The first color TV transmissions have a more lasting effect on the American memory than the Korean War. George Jorgenson’s sex-change operation gives comedians enough material to last for months. REM sleep and the double Helix of the DNA are discovered. Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin make the world a little safer for kids when they invent the polio vaccine. Artificial Intelligence and Disneyland are born in the same year. South Vietnam refuses to unify with North Vietnam….uh, oh. The pill is invented, giving women control over their bodies. The Soviet Union wakes America up to the space race when it launches Spuntnik. Mary Leakey finds a 1.8 million year old human skeleton, proving that we’ve come a long way, baby. Elvis and Rock ‘n’ Roll lead teenagers down the merry road to Hell, at least according to their parents. Reddi-Whip, Coffee-Mate, Swanson’s frozen TV dinners, M&Ms and McDonalds assault the American palette. Peanuts and Barbie make their debut. Brylcream, Mad Magazine and Silly Putty share the same decade, which is wonderful to contemplate. Ed Sullivan becomes our guru. TV bores into the American brain while Hula Hoops reduce the American waistline. Cadillac tailfins are profligate and magnificent.
The Fifties, like June, were busting out all over. Privation, denial and discipline were past. It was time to play, time to indulge. The economic and industrial growth of the post-war years spurred the determination to rebuild after the conflict, and led to the buoyant spirit of the decade. Television connected the world, the rescinded border restrictions encouraged travel, and cars meant mobility. The comfortable middle class and the newly rich were looking for jewelry that kept pace with the tempo of the times. They wanted color, they wanted vibrancy, they wanted energy and originality. Creativity and individuality were the catchwords of the period and took firm hold.
Design of the time favored the free, light, mobile, simple, essential, and functional. This freewheeling temper expressed itself in its willingness, among other things, to experiment with various design styles. The United States led the fashion, while the Italians put their own stylish spin on things and in the meantime stimulated the growth of Italian mass-produced jewelry. In France, Chanel reopened and brought out the two-piece suit, properly worn with gold jewelry or strings of pearls. Dior and other Parisian designers created the feminine woman of the times, giving her a small waist, rounded shoulders, puffed sleeves, a heart-shaped neckline and fancy hair. Opulence found its way back into clothing as well as into jewels. Even tiaras had returned. Celebration was in the air.
Rules still applied, but they were friendly. Daytime wear suggested simple gold bracelets and necklaces done in tubular chains or corded wires, with fringes, pleated motifs and woven patterns in gold predominating. Eveningwear was elaborate, if not spectacular. Parures of diamonds and colored precious stones graced women of fashion everywhere, while platinum and white gold were the settings for garlands of brilliant-cut, pear-shaped, marquise- and baguette-cut diamonds. Cultured pearls made a comeback in a big way, now being worn in graduated double and triple rows. Turquoises, multicolored citrines, topazes and coral were the leaders in semi-precious stones. The precious stones of note were emeralds, rubies and sapphires. These were often used in conjunction with the undisputed star of the decade, diamonds. As motifs, all sorts of flora and fauna were universally popular, especially in brooches. Mammal, fish and bird designs were the big sellers, while the major motifs remained flowers and leaves. The ribbon and bow motif of the 50s survived, but in lighter versions, along with volutes, helixes, spirals and turbans. Bejeweled clips and brooches decorated the elaborate hairstyles that complemented the opulent evening gowns of the Fifties. Tiaras were reincarnated as inverted necklaces set on stiff metallic structures fashioned in swags, florals and leaves. The diverse hairstyles of the period also allowed both for long pendant earrings and blunt little ear clips. Gold was big for earrings. Gold Creole earrings and boules of gold studded with gemstones adorned many an ear. Day wear had short earrings done as leaves, scrolls, turbans, spirals, clusters, helixes and flower heads set with diamonds. The same motifs applied for eveningwear, only redone sumptuously in diamonds and lavish precious gemstones. Pearls were seen either in solo drops or as enhancements for other gems.
Women wore necklaces with the casual regularity that men wore hats. Appropriate for both day and eveningwear, necklaces were short, often chokers, and fashioned in swags and garlands of plain or corded wire. Flat mesh ribbon necklaces were done in plaited wire or wire twisted to form slim torsades decorated with diamonds and colored stones. Also seen were bib necklaces with pointed or rounded ornaments of articulated gold linking. Either that, or elaborate corded wireworks studded with gems. Often the design tended to a row of lancolated leaves or dart-shaped motifs graduated in size from the center. Decorating the sides of necklaces, and detachable for use as brooches or clips, were shell, spirals, turbans and bows in fretted gold. These also found their way onto diamond bands worn for evening. The motif of draped diamonds, tied in the center or on the side in informal knots, and even decorated with tassels and cascades of gemstones, abounded. Torsades of small pearls were decorated with gemstones or with coral. Ropes of pearls were done in graduated rows. Torsades of gemstones, or entwined ribbons of diamonds and gemstones were popular. These were, on many occasions, decorated with tassels, sprays, clusters, cornucopias and cascades of more diamonds and colored stones.
Clips were still sported in the Fifties by fashionable women, but brooches had an absolute heyday. Gold embellished with gemstones took the shapes of animals, flowers and leaves. Wildly exotic flowers were set in gold and elaborately decorated with diamonds and gems. Ribbons and bows were entwined with leaves, ferns and feathers crafted from diamonds and precious stones. In this jaunty atmosphere naturalism and abstraction came together in a combustion of wonderful designs. Animals were much beloved, with cute and cuddly ones worn for daytime, and noble, proud ones displayed for evening.
Bangles were big. Literally. Gold hoops holding charms were worn during the day. Also suitable for day were wider bangles of corded wire with bombé-shaped fronts of clustered gems. Strings of coral, turquoise and semiprecious beads were used in the same way, as were bands of five or more rows of pearls secured with a flower head clasp. The same designs and motifs prevailed in the evening, but with larger three-dimensional designs using costlier gems and metals. The more expensive tickets were done in naturalism rather than abstraction, usually taking the form of wild and exotic animals. Also predominating were swags, scrolls, flower heads, fans, turbans, baguette- or circular-cut stones.
The jeweled wristwatch found its way into almost every woman’s trousseau. They were worn on the wrist during the day and over the evening glove at night. Their bracelets were done in gold mesh or twisted wire. Their small circular dials were sometimes concealed by jeweled hinged covers in the shape of a dome, turban, scroll, flower head or rosette. If the dials were not covered, they were decorated usually in borders of gold, precious stones and diamonds.
Massive rings with curved and rounded forms negated the angularity of the previous decade. Though huge, they did away with wide metallic surfaces, often set instead with a delicate reticulation encaging the stones. For instance, large bombé bezels often appeared as either stones or gold wires. Turban shapes were popular, embellished with gems or a larger, central stone. Variations on that shape were scrolls, helixes and volutes. The truncated conical bezel of gold wire was quite the thing, as were the claw-foot settings for large precious stones set between scrolled diamond shoulders. The Crossover Ring never went out of fashion, and was presented in the shape of elaborate scrolled leaf motifs or volutes in gold and gemstones. Another consistent seller was the Cluster Ring, crafted with pearls or colored stones bordered with diamonds or flower heads.
For most who are old enough to remember them, the Fifties were surrealism personified. From Elvis to Eisenhower, it was the reeling roller coaster that led to the magic carpet ride of the Sixties.
Mondera by Mouawad 