resulted
in a variety of exhibitions held under the auspices of a number of high profile
 Displaying Jewellery 177

institutions. An examination of one of these events, the British Art in Industry

exhibition held at the Royal Academy of Arts from January to March 1935,
reveals that the display of jewellery by the UK Goldsmiths’ Company raised
some very important questions about how the products of the trade should be
represented to the public as well as raising questions about the state of modern
jewellery design in Britain. The company had exhibited regularly at the British
Industries Fairs in the 1930s, but the Royal Academy show required a different
approach as this audience’s expectations were very different.
Records show that the company had been planning for this exhibition as early
as 1933 where, alongside the expected display of silver and goldsmithing work,
it had decided to display jewellery too. Architect John Grey was employed to
supervise the displays of the company in rooms E and F along with jewellers
Catherine Cockerell and Anna Zinkeisen. Extensive correspondence between
John de la Valette of the Royal Academy, George Ravensworth Hughes of the
Goldsmiths’ Company and the artists and designers involved in the exhibition
survives in the archive at London’s Goldsmiths’ Hall. The evidence from 1933
up to the opening of the exhibition in January 1935 shows that, initially, the
key players were optimistic about the inclusion of jewellery in the exhibition.
However, in response to a call for participation in the show (and a competition)
by the Goldsmiths’ Company, it would seem that the quality and appropriateness
of the exhibits fell short of the expectations of the Royal Academy organizing
committee. In a letter from de la Valette to Hughes of 3 August 1934, the
former is clear that the proposed exhibits were falling short. Although there was
evidence of ‘high class jewellery’ which was ‘quite dignified’:

What we want to show is ingenious and attractive design, applied to ornaments

such as increasing number of women wear nowadays. I feel, therefore, that a
very strong effort ought to be made to bring in the artificial jewellery trade and
the workers in less precious stones . . . I am very anxious that we should get the
jewellery section in such a position that it will once and for all kill the feeling
which is now prevalent amongst many English women, that one must go abroad
to get well designed jewellery. What we have seen so far is more apt to confirm
that feeling rather than dispel it. (Goldsmiths’ Company Archive, 0.II.I)

The response to this stinging criticism was, ultimately, to include a large number
of ‘paste jewellery’ sections in the final displays in Room F, clearly visible in
John Grey’s final plan for the exhibition space (Goldsmiths’ Company Archive,
0.II.I). But the criticism itself reveals more than just the fact that the British
178 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

jewellery trade had some local difficulties with quality. De la Valette suggests
that the company was not able to amply demonstrate that it was catering
for the mass. In effect, although the term was not in general use, the Royal
Academy’s view was that costume jewellery was more representative of modern
tendencies than traditional jewellery in precious metals. This is an interesting
echo of the German costume jewellery manufacturer Fahrner’s claim that their
mass manufactured products constituted the true ‘jewellery of our time’ (see
Chapter 3). The exhibition displays themselves were also criticized. In a strange
(and very short) quasi-poetic note dated 5 February 1935 from Mr Hodges of
the Goldsmiths’ and Silversmiths’ Co Ltd (who were represented in the show)
the writer penned the following, damning the work of Cokerell, Zinkeisen and
Grey in one fell swoop:

Re R.A windows.
If therefore the brighter and fairer the gem
The plainer and simpler the setting should be
The idea underlying those windows is all wrong – not art in industry
(Goldsmiths’ Company Archive, 0.II.I)

Whether sufficiently ‘modern’ or whether or not it was willing and able to

embrace the rise of interest in costume jewellery, the Goldsmiths’ Company
nevertheless paid great attention to the display of its works in the public domain.
In the 1930s the company worked with established architects (John Grey,
Howard Robertson) and display companies (Harrods, Display Craft, Pollards)
to attempt to provide appropriate, secure environments for their wares. But
fully embracing the modern aesthetic in jewellery appeared to be a challenge for
some at a company which, by its own admission, did not get truly serious about
jewellery until the early 1960s. In 1935 it provided photographs of silverware
to the Exhibition of Everyday Things organized by the Royal Institute of British
Architects to promote, ostensibly, the beauty of practical, functional and plain
objects. A letter from the company of 27 November 1935 to designer H. G.
Murphy nevertheless lamented that ‘it is a pity that these architects should be
allowed to get away with the policy of cheapening everything by eliminating
all forms of decoration, which is more or less what it comes to’ (Goldsmiths’
Company Archive, 0.II.I). As has been shown in Chapter 3, Murphy was well
aware of the modern tendencies in contemporary metalwork and was busy
making his own contribution to the modern movement.
 Displaying Jewellery 179

The art of window display has been considered part of the spectacle of
modernity since the mid-nineteenth century. By the 1920s this activity had
developed specialist credentials and an activity worthy of serious discussion
among both designers and entrepreneurs. In 1927 V. N. Siégel founded the
journal Parade: Revue du décor de la rue (Journal de l’étalage et de ses industries)
(Parade: Review of the Décor of the Street [Journal of Window Display and
Allied Industries]) to promote the idea of window display as an essential part
of modern commerce and culture. It also allowed for new products by Siégel
to be promoted to a wider audience. Displays by the modern Parisian jewellery
houses were well represented in the journal, which featured a visual record of a
range of examples, most of them from the vitrines of fashion, textiles, accessory
and jewellery houses as well as the Grands Magasins. For example, the edition
of 15 July 1928 contains a full-page visual record of displays by Mauboussin,
Jean Fouquet and Paul Brandt, the latter’s displays being designed by René
Herbst.
What is interesting about the displays recorded in Parade is how the practice
of window display is not only consistently allied to making the necessary alliances
between art and commerce in the cause of making profit, but how conspicuously
modern design techniques reflect the way forward. This is perhaps not entirely
surprising due to the fact that Herbst is credited as being the magazine’s director.
The edition of 15 September 1928 advises on the twelve essential points of
‘L’art de l’étalage’. These include the power of attraction, choice of merchandise,
arrangement, originality, display of the price, and so on. Significantly, it warns
against confusing novelty and originality, together with an understanding that
keeping objects clean in windows is essential. Above all, the impression given
by some of the obviously modernist-influenced vitrines published in Parade
is that regularity and conspicuous quality is favoured over impressions of
abundant availability, a theme that unites all of the examples discussed in this
chapter.
In France, it would seem that the 1929 exhibition at the Musée Galliera was
the high point of the attempt to draw attention to the position of jewellery in
relation to the conditions of modernity, if not modernism itself. This effort
very much relied on the success of the efforts of certain major jewellers and
their allies in fashion, design, architecture and the wider cultural scene.
After the economic troubles of the early 1930s, the leading French jewellers
began to lose their influence as a bloc and the industry diversified into many
different strands, serving a greater variety of markets and new types of
180 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

