Hallmark Hj Company

A widely respected postwar British-Italian jewelry designer, Andrew Grima is often regarded as the father of modern jewelry. Grima was entirely self-taught and unafraid to take bold risks. His pioneering designs of the 1960s — set with amethysts, emeralds and other vibrantly colored stones — included cocktail rings, pendant necklaces and clip-on earrings in sculptural and eye-catching styles that sharply contrasted with the adornments of the era.

Grima was born in Rome in 1921, but he grew up in London. Though he came from an artistic family, he initially studied mechanical engineering at the University of Nottingham and served in the Royal Engineers during World War II. Upon returning from the war, in 1946, Grima joined his father-in-law's London jewelry business. He started as an accountant but quickly began experimenting with jewelry design.

By the mid-1960s, Grima's innovative techniques and abstract designs had catapulted him to fame, and his creations were in high demand. He opened his own exclusive gallery in London's West End, which featured an opulent spiral staircase. Candy-colored gems had captivated magazine editors and jewelry lovers everywhere, and Grima's prestigious clientele included Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, artist Barbara Hepworth and the British Royal family. In the 1970s, Grima also expanded into watchmaking, creating the "About Time" collection for Omega and a line of gold watches for Pulsar.

Grima received numerous awards over his career for his contributions to jewelry design. He was the winner of the De Beers Diamonds International Award a record number of 11 times and he was the only jeweler to win the Duke of Edinburgh Prize for Elegant Design. Today, his high-profile collectors include the likes of Miuccia Prada and Marc Jacobs, and his work is held in the collections of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths and the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Grima passed away in 2007, but his wife and his daughter carried on his legacy. Every year, they enlist a team of specially selected goldsmiths to produce a small collection of original jewelry in his unique style.

Today's designers and collectors recognize the importance of Grima's work and its impact on the jewelry industry. In 2018, New York jewelry dealer Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos featured Grima's groundbreaking designs in her "London Originals: The Jeweler’s Art in Radical Times" exhibit.

On 1stDibs, find vintage Andrew Grima rings, brooches and earrings.

Rooted in centuries of history of adornment dating back to the ancient world, modern jewelry reimagines traditional techniques, forms and materials for expressive new pieces. As opposed to contemporary jewelry, which responds to the moment in which it was created, modern jewelry often describes designs from the 20th to 21st centuries that reflect movements and trends in visual culture.

Modern jewelry emerged from the 19th-century shift away from jewelry indicating rank or social status. The Industrial Revolution allowed machine-made jewelry using electric gold plating, metal alloys and imitation stones, making beautiful jewelry widely accessible. Although mass production deemphasized the materials of the jewelry, the vision of the designer remained important, something that would be furthered in the 1960s with what’s known as the “critique of preciousness.”

A design fair called the “Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes” brought global attention to the Art Deco style in 1925 and gathered a mix of jewelry artists alongside master jewelers like Van Cleef & Arpels, Mauboussin and Boucheron. Art Deco designs from Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels unconventionally mixed gemstones like placing rock crystals next to diamonds while borrowing motifs from eclectic sources including Asian lacquer and Persian carpets. Among Cartier’s foremost design preoccupations at the time were high-contrast color combinations and crisp, geometric forms and patterns. In the early 20th century, modernist jewelers like Margaret De Patta and artists such as Alexander Calder — who is better known for his kinetic sculptures than his provocative jewelry — explored sculptural metalwork in which geometric shapes and lines were preferred over elaborate ornamentation.

Many of the innovations in modern jewelry were propelled by women designers such as Wendy Ramshaw, who used paper to craft her accessories in the 1960s. During the 1970s, Elsa Peretti created day-to-night pieces for Tiffany & Co. while designers like Lea Stein experimented with layering plastic, a material that had been employed in jewelry since the mid-19th century and had expanded into Bakelite, acrylics and other unique materials.

Find a collection of modern watches, bracelets, engagement rings, necklaces, earrings and other jewelry on 1stDibs.

A flashy symbol of wealth during the early 20th century, antique and vintage cocktail rings have gained broader appeal in the decades since for the hefty dose of glamour they bring to any ensemble.

Cocktail rings earned their name for their frequent appearances during glitzy cocktail parties at the height of the Prohibition era. Back then, these accessories were seen not only as statement pieces but as statements in and of themselves. They openly represented a sense of freedom and independence as well as a demonstration of opulence. After all, the 1920s heralded the Harlem Renaissance and Art Deco design, and a slew of social and cultural shifts meant that women in particular were breaking from pre–World War I conventions and embracing newfound freedoms to express themselves as individuals.

Women expressly wore cocktail rings on the fingers of their right hand versus the left, which was “reserved” for an engagement ring or wedding band, accessories definitely paid for by a suitor. And for cocktail rings, the bigger the colored gem at the center — which is usually mounted in a high setting — and the more elaborate the design, the stronger the likelihood of being noticed.

Cocktail rings remained a popular piece of jewelry for women until the 1930s, when the Great Depression and the onset of war marked a change in behaviors nationwide. While the 1960s and ’70s saw a return in visibility for the accessory, it wasn’t until the 1980s that cocktail rings once again assumed their position as a beacon of luxury and glitz.

During the 20th century, the range of dazzling cocktail rings seems to have been limitless, from glimmering gold rings set with carved jade diamonds designed by David Webb to Pomellato’s pink quartz confections to striking Gucci butterfly rings with accent diamonds set in a pavé fashion.

So, how do you wear a cocktail ring? Cocktail rings “can be worn for almost anything — dinners, date nights, parties, special events, on the red carpet,” explains David Joseph of New York-based jewelry brand Bochic. 

Can you wear cocktail rings with other rings? “In my opinion, cocktail rings should stand on their own since they showcase a large gem in the center,” says Joseph.

These glamorous jewels can be worn inside or outside crowded taverns, in either daytime or nighttime with casual or dressy attire. On 1stDibs, find a wide variety of antique and vintage cocktail rings, including those offered by Chanel, whose elegant cocktail rings often feature pearls and, of course, diamonds, and sometimes were styled after showy flowers like the camellia, and Van Cleef & Arpels, whose detailed and intricate designs are viewed as miniature pieces of wearable art.