JEWELRY AS DECORATION
The use of jewelry as colour and line has really nothing to do with its
intrinsic worth. Just as when furnishing a house, one selects pictures
for certain rooms with regard to their decorative quality alone, their
colour with relation to the colour scheme of the room (The Art of
Interior Decoration), so jewels should be selected either to complete
costumes, or to give the keynote upon which a costume is built. A woman
whose artist-dressmaker turns out for her a marvellous green gown, would
far better carry out the colour scheme with some semi-precious stones
than insist upon wearing her priceless rubies.
On the other hand, granted one owns rubies and they are becoming, then
plan a gown entirely with reference to them, noting not merely the shade
of their colour, but the character of their setting, should it be
distinctive.
One of the most picturesque public events in Vienna each year, is a
bazaar held for the benefit of a charity under court patronage. To draw
the crowds and induce them to give up their money, it has always been
the custom to advertise widely that the ladies of the Austro-Hungarian
court would conduct the sale of articles at the various booths and that
the said noble ladies would wear their family jewels. Also, that there
be no danger of confusing the various celebrities, the names of those
selling at each booth would be posted in plain lettering over it.
Programmes are sold, which also inform patrons as to the name and
station of each lovely vendor of flowers and sweets. It is an
extraordinary occasion, and well worth witnessing once. The jewels worn
are as amazing and fascinating as is Hungarian music. There is a
barbaric sumptuousness about them, an elemental quality conveyed by the
Oriental combining of stones, which to the western European and
American, seem incongruous. Enormous pearls, regular and irregular, are
set together in company with huge sapphires, emeralds, rubies and
diamonds, cut in the antique way. Looking about, one feels in an
Arabian Nights' dream. On the particular occasion to which we refer, the
most beautiful woman present was the Princess Metternich, and in her
jewels decorative as any woman ever seen.
The women of the Austrian court, especially the Hungarian women, are
notably beautiful and fascinating as well. It is the Magyar élan, that
abandon which prompts a woman to toss her jewelled bangle to a Gypsy
leader of the orchestra, when his violin moans and flashes out a
czardas.
But the rule remains the same whether your jewels are inherited and rich
in souvenirs of European courts, or the last work of Cartier. They must
be a harmonious part of a carefully designed costume, or used with
discretion against a background of costumes planned with reference to
making them count as the sole decoration.
We recall a Spanish beauty, representative of several noble strains, who
was an artist in the combining of her gems as to their class and colour.
Hers was that rare gift,--infallible good taste, which led her to
contribute an individual quality to her temporary possessions. She
counted in Madrid, not only as a beautiful and brilliant woman, but as a
decorative contribution to any room she entered. It was not uncommon to
meet her at dinner, wearing some very chic blue gown, often of velvet,
the sole decoration of which would be her sapphires, stones rare in
themselves, famous for their colour, their matching, the manner in which
they were cut, and their setting,--the unique hand-work of some
goldsmith of genius. It is impossible to forget her distinguished
appearance as she entered the room in a princess gown, made to show the
outline of her faultless figure, and cut very low. Against the
background of her white neck and the simple lines of her blue gown, the
sapphires became decoration with artistic restraint, though they gleamed
from a coronet in her soft, black hair, encircled her neck many times
and fell below her waist line, clasped her arms and were suspended from
her ears in long, graceful pendants. They adorned her fingers and they
composed a girdle of indescribable beauty.
PLATE XI
MARIE ANTOINETTE IN A PORTRAIT BY MADAME VIGÉE LE
BRUN, one of the greatest portrait painters of the
eighteenth century. Here we see the lovely queen of Louis
XVI in the type of costume she made her own which is still
referred to as the Marie Antoinette style.
This portrait is in the Musée National, Versailles.
[Illustration: _Courtesy of Braun & Co., New York, London & Paris_
_Bourbon France Marie Antoinette Portrait by Madame Vigée Le Brun_]
Later, the same night, one would meet this woman at a ball, and
discover that she had made a complete change of costume and was as
elegant as before, but now all in red, a gown of deep red velvet or some
wonderful soft satin, unadorned save by her rubies, as numerous and as
unique as her sapphires had been.
There were other women in Madrid wearing wonderful jewels, one of them
when going to court functions always had a carriage follow hers, in
which were detectives. How strange this seems to Americans! But this
particular woman in no way illustrated the point we would make, for she
had lost control of her own lines, had no knowledge of line and colour
in costume, and when wearing her jewels, looked very much like the show
case of a jeweller's shop.