consumers offering them a wider range of options, particularly in terms of

materials. The 1925 exhibition had promised (and, arguably, delivered) much
in terms of the creation of an internationally influential modern language of
jewellery, but its major successor, the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts
et Techniques Appliqués dans la Vie Moderne in Paris saw jewellery presented
in a less coherent way. Here, class 55 of the exhibition (‘Parure’) was presided
over by Georges Fouquet but the emphasis in the text of the Livre d’Or Officiel
de l’Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne, Paris
1937 was on the relationship between jewellery and fashion suggesting that ‘If
jewellery is a work of art, it is also a fashion item, so it continually changes’
(Livre d’Or, 294). If there was a strong suggestion that jewellery had been
subsumed by fashion, then it may also have been irksome for some jewellers to
read in the Livre d’Or that the role of jewellery in fashion was compared to the
way that a whiff of perfume might add a note to an outfit (294). Nevertheless,
the jewellery section was housed in its own building, designed by Hourlier
and Schmitt, dubbed the Palais de la Bijouterie. The diffusion of the major
jewellers’ work among a variety of different pavilions meant that Jean Després,
for example, had his work on view in six different categories (Gabardi 2009,
178). In this case it is clear how much diversification Després had been prepared
to embrace in the new economic and cultural circumstances of the 1930s.
Similarly, Raymond Templier was seemingly more occupied with the UAM
pavilion, presenting himself as an ‘artiste décorateur joaillier’ even though he
was also a vice president of class 55 (Mouillefarine and Ristelhueber 2005,
246). Silversmith Jean Puiforcat had his own pavilion, dedicated to liturgical
silverware, which showcased his modern take on traditional forms of silver
(Bliss 2003).
As in 1925, the strange and often bizarre assemblages of national, colonial and
commercial pavilions, jostling together in a specially designated exhibition zone
flanking the Seine in central Paris, certainly suggest an illusory experience (and
one to which the contemporary Expo and trade fair is clearly indebted) with all
its emphasis on national display and demonstration of cultural achievements.
The architectural language of the pavilions of 1937 varied from the traditional
to the ultra-modern via the stripped-down classicism favoured by a number of
the colonial and totalitarian powers, reflecting the international tensions and
political posturing of the late 1930s.
Although later accounts of the exhibition are, inevitably, dominated by
discussion of these big themes, the role of the objects on display should not be
 Displaying Jewellery 181

underestimated. Furthermore, the manner in which objects were displayed and

the nature of the spaces designed to house them are important factors in the
way their cultural significance can be assessed. In the case of jewellery (often the
smallest objects on show at any exhibition of artefacts) the nature of display is
critical to the assessment of the objects by the public. Margaret Cohen, in part of
her discussion of Walter Benjamin’s appropriation of the term ‘phantasmagoria’
from Marx’s Capital, refers to the former’s use of the term in relation to the
Universal Exhibitions that became popular in the nineteenth century. Benjamin’s
view on commodity fetishism was that these great national and international
displays of objects, cultural achievements, novelties and symbols represented a
‘phantasmagoria of capitalist culture’ (Cohen 1995, 22). If we extend this idea
into the interwar years, the many exhibitions and world fairs of that period can
also be characterized in this way.
The popularity of these exhibitions was partly due to the inherent curiosity
of the general public but, crucially, they became spaces where looking took the
place of buying. Information, edification and novelty were combined and given
a similar gloss. Furthermore, as Janet Ward points out in relation to nineteenth-
century industrial display, the public ‘were encouraged to enter the department
store, to attend the world trade fair, to gaze at the display windows’ (2001, 192).
Gilloch’s commentary on Benjamin’s work on the Parisian arcades, where the
act of looking was the only kind of consumption possible for many, puts things
more darkly when he says that ‘commodity fetishism is an eroticization of the
lifeless artefact, a necrophilial desire to possess dead things’ (2002, 127). In terms
of the production of phantasmagoria, whether outside or inside the store or at an
exhibition, it mattered not whether consumers were always buying, but they had
to be always looking. In this context Ward says that ‘goods offer themselves as
artworks not just for sale but also for use in people’s fantasies, in the production
of a lifestyle’ (2001, 193).
In asking visitors to the 1929 Musée Galliera exhibition to imagine themselves
wearing the modern jewels on display (and surely knowing that few visitors
would ever buy them) Fortuné d’Andigné was, however unwittingly, reinforcing
this idea in his opening speech. Further, Clouzot’s suggestion of a potential
annual jewellery Salon akin to a motor show, creates the ultimate separation
of object and subject in which the former is displayed largely for the purposes
of the consumption of its image. The same can be said of the 1935 Goldsmiths’
Company exhibition in that the ‘consumer’ of this show had to be persuaded that
what they were looking at represented not only the best work being produced,
182 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

but that its display contributed to its appeal as a commodity. In this case, as in
other exhibitions of this nature, the display was intended to reassure the public
that the quality of the objects on view said something about the success of the
industry that created it and a sense of national self-esteem that is, almost as a
matter of course, worth buying into either through object or image.
 Conclusion

In this account, an examination of the many cultural influences brought to bear

on jewellery and accessories have allowed us to go beyond a straightforward
description of body adornment. It is hoped that this can be seen as representing
something of an alternative way forward in the study of jewellery of the interwar
period. At the very least it has represented a renewed effort on the part of this
author to reconsider the relationship between jewellery and modernism – two
phenomena so often characterized as being estranged from each other. Indeed, we
have seen how jewellery objects, accessories and other personal items of ‘vanity’
are connected to some of the major themes of the early modern movement in art
and design and how it was possible for jewellery, perhaps more so than fashion,
to strike up a direct relationship with both avant-garde and mainstream culture.
Understanding the place of jewellery and accessories in modernism can take us
beyond the consideration of these items as mere accoutrements in a variety of
strategies of personal adornment. It is also the ability of these objects to express
ideas about personal, social and economic transformation that makes their
study so valuable.
Harry Haller, the misanthropic subject of Hermann Hesse’s 1927 novel
Steppenwolf, finds himself, after years of self-imposed isolation from the
metropolitan social whirl, reintroduced to the pleasures of genuine human
interaction by his ‘saviours’ Hermine and Maria. The latter teaches Haller much
about generosity and, in particular, the giving of gifts:

Before all else I learned that these playthings were not mere idle trifles
invented by manufacturers and dealers for the purpose of gain. They were, on
the contrary, a little or, rather, a big world, authoritative and beautiful, many-
sided, containing a multiplicity of things, all of which had the one and only
aim of serving love, refining the senses, giving life to the dead world around
us, endowing it in a magical way with new instruments of love, from powder
and scent to the dancing-shoe, from ring to cigarette case, from waist buckle to
184 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

hand-bag . . . All were the plastic material of love, of magic and delight. Each
was a messenger, a smuggler, a weapon, a battlecry. (Hermann Hesse 1988, 169)

