Couture CocoChanel-Rousselet-Style GlassGold FauxCarnelianPearl Torsade Necklace

This antique rare hand-pressed-glass necklace features semi-translucent grape-green large beads that are capped with gilt-brass filigree. Based on the combination of bead seams, spring-ring clasp, and metal findings on the unmarked faux Chinese-jade necklace, it dates to the late Victorian period most likely from Western Europe. Around WWI, hand presses, which stamped molten glass into a mold to create a bead with a hole and a seam, were often used to produce costume jewelry as a cottage industry in Germany and the Czech region. This was while there was a lack of factory machine presses and finishing tumblers that used sand to polish out the seam lines. Another reason that the cloudy green beads can be identified as atypically hand-pressed is that they are more opaque and therefore harder and less prone to breaking during formation than fully-translucent glass, which was better suited for automated-machine pressing. Also the green beads are an unusual swirled color including white, which suggests that their production was more limited than machine-pressing would enable. Without the bead-seams, this necklace could be mistaken for one by Coco Chanel. Her 1920s couture...

This antique late-Victorian Italian Murano-glass unsigned necklace features three oblong red beads with miniature multicolor swirled-stripe patterns made with the millefiori techniqu...

Gabriel "Coco" Chanel's earliest fashion motifs of camellias, hearts, and topaz are combined in this Art-Deco period tightly silk-strung metallic-glass couture set of mixed-bead saut...

Long before Barbie, Elsa Schiaparelli famously embraced "shocking pink" for her Surrealist-aesthetic couture clothing and handcrafted costume jewelry, which she commissioned from Parisian paruriers beginning in the late 1920s--when some of the most expensive jewels were fuchsia Burmese rubies. In this antique glass-beaded sautoir tassel-necklace, 37 "shocking pink" balls are each delicately caged like hot-air balloons by seven textural strands of faux-pearl-and-gold seed beads. These spherical stations are spaced by lustrous white medium-size faux pearls, ending in a four-strand seed-bead tassel that cages four of the fuchsia faux pearls. The beads are strung on bright magenta silk cord without a clasp. Sautoirs were an essential element of flapper style since Schiaparelli's couture-mentor Paul Poiret changed the silhouette of clothing in the 1920s, while the long necklaces remained popular until wartime 1939. To compete with her rival couturier Gabriel "Coco" Chanel, Schiaparelli (1890-1973) relied on the same French glassmakers, Maison Gripoix and Louis Rousselet--the masters of faux pearls at the time who added organic-ingredient coatings to their handmade glass beads. Either glass workshop that was established by the 1920s could have been commissioned to make the progressive hot-pink pearls for this unsigned necklace that dates to the Art Deco period. The design of this highly-textural tri-color sautoir featuring fuchsia spheres particularly suits the style of one of Schiaparelli's most frequent paruriers through the 1930s, Jean Clement. Some of his relevant unsigned work for Schiaparelli is in museum collections like The Met, including highly-textural tri-color sphere-decorated buttons/brooches and a fuchsia-toned metal-rosebud bead necklace. After Schiaparelli had become associated with fuchsia, she made particularly prolific use of this bright magenta in the late 1930s. In her demi-couture collections such as "Circus" and "Comedia del' Arte" (see our 3 photos), fuchsia jackets are adorned with similar colorful spherical glass beads among embroidered appliques and animal/clown brooches, as well as whimsical painted-ceramic buttons...

This antique French early Art-Deco period two-strand necklace is strung with a variety of Parisian handcrafted beads that date to the early 1920s, including sea-green lampwork glass,...

This Bakelite beaded double-strand black-and-gold necklace still sports the CoroCraft pegasus 1940s retail foil-tag. As an elegant take on "Xs-and-Os" representing hugs-and-kisses, t...

Faceted aquamarine bead necklace with five diamond spacers in 14 karat yellow gold and a clasp in 18 karat yellow gold, length of 24.5...

Unusually cool Post Modern Lariat with anodized aluminum half moon slices in rich iridescent blue mounted on chrome spheres. The necklace is composed of hundreds of smokey grey glass tablet beads...

This is an intricately woven necklace of seed pearls and faceted emeralds. Very unusual with very fine, detailed craftsmanship. It has an 18K gold clasp w...

To be worn long or short, this very versatile lariat necklace features faceted blue, oval-shaped aquamarine beads with 22K gold beads with fine granulation work. Worn long it is 42"...

A long triple-strand or doubled six-strand necklace of beveled aquamarine and morganite (which is a pink aquamarine as it is in the same beryl family). Wi...

Alex Jona design collection, hand crafted in Italy, 18 karat rose gold keshi pearl and cabochon spinel (49,40 carats) sautoir long necklace (Total length: 35.5inch/90 cm). Alex Jon...