JEWELLERY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20668, 5 March 1937, Page 14

JEWELLERY

Heavy Victorian jewellery has returned to fashion, states an English exchange. Women are choosing flat, flexible necklaces in gold and silver, as heavy and as simple as possible, fitting close to the base of the neck. Bracelets and long earrings to match look as becoming with the severe lines of modern dress as with our grandmothers’ styles. Georgian silver shilling and twoshilling pieces are in much demand for buttons, often made up to show the “head” and “tail” alternately. Hebrew silver amulets, from 200 to 400 years old, are being increasingly used as belt buckles. Also in favour are enormous rings made of semiprecious stones. Some are as much as Wn in length and are made of amethyst, turquoise, topaz, malachite of agate, coral, garnet, chrysoprase, and quartz. Among the rarest large rings are Indian mirror rings, in which nautch girls are able to watch themselves while they are dancing. Some of them are 2Mn in diameter. A particularly valuable specimen consists of a central mirror surrounded with flat diamonds and emeralds, the whole backed with Jaipur enamel. The taste of the Royal Family for old jewellery is well known, but it is perhaps not generally known that the Princess Royal collects jewelled owls and miniatures of St. George, while the Duke of Gloucester has a large collection of miniature carved Japanese and Chinese ivory figures.