Hesse gives this list of accessories in order to make the point that these objects
of vanity, whatever their artistic or material qualities, have the potential to
represent a full range of human connections, emotions and possibilities. In one
sense Hesse, through the medium of Harry Haller, serves to underscore one
of the main themes of this book: that is, of the jewellery object as purveyor of
both personal and wider social perspectives in which identities can be created,
reinforced and performed, ideas can be contained and disseminated and cultural
change expressed.
Although jewellery objects tend to be characterized (often erroneously) as
being small in scale, they can, nevertheless, be used to represent big ideas. In
Tender Is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald likens a whole conurbation to pieces of
jewellery. Nicole stares down from the terrace of the Caux Palace Hotel: ‘She
shivered suddenly. Two thousand feet below she saw the necklace and bracelet of
lights that were Montreux and Vevey, beyond them a dim pendant of Lausanne’
(1998, 171). This is jewellery as a metaphor for connectedness shown by the
circles and rows of light that define a town at night. In addition, in the form of
the ghostly pendant, it is used as a way of suggesting distance and disconnection.
The lights also evoke images of starry constellations, and this works oddly
because we are looking down on it and not up at it, representing Nicole Diver’s
struggle with her perceptions of the world following her childhood trauma as a
victim of incest. Her world was turned upside down. Thus the striking image of
the lakeside conurbation as jewellery plays a role that is more than just that of a
dramatic backdrop. Here jewellery, normally an intimate item of adornment, has
the potential to be evoked as an image on a colossal scale.
Both these literary excursions serve to indicate the ubiquity of jewellery and
accessories in interwar culture. The growing production of items of personal
adornment gave opportunities for objects to take on different lives and to play
a key part in all levels of cultural activity in the 1920s and 1930s. The place
of jewellery as part of the spectacle of modernity, whether as part of a parure,
painting, photograph, film, public exhibition or literary device, points to the
changes in perceptions of what actually constituted the form and purpose of
jewellery. Even when the abundance of the 1920s gave way to the more sober,
introspective culture of the 1930s, and the economic fortunes of Europe and
America waxed and waned, jewellery was made, worn and consumed in ways
 Conclusion 185

which reflected both the confidence and fragility of the times. Furthermore,
the materiality of jewellery changed fundamentally from that of the outward
expression of wealth to the absorption of many new forms of jewellery by
fashion. The challenge of costume jewellery to the ‘old order’ is very important
because it allowed for a form of adornment that could be accessed by a greater
number of consumers than ever before who no longer felt it necessary (or indeed
fashionable) to carry their bank accounts with them on an evening out. Coco
Chanel’s attitude to the wearing of imitation jewellery (in this case, pearls) is
worth noting: ‘it does not matter if they are real as long as they look like junk’, thus
decoupling the wearer from the dictates of wealth, taste, privilege and patriarchy
in one fell swoop (Howell 1975, 105). Women were freed from these burdens
just as much as they had been, in dress, freed from the corset. As I have argued
earlier, women were also able to assert themselves in society and be represented
as individuals without the presence of any form of adornment or accessory.
The expression of individual identity through adornment was an increasing
possibility, and any such attempts were not necessarily considered as signs of
eccentricity. The impact of avant-garde culture, and not just in a formal sense,
meant that objects were perceived as things to be manipulated and experimented
with contextually. Worn in different ways and whether expensive or without any
material value, one of the contributions of the interwar jewellery wearers and
makers (here exemplified by Charlotte Perriand, Nancy Cunard, Elsa Triolet and
Marianne Brandt) was to emphasize adornment as an expression of identity, be
it individual, cultural or political. Triolet’s utilization of the humblest industrial
materials to make anti-fashion statements was a technique born out of necessity,
but places her way ahead of the experimental jewellers of the 1970s and 1980s.
Although her pieces never constituted an outright rejection of jewellery and
adornment, Triolet’s contributions continue to provoke considerations of
wearability, materiality, ethnicity, value, freedom and social class – themes that
are never far from the thoughts of many of today’s studio jewellers.
However strong the objections from modernist designers about the value
(or otherwise) of jewellery as adornment, this book has shown that some of
the key figures in the jewellery industry never wavered from the belief that
personal adornment was an important, if not vital, aspect of modern life. In
Blaise Cendrars’s poetical labours for the Templier firm, we have seen that
jewellery was canonized as the epitome of the expression of modern life.
Seemingly, nothing other than modern jewellery could present a clearer
exemplification of Baudelairean metropolitan modernity, that the past and the
186 Jewellery in the Age of Modernism

present are contiguous, and that the modern is in a constant state of renewal.
While recognizing the obvious impact of aspects of modernist art and design on
jewellery of the 1920s and 1930s, it is fascinating to see how modern adornment
seeks to combine some of the stylistic traits of the wider modern movement
without ever totally departing from the fact that modern life still requires the
presence of personal adornment to give it meaning.
The various attempts to represent jewellery and accessories through different
media have been a constant underlying theme of this book. Jewellery research
has always had recourse to representations of objects in the absence of the
presence of the object themselves. In the hands of the experimental and more
mainstream photographers of the interwar years, jewellery has been useful
because of its scale, materiality and its ability to represent a particular subject–
object relation. As we have seen, one of Kiki’s de Montparnasse’s bracelets in a
Man Ray rayograph represents her (and her absence) as well as an opportunity
for formal experimentation. It is through the presence of these often intimate
and personal items of adornment that added meanings beyond the formal can be
explored. The modernist body itself, so often discussed in the context of sports,
dance and other increasingly popular physical pastimes in interwar culture, can
also reveal itself through personal adornment, and jewellery played a significant
role in this. The photographic representation of the modern body (clothed and
unclothed) is given additional meaning by the presence of jewellery in its ability
to contain, compliment, objectify and eroticise the body. Of interest to this study
has been the way that these tendencies are still apparent when modern women
turn the camera on both themselves and on other women.
Experiments with the display of jewellery in the interwar years have shown it
to be bound to the forces of commerce and yet subject to the experimental and
critical practices of the avant-garde. What is interesting here is how modern
capitalism created, through the culture of display, a series of connections
between commercial and experimental visual practices, often with jewellery
and fashion at its heart. Crucial to this relationship was the idea that what we
might now call ocular-centric consumption began to take its place alongside
actual consumption and, in many ways, share equal importance. Attendance at
a jewellery exhibition made the visitor into a de facto consumer of the objects
on display. Looking and buying share centre-stage in this world. The shop
mannequin and the magazine spread demonstrate how jewellery and accessories
may be worn, but the exhibition brings together collective statements of intent
and representations of industrial and cultural progress. We have seen how the
 Conclusion 187

French jewellery industry, in particular, utilized talent in modern design from

a variety of sources to make clear statements about the new role and purpose of
modern jewellery. At its height in the late 1920s, the industry could rightly claim
to have developed an identity for itself that rivalled any other of the ‘luxury
trades’ for which Paris was still the acknowledged leader. The renowned jewellers
who engineered this success did so by harnessing the combined forces of the
traditional and the modern to publicly demonstrate that the need for personal
adornment and the expression of a modern sensibility need not be mutually
exclusive.
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 Index

