What Is Vintage Jewelry?
What is vintage jewelry and why do collectors love it so much. Is it the art form or is it because the jewelry connects us to a deeper understanding of our past. I propose that it is both and more. Vintage costume jewelry for many, serves as a means of adornment to enhance our beauty or our style. It picks up our spirits and has us FEEL different about ourselves. Vintage costume jewelry has a magical way of releasing endorphins that transform our spirits and can turn the "bitchiest" of moods into one of bliss. That feeling of transformation is magical. It can be sweet and ethereal or supremely powerful and bold.
Vintage costume jewelry almost always comes with a past. A past that tells the history of society, of laws, of suffering, of love, of sacrifice and of heartbreak. It connects generations both present and gone.
We can study the materials of a vintage piece of jewelry and directly correlate them to an era. Many pieces of jewelry for example were made differently due to the restrictions of priority metals during WWII and for a time thereafter. Industries struggled and adapted to the laws of the time, which meant for some companies, jewelry was not made of metal, but of cork, wood, and even macaroni.
Vintage jewelry can be a feast for the eyes with zero practicality in being worn and be equally satisfying to own. Many a collector has a closet full of vintage jewels never worn, but merely adored. Whatever vintage jewelry means to you, however you care to define it, it has been, and always will be a fascination to study for generations of collectors to come. We will always find joy in that little brass pin or that to die for couture Gripoix bib.
So let me leave you with this one last question…. Have you discovered your accessory expression? 
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