Out of This World Jewelry:
Our Love Affair With Wearing the Stars
Week 2 of confinement in my ivory tower in France. It seems that the world roars by and my kids and I are not a part of it anymore. Glued to the internet, I try to find a spark of hope that the Coronavirus is slowing down. Then I notice a post by the maker of The Heroine’s Journey, Peter de Kuster, asking himself, “Will there be a Renaissance after Corona?” He states that after the plague, a Renaissance occurred in the arts. I do not know if people will get inspired after Corona, but I do think more and more people will be looking up at the skies at the million-year-old constellations, thinking about how to preserve our own planet.
It will not be the first time that space and phenomena of the sky inspired artists. Think of Halley’s Comet, embroidered on the Tapestry of Bayeux (11th century). Many centuries later the Victorians were absolutely mad about moon and star brooches and pins in gold and diamonds. Van Cleef & Arpels’ famous Tampa Necklace was even inspired in 2010 by Author Jules Verne’s book “From the Earth to the Moon” (1864). This necklace was also on the cover of the 2013 exhibition catalogue of “Out of this World! Jewelry in the Space Age” in New York City, which I sadly missed.
The new wave of Space Age jewelry started with the launch of the Sputnik in 1957. The Sputnik was a “simple” satellite ball orbiting our planet. The Russians were the first to go to space and it was considered a victory against the Americans. But of course, it sparked envy and marked the start of the Space Race during the Cold War. One month after the launch of the Sputnik, the Russians sent Laika the dog into orbit. About 10 years later Americans walked on the moon. Apollos 8 through 15, moon landings, the surface of the moon, rockets, the cosmos, time travel, space stations, the milky way, supernovas, and even Laika, have been transformed into jewelry one way or another. Some famous pieces are undoubtedly, Jackie Onassis’ Apollo earrings, that were given to her by her husband to commemorate the moon landing in 1969. The earrings were created by Greek jewelry house LALAoUNIS, which you can find on their website.
What I found the most intriguing is that a lot of Space Age jewelry is made for men. This may be obvious, as outer space is typically a male-dominated area, but what I like even more is that men are wearing jewelry as well. I even found a recent photo of Elton John (the Rocket Man himself) wearing a spacecraft brooch. Besides brooches and cufflinks, watchmakers have been inspired too. There are watchmakers that incorporate moon dust in their watches, use pieces of meteorites, or even make solar watches. I haven’t seen Elon Musk’s satellite train turned into jewelry yet, but I suppose that is only a question of time.
Space Age jewelry from the fifties and sixties is not so easy to find anymore, as I think a lot of it was limited editions or even one-time creations by artists. I do have a few pieces in my own collection, like a Sputnik ring with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds and a pair of milky way earrings in gold with diamonds and rubies (I wear them in my portrait photo).
Maybe retro jewelry is the new Renaissance movement to save the planet. By buying a vintage piece, you spare the environment.
Stephanie Deijen, a jewelry appraiser at Vendu auction house in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, tells me, “I have good news for you, Tank and Retro jewelry is hot again.”
This article is really interesting. Though we will often not know which women and men wore the jewelry that still exist, the history and the inspiration behide, is fascinating. Thanks to this information we can discover more about jewelry and cherish rings, bracelets, brooches etc. more and more because there is a background in human history. I am waiting for more stories about the origins of these pieces of art.