Page numbers in italics refer to the illustrations and their captions

abstract art and photography 86, 91, 100– African art 61–2, 65–6, 68–71, 73, 75, 137,
1, 113, 133–4, 143 see also under Cunard, Nancy
accessories Albers, Josef 46
as adornment 10, 17–18, 30–1, 34 A l’heure de l’Observatoire – les Amoureux
the body relationship 10, 19, 30–2, brooch (Ray) 119
120–1, 124–5, 130–1 America
choosing 22–3, 25, 27–8, 30–1, 33, 37 consumerism 35, 162
display of 149, 151, 152, 154 costume jewellery 105, 106
fashion relationship 10, 11–12, 18–19, fashion and jewellery industry 11, 29,
29–30, 34 34, 105, 152
femininity relationship 12, 18, 29 freedom of women in 1920s 8, 24–5
in film 145, 146, 147, 153 influence of Paris 11, 26–7
identity relationship 10, 29, 59, 62, Among the Ibos of Nigeria (Basden) 68, 69
63–4, 125 androgyny 9, 12, 23, 32–3, 52
jewellery as 10, 11, 24, 108, 126–7, 142 Anémic Cinéma (film, M. Duchamp,
for men 34–5, 37–9, 40, 145 1926) 147
modernism, impact of 37–8, 82, 97, Antheil, George 48–9, 50
108, 116, 183 anti-colonialism 64, 65–6, 68, 71, 93–4
new women, attitude to 10, 11–12, Apollinaire, Guillaume 98
18–19, 24–5, 130–1, 185 Aragon, Louis 59, 61, 63, 66, 136–7,
in sexualisation of women 30, 31, 120–1 140
Acton, Harold 74 architecture
Adams, Samuel Hopkins 24 glass, use of 162–3
adornment impact on jewellery design 4, 81, 87,
accessories as 10, 17–18, 30–1, 34 117
femininity relationship 17, 29, 31, modernist 78–9, 80, 81, 87, 162, 169
124–5 Arpels, Louis 38
fetishism relationship 119, 121, 134, ‘Art as Technique’ (Shklovsky) 50
141, 157–9, 161 Art et décoration magazine 80–1, 95, 97,
identity relationship 129, 131, 184, 185 99–100, 121, 142–3
jewellery as 17, 28–30, 33, 56–7, 68–9, Asquith, Margot, Lady Oxford 58
184–6 As Wonderful As All That (Crowder) 63
modernist views of 78–82, 117, 124, Aujourd'hui (Cendrars) 96
183, 185–6 (see also Bauhaus) Aurenche, Marie-Berthe 141–2
modernity relationship 55, 78, 117 ‘Automotive Ball’, Paris (1924) 39, 40
strategies 22–5, 28–33, 121 avant-garde
surrealists views on 5, 157–61 art and literature 59, 61, 82, 185, 186
advertisements cinema 86, 149
jewellery 97, 121–4, 143 jewellery 83, 91, 98, 138, 142–3, 183
photography 121–4, 127–8, 143, 149 photography 28, 113, 125, 126, 149
202 Index

B3 club chair (Breuer) 52 Blumfield, Erwin 143

Bagge, Eric 172–3, 175, 176 the body
Baker, Josephine 11, 51, 75 accessories relationship 10, 19, 30–2,
ball-bearings 45–6, 48, 55, 56, 57, 85 120–1, 124–5, 130–1
ball-bearings necklace (Perriand) 42–4, identity relationship 31–2, 55
47–9, 50, 52–4, 55–7, 95 jewellery relationship 30, 63, 111, 121,
Ballet mécanique (film, Léger, Antheil and 124–5, 176
D. Murphy 1924) 48–9, 50, 147 modernist 30, 111, 124–5, 149, 186
Banting, John 61 nudity 31, 54–5, 124–5, 131, 186
Barbette 37 representation of 30, 120–1, 123–6, 131,
‘Bar in the Attic’ (Perriand) 55 149, 186
Barthes, Roland 5, 28–9, 37, 104, 142 Boiffard, Jacques-André 67
Basden, George 68, 69 Bonney, Thérése and Louise 25–7, 121,
Baudelaire, Charles 98, 136, 143–4, 185 122, 128, 149, 157–8
the Bauhaus 50, 93 The Book of Beauty (Beaton) 60, 64
on adornment and jewellery 4, 15, 108, Bow, Clara 12
109, 110–11, 116 bracelet (P. Brandt) 14, 86
furniture 52, 170 (see also under bracelet in chromed metal and ebonite (J.
modernism) Fouquet) 44, 45, 46, 85
jewellery design and manufacture 46, bracelet in gold with malachite and black
106–8, 111–12, 115–17 lacquer (J. Fouquet) 86, 87
on materials 107–8, 109, 112–13 bracelet in silver and black lacquer (R.
Metal Party (1929) 108–11, 113, 115, Templier) 100, 101
131, 132, 133 Brandt, Marianne 132
metal workshops 46, 106–7, 108, Bauhaus metal workshops 111, 112, 132
111–12, 132 earrings 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117
photography and photomontage 15, 50, identity, expressing 43, 50–1, 55, 57,
112–13, 114, 116, 128 131–3, 185
proclamation 93, 107 jewellery for the Bauhaus Metal Party
Beaton, Cecil 59, 60, 64, 129 111–13, 115, 116, 117, 131, 132
Beaumont, Étienne de 39, 40 photography and photomontage 15, 50,
Beecham, Thomas 58 112–13, 114, 116, 127
Bell, Quentin 27 self-portraits 111, 112, 131, 132, 133
Bengel, Jacob 105–6 Brandt, Paul 13, 14, 29, 84, 86, 91–2
Benjamin, Walter 49, 141, 143, 169, 181 Braque, Georges 120
Besnyö, Eva 17, 18 Brassai 37
‘Bifur’ typeface 87 Bravington's, London 164
La Bijouterie, La Joaillerie . . . (ed. Sedeyn, Breton, André 140–1
et al.) 171, 173–4, 176 Breuer, Marcel 52, 80, 133
Bijoux et Orfèvrerie (J. Fouquet from L’art Britain
internationale d’aujourd’hui) 83–5, exhibitions of jewellery 176–7 (see also
90, 91, 92 British Art in Industry exhibition)
bijoux moteurs (Després) 94 fashion and jewellery industry 29,
‘bijoux sports’ range of jewellery (P. 177–8
Brandt) 13, 29 British Art in Industry exhibition, London
Black Man and White Ladyship (Cunard) (1935) 165, 177–8, 181–2
57–8 brooch commemorating the breaking of
Blanchot, Jane 15, 16 the world land speed record 89–90
 Index 203

