History of Fashion Jewelry

Probably the first time fashion jewelry appeared was in the early 1700s. That was the era of glass blowing. Once the method of making different shapes from glass was perfected, it was just a matter of time before someone came up with the idea of using the technique to make jewelry. Starting with earrings (which only real skilled artisans could blow – and they were pretty costly owing to that) and moving on to pendants, glass became the material of choice in the manufacture of fashion jewelry.
Let’s pause here and go further back in time, we all know that the concept of jewelry itself is almost as old as the history of man. All through the early man phase, people have been using items as unique as bones and teeth to decorate their bodies; but we will not consider them as fashion jewelry as it was not intended that way! After gold and diamonds started ruling the roost, jewelers have always been on the lookout for something more economical so that everyone could afford studded jewelry. Thus came the concept of semi precious metals and stones.
Diamond prospectors from across the world were finding uniquely colored stones in the rivers and river beds that were being turned upside down. Since they were not really so rare or anything, they were given the term semi-precious stones – as polishing them and cutting them to shape required a lot of skill. For those who could not afford real diamonds, these semi precious stones became the next best alternative. In fact, these became so popular that jewelers included gemstone jewelry as part of their mainstream selling items and they were studded in precious metals like Gold and Silver. This became real popular in the 1800s and that holds true even today.
In the 1930s, a whole new concept of fashion jewelry came into existence with the usage of Rhinestone in its making. Named thus as they were originally gathered from the Rhine river, Rhinestones became the natural substitute for diamonds and people from all over the world immediately fell in love with these stones. They became so popular that they found their ways into the tiaras of crowns on the heads of queens all over, and even into engagement rings of the time! The prime reason was that you could afford a much bigger rhinestone at the price of a tiny little diamond.