Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1960s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gilt Metal
1990s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gilt Metal
1960s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gilt Metal
1980s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gilt Metal
1960s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1960s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gilt Metal
1990s Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1960s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gilt Metal
1960s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1960s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1970s American Baroque Revival Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1980s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gilt Metal
1960s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gilt Metal
1980s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gold Plate
1990s Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
20th Century American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1990s American Modern Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1970s American Art Deco Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Base Metal
1980s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gilt Metal
1990s Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1980s American Baroque Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1990s Unknown Artisan Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1980s American Baroque Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1990s American Artisan Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1980s Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1980s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gilt Metal
Late 20th Century American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gold Plate, Enamel
1980s American Art Deco Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gold Plate
1990s Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Enamel
Late 20th Century American Modernist Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gold Plate
1960s American Modernist Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gold Plate
1980s American Art Deco Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gold Plate
Late 20th Century American Modern Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Metal, Gold Leaf
Mid-20th Century Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gold
1970s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Crystal
1980s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1980s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gilt Metal
1990s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gold Plate
20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Enamel
1980s German Baroque Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gold Plate
1960s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1960s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gilt Metal
Late 20th Century American Art Deco Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Metal
Mid-20th Century American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Crystal, Rhodium
1960s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Base Metal
1960s American Modern Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1960s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gilt Metal
1980s Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1960s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gilt Metal
1960s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Enamel, Gilt Metal
1980s American Art Deco Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gold Plate
Mid-20th Century American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1960s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gilt Metal
1960s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Late 20th Century American Regency Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
Gold Plate
1960s Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1980s Thai Art Nouveau Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1980s Chinese Art Nouveau Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1980s American Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
1960s American Art Deco Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings
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Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings For Sale on 1stDibs
How Much are Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane Earrings?
Kenneth Jay Lane for sale on 1stDibs
The father of so-called “fabulous fakes,” Kenneth Jay Lane was a spirited innovator within the jewelry industry, designing elegant and luxurious pieces without the use of real jewels. And while Lane aspired to create classic designs for earrings, bracelets and necklaces intended for everyday wear, his pieces caught the attention of celebrities, royalty and socialites.
From a young age, the Detroit, Michigan-born Lane was a lover of fashion. He studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Michigan. He pursued a design career in New York City, and a failed start in the art department of Vogue magazine led to a decade of designing shoes for the likes of Delman and Christian Dior.
Lane would occasionally develop shoe designs for friends he had in the fashion world such as Bill Blass and Arnold Scaasi. A show for the latter afforded him the opportunity to beautify shoes with rhinestones and create bangles and earrings to pair with the footwear — he found plastic bracelets at discount variety store and had them embellished by craftspeople at a shoe factory.
A love for costume jewelry design emerged thereafter. Lane created his own collection and admirers such as Jackie Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor showered him with praise. A pearl necklace he designed was worn by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. In the early 1960s, ready-to-wear pioneer Hattie Carnegie purchased Lane’s jewelry line. Lane was given the position of design director for Carnegie but he soon changed course, moving instead into a small studio and pursuing his own path.
Lane worked with milk glass, gilded silver hardware, faux coral and other materials, and sold pendant necklaces, dangle earrings and modern bracelets to private customers. He was fond of renowned fine jewelry houses Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels and designers such as Jean Schlumberger, and cited having found inspiration in Egyptian and Indian jewelry over the years as well as Art Deco jewelry. Lane’s designs, which he called “faque” and “junque,” became well-known for their distinctive color combinations and clever characteristics such as embroidery. By the time he purchased a small jewelry factory in Providence, Rhode Island, where his accessories would be made during the 1960s, Lane had secured relationships with top Manhattan boutiques and his work had caught the attention of fashion magazines.
Directed by the filmmaker Gisèle Roman, a 2018 documentary about Lane’s life and work called Fabulously Fake: The Real Life of Kenneth Jay Lane features interviews with legendary fashion designers Carolina Herrera, Tory Burch and Diane von Furstenberg.
On 1stDibs, find a collection of vintage Kenneth Jay Lane brooches, rings and other accessories.
Finding the Right earrings for You
In the United States, ear piercing didn’t really become popular until the 1950s and ‘60s, but our desire for a dazzling pair of vintage earrings has deeper roots than that. In fact, wearing earrings actually goes back thousands of years, and you can find many tangible connections between now and then in how we continue to talk about these treasured accessories.
Women wore ornamental earrings — studs and hoops at the very least — in Ancient Egypt, which is home to mines that are among the earliest sources of emeralds in the world. Emerald earrings are highly prized today, and their quality lies in their rich, saturated color. The highest-quality emeralds are green or bluish-green. Earrings worn by the affluent in early Roman civilizations were set with precious stones such as diamonds and pearls, and a clean-looking pop of pearl on the front of the lobe is as timeless as ever. Hoop earrings are imbued with symbolism and cultural significance for many, and on view in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Ancient Near Eastern Art Gallery is a pair of simple gold hoops from Mesopotamia dating to between 2600 and 2500 B.C.
Today, ear piercing is very popular all over the world, and, as a result, it is difficult to overstate how much everyone pines for a good pair of earrings — modernist drop earrings, glamorous Victorian hoops, geometrically complex chandelier earrings, you name it. Sure, jewelry trends and the fashion darlings of social media come and go, but earrings have a staying power that seems impenetrable: The still-strong love affair between British royals and Cartier earrings is more than a century old, glossy 1970s hoops from legacy houses such as Bulgari and Van Cleef & Arpels remain the statement makers they’ve always been and although people have been stacking earrings for many moons, the allure of an expertly mismatched stack of charms and studs still feels fresh and new.
While there is no shortage of modern earring designs to choose from, the classics, like coral earrings, Art Deco–style earrings and diamond drop earrings are still heavy hitters. On 1stDibs, find a wide range of antique, new and vintage earrings today.