brooch in gold, rock crystal, tourmaline costume balls 39, 40

and pearls (J. Fouquet) 85–6 costume jewellery
brooch in gold, silver, pearls, lacquer and modernist 103, 105, 106, 137, 148
faience (Després and Mayadon) popularity 23, 78, 171, 178, 185
101–2 vs. fine jewellery 29, 33, 103–6, 178, 185
brooch in white gold, brilliant-cut Crowder, Henry 57–8, 63, 73–5
diamonds, onyx and coral cubism 46, 61, 82, 91–2, 113, 127
(R. Templier) 98–9, 100 Cunard, Nancy 4, 41, 57, 60
Brown, Clarence 144 accessories 58, 59, 64–5
Burke, Maud Alice, Lady Cunard (mother on Africa and Africans 59–60, 65–6, 68,
of Nancy) 57, 58, 59, 61–2, 64 74–5, 76
African jewellery and artefacts 59–63,
Calder, Alexander 120 65–71, 73, 82, 141, 7576
Cantique à Elsa (poem, Aragon) 136–7, anti-colonialism 64, 65, 68, 70, 71
140 autobiographical sketches 60
capitalism civil rights activism 41, 58, 59, 64, 76
consumerism relationship 77–8, 139– estrangement from mother and her
40, 152, 162, 181, 186 circle 57–8, 59, 61–2, 64
modernity relationship 77–8, 122–3 identity, expressing 41, 64, 73, 185
Cartier 38, 121, 143, 155 jewellery and jewellery-wearing 41–2,
Casati, Marchesa 63, 97, 141 71, 185 (see also African jewellery
‘Cassandre’ (Adolphe Mouron) 86–97 above)
The Cat (Colette) 21 as a new woman 41–2, 59, 82
Cendrars, Blaise 57, 96–8, 99, 155, 185 performance and jewellery 61, 63, 71–3,
Chanel, Coco 24, 27–8, 52, 185 75, 76
Chéri (Colette) 22 personality 58, 63–4, 76, 82
Cheronnet, Louis 95 poetry and other writing 58, 59–61, 66,
Chomette, Henry 136, 147 71, 73–6
cigarette case (Sandoz) 90, 91 political views 41, 58–9, 64, 66, 73, 76
Cirque d'hiver (M. Brandt) 113 on racism 57–8, 64, 65, 71–3
Clouzot, Henry 5, 83, 151, 173–5, 181
Cockerell, Catherine 177 Dadaism
Colette 20–2, 28, 155, 156–7 art practices 109, 112, 113, 137, 147
Colliers (Necklaces) (Triolet) 136, 137, film and photography 86, 112–13, 115,
138–40 116, 117, 126
Le collier tragique (Ray) 141 Dame mit kette (Woman with Necklace)
Communism 59, 93–4, 137 (Hoffman) 142
‘connecting rod’ brooch in silver (Després) D'Andigné, Fortuné 175–6, 181
94, 95 ‘Das Atelier in der Kugel’ (M. Brandt) 133
Consemüller, Erich 52 Davidson, Yvonne 11
constructivism 117, 147 Dearstyne, Howard 106–7
consumerism Deberney et Peignot 86, 87
capitalism relationship 77–8, 139–40, decoration, see under modernism
152, 162, 181, 186 decorations for the Metal Party, the
display relationship 145, 155, 162, 167, Bauhaus (1929) 109–10
181, 186 The Decorative Art of Today (Le
growth of 12, 25, 40, 83, 162, 186 Corbusier) 13, 15, 79
modernity relationship 77–8, 152 Delaunay, Robert 91
204 Index

Delaunay, Sonia 13, 84 Exhibition of Everyday Things exhibition,

De la Valette, John (Goldsmith's London (1935) 178
Company) 177, 178 exhibitions of jewellery 5, 152, 180–2,
department stores and shops 186–7, see also Exposition de
consumerism relationship 5, 162, 169 joaillerie et d’orfèvrerie; Exposition
jewellery display 163–70 Internationale des Arts Décoratifs . . .
Derrida, Jacques 10 Exposition Anti-impérialiste, Paris (1931)
design for graphic vignettes (Latour) 87, 66
88 Exposition coloniale, Paris (1931) 66, 75
designs for jewellery (P. Brandt) 91–2 Exposition de joaillerie et d’orfèvrerie, Paris
Després, Jean 36–7, 43, 180 (1929) 151, 171, 173–6, 179, 180
jewellery 11, 94–5, 100, 101–2, 147 Exposition Internationale des Arts
UAM membership 96 Décoratifs . . ., Paris (1925)
De Stijl 79, 169 jewellery displays 82, 97, 151, 170–3,
Dimmers jewellery store, Southampton 180
167 modernism 45, 79
displaying jewellery Exposition Internationale des Arts . . .,
advertisements 97, 121–4, 143 Paris (1937) 87, 180–1
consumerism relationship 145, 155, Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme,
162, 167, 181, 186 Paris (1938) 140–1, 157, 158–9, 161
fittings for 153, 164–70 expressionism 61, 107
live models 7–8, 25, 27, 124, 125–6, Eyston, Captain George 89–90
152–3
mannequins 27, 121, 136, 152–7, 158, Fahrner Schmuck 105, 106, 178
186 fancy dress parties 37, 39, 108–11
window display 126, 153, 169, 170, 179 Farley, Lillian 153
see also department stores; exhibitions fashion
Djo Bourgeois (Georges Bourgeois) 163 accessories relationship 10, 11–12,
dress 18–19, 29–30, 34
activity-specific 12, 13, 19, 29, 33 film relationship 147–8
dress codes 27, 36, 38, 39 jewellery relationship 3, 26–30, 81–2,
fancy dress 37–8, 39–40, 109 91, 126–7, 180
Duchamp, Marcel 45, 113, 147, 157 for men 20, 33–4, 35–6
Duchamp, Suzanne 113, 115, 116, 117 modernity relationship 35, 124, 152,
153
Earhart, Amelia 15 see also fashion magazines
Ehlers, Christl 148, 149 fashion magazines
Emak Bakia (film, Ray, 1926) 135 covers 3, 24–5
Encyclopédie des arts décoratifs . . . 171–2 on jewellery and accessories 12, 18–19,
Equatorial Way (Cunard) 74–5 22–4, 33, 38, 186
Ernst, Max 141–2 on the new woman 9, 12, 18–19
‘Erotique voilée’ (Ray) 130 femininity
Espinosa, Agustin 159, 160, 161 accessories relationship 12, 18, 29
‘Études en blanc et noir’ (Ray) 134 adornment relationship 17, 29, 31,
Everything for the Jeweller Except Jewellery 124–5
(Pollard's catalogue) 164–70 jewellery relationship 15, 17, 23–4, 29, 131
‘Evolution or Death of Ornament’ (Art et new women's issues with 15, 17, 23–4,
décoration) 80–1 52, 131
 Index 205

in 1920s 15, 17, 23–4, 31, 52, 131 modernist 14, 81, 82–3, 84–96, 97,
feminism 9, 15, 17, 55 186–7
La femme de France 11, 23 Freud, Sigmund 66
Fête du théatre et de la Parure, Paris (1925) Freytag-Loringhoven, Baroness Elsa von 112
163 From Gemstones to Jewellery (Barthes) 28
fetishism Fry, Roger 65
adornment relationship 119, 121, 134, Funkat, Walter 108
141, 157–9, 161 furniture and modernism 43, 52–3, 80, 94,
machine art relationship 47, 97 167, 176
Fielding, Daphne 61, 63 futurism 46, 91, 147
Figaro magazine supplement (1929)
173–4, 175 La Garçonne (Margueritte) 9
film garçonnes 9, 12, 23–4
accessories in 145, 146, 147, 153 gender issues
fashion relationship 147–8 androgyny 9, 12, 23, 32–3
jewellery-wearing in 7–8, 91, 120, cross-dressing 22, 32–3, 35, 37, 39–40, 60
134–5, 144–9 jewellery-wearing relationship 4, 9, 22,
modernist 48–9, 50, 134–6, 37, 43, 176
146–7 General Display Equipment (Pollard's
montage 48–9, 144, 147 catalogue) 153–4
movement and speed in 135–6, 147 George, Waldemar 81
the new women portrayed 7–8, 9, 12, Germany
120, 122–3 art 30–2, 103, 112, 171
Fitzgerald, F. Scott 19, 34–5, 62, 184 body culture 124–5, 149
Flaming Youth (Adams) 24 costume jewellery 105–6, 178
Flanner, Janet 63 the new woman in 122–3
‘flappers’ , see garçonnes see also Bauhaus
Flügel, J. C. 33–4, 35–6, 80 Giedion, Siegfried 80
formalism 50, 133 Gigi (Colette) 20–1
found objects in art and photography glass
44–5, 54, 137, 141, 158, 161 coloured glass in art and architecture
‘Fountain Dress’ (Poiret) 97 162–3
Fouquet, Georges 10, 27, 38, 175, 180 for jewellery display 97, 164–5, 170, 173
Fouquet, Jean 26, 38, 43, 47, 94, 155 shop windows 165, 167, 169, 179
examples of jewellery 43–4, 45, 46 Gloag, John 48
founder of UAM 92–3, 96 Goddard, Jacqueline 28
writing for L'art internationale Goldsmiths’ Company, London 165,
d'aujourd'hui 83–5, 90, 91, 92 177–8, 181–2
Fouquières, André de 52 Grand Man: Memories of Norman Douglas
France (Cunard) 60
accessories industry 25, 26, 34 The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) 62
fashion houses 11, 29, 81, 136 Grey, John 177, 178
jewellery industry 2, 29, 92, 176, 179– Gropius, Walter 38, 107, 132
80, 186–7 Guerin, Jacques 171, 173
see also Paris
French jewellery hairstyles
exhibitions (see under Paris) the ‘bob’ hairstyle 12, 19, 41, 51, 122,
importance of 2, 81, 83, 171, 174–5, 187 131
206 Index