Jewelry must be worn to make lines, continue or terminate lines,
accentuate a good physical point, or hide a bad one. Remember that a
jewel like any other _object d'art_, is an ornament, and unless it is
ornamental, and an added attraction to the wearer, it is valueless in a
decorative way. For this reason it is well to discover, by
experimenting, what jewelry is your affair, what kind of rings for
example, are best suited to your kind of hands. It may be that small
rings of delicate workmanship, set with colourless gems, will suit your
hands; while your friend will look better in the larger, heavier sort,
set with stones of deeper tones.
This finding out what one can and cannot wear, from shoe leather to a
feather in the hat (and the inventory includes even width of hem on a
linen handkerchief), is by no means a frivolous, fruitless waste of
time; it is a wise preparedness, which in the end saves time, vitality
and money. And if it does not make one independent of expert advice (and
why should one expect to be that, since technique in any art should
improve with practice?) it certainly prepares one to grasp and make use
of, expert suggestions.
We have often been told, and by those whose business it is to know such
things, that the models created by great Paris dressmakers are not
always flashes of genius which come in the night, nor the wilful
perversion of an existing fashion, to force the world of women into
discarding, and buying everything new. It may look suspiciously like it
when we see a mere swing of the pendulum carrying the straight sheath
out to the ten-yard limit of crinoline skirts.
As a matter of fact, decorative woman rules the fashions, and if
decorative woman makes up her mind to retain a line or a limit, she does
it. The open secret is that every great Paris house has its chic
clientele, which in returning from the Riviera--Europe's Peacock
Alley--is full of knowledge as to how the last fashions (line and
colour), succeeded in scoring in the rôle designated. Those points found
to be desirable, becoming, beautiful, comfortable, appropriate,
_séduisant_--what you will--are taken as the foundation of the next
wardrobe order, and with this inside information from women who _know_
(know the subtle distinction between daring lines and colours, which are
_good form_, and those which are not), the men or women who give their
lives to creating costumes proceed to build. These are the fashions for
the exclusive few this year, for the whole world the next year.
In conclusion, to reduce one of the rules as to how jewels should be
worn to its simplest form, never use imitation pearl trimming if you are
wearing a necklace and other ornaments of real pearls. The pearl
trimming may be very charming in itself, but it lessens the distinction
of your real pearls.
In the same way rhinestones may be decidedly decorative, but only a
woman with an artist's instinct can use her diamonds at the same time.
It can be done, by keeping the rhinestones off the bodice. An artist can
conceive and work out a perfect adjustment of what in the mind and hand
of the inexperienced is not to be attempted. Your French dressmaker
combines real and imitation laces in a fascinating manner. That same
artist's instinct could trim a gown with emerald pastes and hang real
gems of the same in the ears, using brooch and chain, but you would find
the green glass garniture swept from the proximity of the gems and used
in some telling manner to score as _trimming_,--not to compete as
jewels. We have seen the skirt of French gowns of black tulle or net,
caught up with great rhinestone swans, and at the same time a diamond
chain and diamond earrings worn. Nothing could have been more chic.
We recall another case of the discreet combining of gems and paste. It
was at the Spring races, Longchamps, Paris. The decorative woman we have
never forgotten, had marvellous gold-red hair, wore a costume of golden
brown chiffon, a close toque (to show her hair) of brown; long topaz
drops hung from her ears, set in hand-wrought Etruscan gold, and her
shell lorgnettes hung from a topaz chain. Now note that on her toque and
her girdle were buckles made of topaz glass, obviously not real topaz
and because made to look like milliner's garniture and not jeweler's
work, they had great style and were as beautiful of their kind as the
real stones.
PLATE XII
The portrait of an Englishwoman painted during the
Napoleonic period.
She wears the typical Empire gown, cloak, and bonnet.
The original of this portrait is the same referred to
elsewhere as having moistened her muslin gowns to make them
cling to her, in Grecian folds.
Among her admiring friends was Lord Byron.
A descendant who allows the use of the charming portrait,
explains that the fair lady insisted upon being painted in
her bonnet because her curling locks were short--a result of
typhoid fever.
[Illustration: _Costume of Empire Period
An English Portrait_]