The Jewels Of ‘Opaar’
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Jewelled artifacts of Western couture will be under Christie’s hammer at Geneva

Apeculiarly beautiful auction will happen on 14 November at the Hotel Richemonde in Geneva: `Chic & Glamour, The Jewels of 1945-1965’. This themed collection is a salute from the famous auction house of Christie’s to a period of intense creativity in Europe and America, following World War II. After the severity of rationing, after losing an entire generation of men yet again barely twenty years after World War I, the West wanted desperately to live again.

The stylised forms of Art Deco were already broken with in the 1937 Paris exhibition, Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la vie Moderne in Paris. But the onset of World War II in 1939 arrested the new development of new forms until later. The geometrical designs of the Art Deco style were replaced with a deliberate opulence, in which wit and whimsy reflected the need of a people to laugh and indulge themselves. New jewellery techniques emerged, improved by the mechanical demands of the war. Jewellery artists played around with invisible gem settings, double clip brooches, interchangeable jewels and refined takes on the instruments of warfare.

Couture played its part in influencing jewellery. Christian Dior launched his full-skirted New Look in 1947, causing angry Parisians to protest against his `wasteful’ use of fabric. But femininity and opulence suited the general mood exactly. Animal, bird and insect brooch designs, psychedelic effects of turquoise and coral on gold, motifs suggestive of` outer space and electronics became the vogue.

American jeweller Harry Winston’s innovations became a byword - in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the post-war movie version of Anita Loos’ earlier book, Marilyn Monroe trilled “Talk to me, Harry Winston, tell me all about it!” in the song of songs, Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Tiffany’s, Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Chaumet - these were the names that conjured glamour and wealth.

Grand balls and parties became a way of life again for the titled societies and demi-monde of Europe, for the actresses, entertainers and mercantile barons’ wives. The Parisian jewellers of Place Vendome started creating chic little arrangements of coloured stones called cocktail jewellery for the wrists and the neck, while multi-gem `ladyclip’ brooches became the favoured day jewellery for the lapels of elegant suits (jacket and skirt ensembles), which women now wore with great dash.

Christie’s has put together lots under all these categories, from a 1955 diamond necklace estimated at US$ 450,000 to rare aquamarine and sapphire chain by Herz Belperron (favoured by the late Duchess of Windsor) for US$ 85,000 and a coral and diamond cocktail ring by Cartier, circa 1950, for US$ 8,000.

Such an auction represents an artistic aspect of civilsational outpouring `opaar’ (the other side, in Bengali). One wishes very much that Indian jewellery would evolve , beyond neo-traditional designs Perhaps we need to rethink saris and salwar-kameez designs first?

— R. N

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