jewellery relationship 12–13, 57 as adornment 17, 28–30, 33, 56–7,

for the new woman 12–13, 19, 51, 122, 68–9, 184–6
131 affordable (see costume jewellery)
Hajek-Halke, Heinz 120 architecture, impact of 4, 81, 87, 117
Halbakt (Schad) 31, 32 avant garde 83, 91, 98, 138, 142–3, 183
Hall, Margaret 175 the body relationship 30, 63, 111, 121,
‘Hands Study’ (Yva) 121–4, 125 124–5, 176
Harper's Bazaar 64–5, 121, 143 choosing, rules for 22–3, 25, 33, 36–7
hats 13, 14, 19, 91 as daytime wear 11, 12, 13, 15, 19, 23
Hawks, Howard 145 democratization 5, 29, 83, 104–5
Hayden, Palmer 75 displaying (see displaying jewellery)
Held, John, Jr. 24 eroticism relationship 30–1, 32, 98, 141,
Helm, Brigitte 64, 91, 145, 146–7 142, 186
Henri, Florence 15, 126–31, 149 as evening wear 11, 13, 23, 30, 33
Henry-Music (Cunard) 73, 74, 76 fashion relationship 3, 26–30, 81–2, 91,
The Hero (magazine cover by Wolff) 146 126–7, 180 (see also under fashion
Hesse, Hermann 183–4 magazines)
Hitchcock, Henry-Russell 79 femininity relationship 15, 17, 23–4,
Hobson, Anthony 62 29, 131
Hoffman, Irene 142 fine vs. costume jewellery 29, 33, 103–6,
horsehair 137, 138, 139 178, 185
Hughes, George Ravensworth (Royal hairstyles relationship 12–13, 57
Academy) 177 for hats 13, 14, 91
identity relationship 2–3, 4–5, 15, 129,
identity 148, 183–4 (see also under Brandt,
accessories relationship 10, 29, 59, 62, Marianne; Cunard, Nancy; Perriand,
63–4, 125 Charlotte)
adornment relationship 129, 131, 184, in literature 19, 20–2, 183–4
185 as machine art 42–4, 45, 47, 94–5, 97–8,
body relationship 31–2, 55 116
jewellery relationship 2–3, 4–5, 15, 129, materiality 104–5, 136–40, 143, 149,
148, 183–4 (see also under Brandt, 184–5, 186
Marianne; Cunard, Nancy) metal 4, 28, 41, 42–6, 47
The International Style (Hitchcock and modernity relationship 57, 78, 97, 117,
Johnson) 79 179, 184
International Style exhibition, Museum of movement in 100, 124, 147
Modern Art (1932) 79 precious vs. nonprecious materials 28,
It (film, 1927) 12 35, 83, 85, 91, 98
reflections 49, 50, 127, 128, 133, 134
Janneau, Guillaume 84 representation of 4–5, 138, 149 (see also
Jeanneret, Pierre 43, 52–3, 54 under film; photography)
Jeux de reflets et de la vitesse (Play in sexualisation of women 120–1, 125
of Reflections and Speed) (film, sound of 62, 63, 70, 71
Chomette, 1925) 136, 147 symbolism 27, 31, 102–3, 145–6
jewellery see also French jewellery;
as accessories 10, 11, 24, 108, 126–7, jewellery-wearing
142 jewellery by Sandoz (T. Bonney) 121, 122
for active lifestyles 19, 33, 37, 176 jewellery-wearing
 Index 207

in film 7–8, 91, 120, 134–5, 144–9 ‘Le Peignot’ typeface 87

gender issues 4, 9, 22, 37, 43, 176 l'Étoile de mer (film, Ray, 1928) 134–5
by men 3–4, 22, 36–8, 121, 145, 175 Levy, André 93
by new women 3, 9, 11–15, 23–4, 33, 35 L'Herbier, Marcel 145–7
as performance 9, 61, 63, 71–3, 75, 76 Liberty's, London 163, 165
in photography 120, 126–7, 141, 149, L'Inhumaine (The Inhuman Woman) (film,
186 L'Herbier, 1924) 147
Jewels (film, Pathé, 1928) 7–8 Livre d’Or Officiel de l’Exposition
John Angell store, Kent 167 Internationale des Arts . . . 180
Johnson, Amy 15 L’Officiel de la couture et de la mode de
Johnson, Philip 79 Paris 11, 14, 15, 16, 19
Josephy, Helen 27 London exhibitions of jewellery , see
British Art in Industry exhibition
Kallmus, Dora (Madame D'Ora) 126 Loos, Adolf 38, 79, 80
Kandinsky, Wassily 38
Kant, Emmanuel 10 MacCown, Eugene 60
Ker-Seymer, Barbara 71–2 machine age and machine art
Kiesler, Frederick 169 artworks 45–9, 54–5, 113, 115–17, 133
Kiki de Montparnasse (Alice Prin) 134, fetishism relationship 47, 97
135, 186 jewellery 42–4, 45, 47, 94–5, 97–8, 116
The Kleptomaniac (film, Porter, 1905) 144 modernism 45–9, 54–5, 113, 115–17,
Kokoschka, Oscar 60 133
Kracauer, Siegfried 77–8, 117 ‘Machine Art’ exhibition, Museum of
Kupka, Frantisek 91 Modern Art (1934) 46–7
McBride, Mary Margaret 27
L’Aéronautique et l’art exhibition, Paris McLeod, Mary 52
(1930) 94 Manet, Édouard 31
Lalique, René 97, 159, 163 mannequin by Siégel 155–6
‘Lampshade’ earrings (Ray) 119 mannequin dressed by Espinosa for
Lang, Fritz 64, 145 Exposition internationale du
Lanvin boule noir perfume bottle surréalisme 159, 160, 161
advertisement (Henri) 127–8 mannequin (‘Ruth’) from General Display
L'Argent (film, L'Herbier, 1928) 145–7 Equipment (Pollard) 153, 154
Larmes (Ray) 140 mannequins
L’art internationale d’aujourd’hui 83–4 in shops and shows 27, 121, 136, 152–7,
Latour, Alfred 87, 88 158, 186
LC4 chaise longue (Perriand, Le Corbusier as surrealist artworks 5, 140–1, 157–61
and Jeanneret) 43, 44, 52, 55 Margueritte, Victor 9
LC7 chair (Perriand, Le Corbusier and ‘The Mass Ornament’ (Kracauer) 77, 78
Jeanneret) 52–3 mass production 47–8, 78, 92, 105, 106,
Le Corbusier 13, 15, 37–8, 79–80 115
atelier 43, 44, 47, 52, 53–4 materiality of jewellery 104–5, 136–40,
on machine art 45, 48 143, 149, 184–5, 186
modernist furniture 43, 44, 53, 176 Mauboussin, Georges 11, 155
writings 13, 15, 79, 80 Mayadon, Jean 100, 101, 102
Lecram-Vigneau 121, 142–3 men
Léger, Fernand 46, 48–9, 53, 147 accessories for 34–5, 37–9, 40, 145
Lelong 26, 136 cross-dressing 22, 35, 37, 39–40
208 Index

