eae bed (or ‘Once upon a time, there were grand jewelry houses that created exquisite pieces of ultimate beauty and inherent precious worth, and everyone from high fashion couturiers to mass market clearing houses attempted to imitate the styles they created with rhinestones and plated, cheap metals in a long-standing tradition known as costume jew- elry. The illustrious fine jewelry houses stil exist, and still manage to produce new, exceptional pieces of astonishing value, but these days their imitators are likely to be found only among other fine jewelers. Costume jewelry, the art of translating styles created by top fine jewelers into low-cost, widely available pieces, is on a much different trajec- tory these days. The term, certainly, is hardly heard, and seems derogatory or at least dated. The cheap baubles are stil a large market- from H&M to department stores, from drugstores to boutiques- stores count on them for easy and plentiful sales. Remarkably though, the jewelry now takes its cue directly from the runways of fashion. The shifting source of costume jewelry inspiration is interesting because its introduction in the 1930's represented a massive democratization of what had previously been the most prized and unattainable objects that society had to offer. The growing middle class, with desires for signs of wealth and style, was a perfect audience for what had just become possible in the machine-age: imitations of fine jewelry that were extremely detailed in their execution and affordable due to mass-production and distribution and readily available cheap materials. Coco Chanel was the first high-end designer to introduce a costume jewelry line, and she is famously credited for popularizing strands of fake pearis similar to the real pearl strands (of enormous value) which she mixed together for a grander look of luxury. Yet today the House of Chanel produces costume jewelry that mimics few of the looks of its diamond-encrusted fine jewelry line. Instead the jewelry encompasses some of the major trends of jewelry as presented by fashion designers- long and large art deco necklaces, wide cuff bangles, and chains slung messily about a necklace like Christmas garlands. And at H&M, a brand of such manufacturing super power that can get a replica of a Dior dress on the floor before Dior has even taken orders for the dress, still the jewelry copies not the haute joaillerie that they could certainly reproduce in glass stones and base metal, rather the racks are lined with imitations of jewelry of the apparel-based, street-oriented fashion world. What this means is that either fine jewelry houses are just not pulling off the original wonders of creation that they used to (certainly a factor, in my opinion), or fine jewelry has lost its place as the supreme object of both wealth and style. The fact that fashion houses seem to be creating very innovative jewelry that breaks the rules of form and materials of fine jewelry helps point the way. The creators of costume jewelry have, after all, always stuck to one principle- making what people want. by Laura Rysman