Then And Now | Art Deco Earrings

by Charlotte

The earrings shown to the left are a particularly beautiful and typical example of art deco earrings from circa 1935, and were designed by the famous Cartier.

The period known as Art deco lasted from 1920 to 1935 . It is a very innovative period for all arts. In jewelry making the period is characterized by breakthrough cutting techniques that led to the use of bold geometric shapes . Jewelry had an architectural appearance, and we saw the emergence of the emerald cut, the pentagon or the triangle. Another characteristic of art deco earrings is it boldness in the combination of materials. That is why you see strong tone contrast like black onyx set alongside white diamonds , or other light colored stones.

Art deco earrings used platinum, palladium and rhodium commonly, for no other reasons that they were white metals. Most of the time earrings of the period were pendant as women started cutting their hair and showing lobes as never before.

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