dress codes 36, 38, 39 see also under French jewellery

fancy dress 37–8, 39–40, 109 modernity
fashion for 20, 33–4, 35–6 adornment relationship 55, 78, 117
jewellery-wearing 3–4, 22, 36–8, 121, capitalism relationship 77–8, 122–3
145, 175 consumerism relationship 77–8, 152
on the new woman 12, 17, 24–5, 27, 52, defined 57, 78
122–3 fashion relationship 35, 124, 152, 153
Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday) jewellery relationship 57, 78, 97, 117,
(film, Ulmer and Siodmak Brothers, 179, 184
1930) 148–9 as transitory and eternal 98, 136, 143–4,
metal in artworks 4, 28, 41, 42–8, 133 185–6
Metropolis (film, Lang, 1927) 64, 145 Moholy, Lucia 126–7, 129
Meyer, Hannes 107 Moholy-Nagy, László 38, 106, 107, 108,
Michelet, Raymond 66 112, 116
Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig 38, 169 Morabito jewellery store, Paris 165–7
Miller, Lee 140, 141–2 Moreau, Charles 84, 93, 96
‘Mirrored Photomontage’ (Murdoch) 55–6 Murdoch, Sadie 55–6
modernism Murphy, Dudley 48–9, 50, 147
accessories, impact on 37–8, 82, 97, Murphy, Gerald 19–20, 38, 39, 40, 46, 97
108, 116, 183 Murphy, Harry (H. G. Murphy) 103, 104,
on adornment 78–82, 117, 124, 183, 178
185–6 (see also under Bauhaus; Murphy, Sara 19–20, 39
ornament and decoration below) Les Mystères du Château de Dé (film, Ray,
architecture 78–9, 80, 81, 87, 162, 169 1929) 136
body culture 30, 111, 124–5, 149, 186
cars, attitude to 87, 89, 90, 91 Nalys, Roger 11
costume jewellery 103, 105, 106, 137, Nature morte (le mouvement à billes) (Still-
148 Life [Movement of Ball Bearings])
film 48–9, 50, 134–6, 146–7 Léger) 48
on form 79, 82, 87, 91–2, 96, 102 ‘Necklace and Bracelet’ (Ray) 134, 135
on function 79, 82, 84 Negro anthology (Cunard) 61, 66–7, 68,
furniture 43, 52–3, 80, 94, 167, 176 71, 73, 76
geometric forms 13, 85, 86, 87, 91–2, ‘Negro Sculpture’ exhibition, Chelsea
105 Book Club (1920) 65
machine art 45–9, 54–5, 113, 115–17, Neue Sachlichkeit (new objectivity) 30
133 New Jewellery movement 103, 161
on materials 53, 102–3, 105, 167, 171–2 ‘New Vision’ photography 120, 129
(see also under Bauhaus) ‘new women’
movement, interest in 48, 87, 89–91, accessories 10, 11–12, 18–19, 24–5,
124, 136, 147 130–1, 185
ornament and decoration, attitudes to active lifestyles 12, 13, 33, 52, 175, 186
38, 78–82, 87, 93, 117 androgyny 9, 12, 23, 52
photography 18, 122, 125, 126, 128–9, confidence 15, 28, 122, 123, 185
136 (see also under Bauhaus; named cross-dressing 22, 32–3, 37, 60
photographers) defined 9–10
speed, interest in 78, 87, 89, 90–1, 136, femininity issues 15, 17, 23–4, 52, 131
147 in film 7–8, 9, 12, 120, 122–3
typography 86, 87, 164 as garçonnes 9, 12, 23–4
 Index 209

hairstyles 12–13, 19, 51, 57, 122, 131 jewellery houses 26–7, 38, 44, 81, 179
jewellery-wearing 3, 9, 11–15, 23–4, (see also named jewellers)
33, 35 Paris Is a Woman's Town (Josephy and
in literature 19, 21 McBride) 27
in magazines 9, 12, 18–19 Patou, Jean 26, 27, 152–3
male attitudes to 12, 17, 24–5, 27, 52, Pavillon de bijouterie et orfèvrerie,
122–3 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs (Bagge)
sexual freedom 8, 24–5 171, 172–3
smoking 7, 8, 91 pearls
as a threat 9–10, 12, 17 chokers 19, 25, 155, 156
as working women 13, 15–17, 18, 41, in film and photography 34, 50, 142,
43, 53 143
Nietzsche, Friedrich 17 imitation 23, 35, 134, 185
1920s in literature 19, 20–2, 25
androgyny 9, 12, 23, 32–3, 52 strings of 12, 15, 19–20, 22, 24, 25
cars and car ownership 87, 89, 90, 91 symbolism 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 102–3
consumerism 5, 12, 25, 29–30, 40, 123 Peignot, Charles 87
cross-dressing 22, 32–3, 35, 37, 39–40, Perriand, Charlotte 41, 44, 51, 54
60 found objects 44–5, 54
femininity in 15, 17, 23–4, 31, 52, 131 furniture design 43, 44, 52–3
freedom of women 8, 9–10, 24–5, 52, identity, expressing 4, 47, 54–5, 185
122–3, 185 jewellery and jewellery-wearing 41–2,
hairstyles 12–13, 19, 51, 57, 131 50, 131, 185
hats 13, 14, 19 in Le Corbusier atelier 43, 53–4
as the ‘jazz age’ 9, 24 metal in designs 43, 47–8, 53–4, 94
magazines 9, 12, 18–19, 22 modernism 41, 42, 43, 48, 53, 55
sexual freedom 8, 9, 24–5 necklace from ball-bearings 42–4, 47–9,
50, 52–4, 55–7, 95
Olympia (Manet) 31 necklaces from organic materials 53,
On Human Finery (Bell) 27 54, 55
Ornament and Crime (Loos) 38, 79, 80 as a new woman 41–2, 47, 50–1, 55, 57
ornament and decoration, see under organic materials in designs 53–4, 55
modernism photography 42, 44–5, 54
Orphism 91 political activism 41, 47, 48, 55
Overbeck, Gerta and Toni 31–2 UAM membership 93
Ozenfant, Amédée 46, 53 photography
advertisements 121–4, 127–8, 143, 149
Painting, Photography, Film (Moholy- avant-garde 28, 113, 125, 126, 149
Nagy) 116 camera angles 129
Palucca Dances (M. Brandt) 113 jewellery-wearing in 120, 126–7, 141,
Paris 149, 186
department stores and shops 163, modernist 18, 122, 125, 126, 128–9,
165–6, 167, 179 136 (see also under Bauhaus; named
exhibitions of jewellery 180–2 (see also photographers)
Exposition de joaillerie et d’orfèvrerie; portrait photography 28, 38, 60–1,
Exposition Internationale des Arts 129–31, 133, 138
Décoratifs . . .) reflections 49, 50, 127, 128–9, 133,
as fashion centre 11, 25–7, 30 135–6
210 Index

as representation 121, 123–4, 125–6, UAM membership 93

131–2, 138, 140 violence towards women 142
self-portraits 17–18, 50, 111–12, 131, Réanville, Normandy (home of Cunard)
133, 186 59, 67, 76
sexualisation of women 120–1, 125, 186 La Renaissance de l'Art Français . . . 83,
women photographers 17–18, 186 (see 151
also named photographers) retail and jewellery , see department stores
see also photomontage La Retour à la raison (The Return to
photomontage 112–13, 114, 116, 117 Reason) (film, Ray, 1923) 135–6
Picabia, Francis 113, 117 Rhythm 21 (film, Richter, 1921|) 86
Picasso, Pablo 19, 62 Richter, Hans 86
T. Pickett Ltd arcade, Portsmouth 167, Riviere, Joan 17
168, 169 Robinson, Clyde 71
Plomer, William 62 Rosson, Richard 145
Poiret, Paul 97, 145, 163 Royal Academy, London 165, 177–8
E. Pollard and Co. Ltd 153–4, 164–70
Popesco, Elvire 13 Sandoz, Gérard 26, 27, 38, 83, 147
Porter, Cole 19–20, 65 examples of jewellery 90–1, 121, 122
Porter, Edwin S. 144 founder of UAM 92–3, 96
‘Portrait Composition (Margaret Schall writing for L'art internationale
with Hairnet)’ (Henri) 130–1 d'aujourd'hui 90–1, 94
‘Portrait Composition: Woman with Three Scarface (film, Hawks and Rosson,
Bangles’ (Henri) 129–30 1932) 145
Portrait of Anna Gabbioneta (Schad) 31 Schad, Christian 30–1
Possessed (film, Brown, 1931) 144 Schawinsky, Xanti 108
The Psychology of Clothes (Flügel) 33–4 Schiaparelli, Elsa 26–7, 136, 138, 140, 159,
Publicité = Poésie (Cendrars) 57, 96–8, 99 161
Puiforcat, Jean 47, 81, 85, 92–3, 112, 180 Schlemmer, Oskar 52, 108, 109, 110–11,
Puiforcat, Louis 92–3 157, 162
Purism 46, 49, 53, 84, 169 Seabrook, William and Marjorie 119, 141,
142
Ray, Man Sedeyn, Emile 171, 173
advertisements and book design 73, ‘Self-Portrait in the Studio with Jewellery
74, 121 for the Metal Party’ (M. Brandt) 111,
film 134–5 112, 131, 132, 133
jewellery and jewellery design 119–20, Servant Girl (Gerta Overbeck) 32
134–5, 136, 140, 141 S'évader (escape) (Blanchot) 15, 16
mannequin for Exposition sexualisation of women 30, 31, 120–1,
internationale du surréalisme 140–1, 125, 186
157 Shaver, Dorothy 27
photographs for Colliers by Triolet 136, Shklovsky, Victor 50
138–9, 140 A Shopping Guide to Paris (Bonney sisters)
photography 121, 133–5, 140, 141, 149 25–7, 128
portrait photography 28, 59, 125, 128, shops, see department stores
130, 141–2 Siégel, V. N. 154–7, 158, 179
Rayographs 134–5, 138, 139, 186 Simmel, Georg 85–6
threat, sense of in photography 138, Siodmak Brothers 148–9
141–2 La Sirène des tropiques (film, 1927) 75
 Index 211

S.K.F. (Swedish ball-bearing company) 46, ‘Towards a Plastic Architecture’ (van

57, 97 Doesburg) 79
Sledziewski, Elisabeth G. 17 Triolet, Elsa 136–40, 185
Slutzky, Naum 107, 108 typography 86, 87, 164
Société des Artistes Décorateurs (SAD) Tzara, Tristan 37, 59, 61
93, 171
Solidor, Suzy 28, 125 UAM, see Union des artistes moderne
Sollar, Fabien 80, 81 Ubac, Raoul (‘Rolf Ubach’) 66, 67, 73
Spanish Civil War 62, 75 ULK magazine 146
Steppenwolf (Hesse) 183–4 Ulmer, Edgar G. 148–9
Strand, Paul 46 Un et une menacés (A Male and Female
surrealism Threatened) (S. Duchamp) 115
adornment, views on 157–61 Union des artistes modernes (UAM) 87,
on African artefacts 61, 65, 66, 71 92–3, 95–6, 180
jewellery 136, 137 United States, see America
mannequins in artworks 5, 140–1, 157–61 Untitled (with Anna May Wong) (M.
photography and film 126, 136, 143, 147 Brandt) 113, 114, 116
‘Surrealist Situation of the Object’
(Breton) 140–1 Van Cleef and Arpels 155
Van Doesburg, Theo 79
tablet ring in silver (H. G. Murphy) 103, Varenne, Gaston 99–100
104 Veblen, Thorstein 28, 34, 144–5, 162
Tell It, Glen (Cunard) 59 Vile Bodies (Waugh) 25
Templier, Paul 38, 93 Vogue 23, 25, 33, 128, 134, 155–6
Templier, Raymond 11, 26, 38, 43, 47, 80 Von Arnheim, Eva 31
displays of jewellery 121, 142–3, 180
examples of jewellery 91, 98–9, 98–100, Ward, Janet 181
101 Warner, Sylvia 75
founder of UAM 92–3, 96, 180 Watch (G. Murphy) 46
jewellery for films 145, 146 Watenphul, Max Peiffer 129
in poetry of Cendrars 97, 98, 99, 155, 185 Waugh, Evelyn 25
writing for L'art internationale Weissman, Ernst 43, 51
d'aujourd'hui 84 Wolff, Dörte Clara (Dodo) 146
Tempo-tempo, progress, culture (M. Wong, Anna May 113, 114
Brandt) 113 Woolf, Virginia 63
Tender Is the Night (Fitzgerald) 19, 34–5, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
184 Reproduction’ (Benjamin) 49, 143
the ‘modern woman’, see ‘new women’
The Theory of the Leisure Class (Veblen) Young Female Invert at Le Monocle
28, 34, 144–5 (Brassai) 37
These Were the Hours (Cunard) 75 Yva (Else Neuländer-Simon) 120–6, 131,
Thornley, Betty D. 33 149
Thunderbolt (Eyston’s car) 89–90
The Tiller Girls 77, 163 Zahar, Marcel 47
Towards a New Architecture (Le Zinkeisen, Anna 177
Corbusier) 79 Zone (Apollinaire) 98