Presentworth

Recalling some early-mid-century modernist one-of-a-kind unsigned silver jewelry featuring delicate kinetic parts, tiny forged balls and thin-wire work by American metal-worker Harry...

With the finest fabric and tailoring--the base expectation for all progressive minimalist luxurious fashions designed for powerful women by German Jil Sander before the Prada-buyout ...

Unusually decorated with small partridge feathers like the yellow-gold gilt necklace commissioned by Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973) that is featured on the front-and-back covers and centerfold of the French costume-jewelry hardcover book, Lina Baretti Parures, by Patrick Mauries, this unique pave-crystal yellow-gold gilt metal partridge-on-a-branch brooch is further distinguished as an unsigned Parisian-couture piece for Italian-born Schiaparelli with its combination of embossed text "Made In France" and "Modele Depose", along with the trombone clasp often used in the early 20th Century for custom-made French small brooches. The book centerfold on pages 90-91 shows a closeup of the feathered necklace created by French-born Corsican Baretti, whose intricate decoration often mixed ready-made textural or shiny materials like velvet, cork, wire, rhodoid or raffia with custom-made metal, plastic or glass by specialized Parisian workshops such as Gripoix. The Baretti-book caption about the attributed necklace notes: "Collier realise pour Elsa Schiaparelli. Liege, soie, cannetille, perles de verre et plumes de perdix. Chaine en metal." While none of the captions date this necklace--which could have been from the same commission as our brooch--Baretti created one-of-a-kind jewelry for Schiaparelli from the 1930s until the early 1950s when the fashion designer retired. Our brooch was most likely made for a fashion-show debut of one of Schiaparelli's themed clothing collections in the late 1930s for which she commissioned many costume-jewelry paruriers including Baretti. See our photo of a Schiaparelli 1930s...

Lauded for his innovative couture-like construction with atypical ready-to-wear luxurious fabrics tailored to perfection in the 2000s, French-born Nicholas Ghesqueire designed for Ba...

With Belgian former couture-fashion designer Martin Margiela's original blank-white textural-cotton corner-sewn label from the early 1990s visible above the prominent circular knit h...

In the sexy sleek skin-tight style that Texan Tom Ford introduced as the former artistic director at Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche while the French esteemed eponymous designer was r...

Over 20 years ago, the late Roberto Cavalli who recently died in 2024 designed this silk-and-cotton top-and-jeans set showcasing his signature mix of animal prints with luxurious emb...

In the 1950s while he operated an eponymous Parisian couture costume-jewelry boutique, Francoise Montague designed these unique handmade ornate pair of sparkly clip earrings featurin...

This mid-century shiny yellow-gold-plated snake-chain multi-strand necklace features a sculptural finely-textured gilt-metal bow that is positioned to rest on the upper left chest to...

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 vintage amusing enameled silver pendant adjustable-chain unsigned necklace, belt or novel interior decoration features heart-shaped two-inch-long links painted in six colors of ...

Stamped "Made In France" on their antique brass back-plates like the initial unbranded couture costume-jewelry commissioned by French Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel beginning in 1924, these floral-motif wired earrings with early handcrafted brass clips are decorated with button-like cultured mother-of-pearls mixed with Parisian organically-coated lampwork glass, which we photographed in indoor sunlight for the most accurate colors. The pair were designed by Chanel to accessorize a one-of-a-kind clothing ensemble (likely including cultured-pearl buttons and a brooch) for a client of this pearl-associated couturier whose earliest one-of-a-kind jewelry--unlike other 1920s fashion designers--sometimes mixed real and faux gems. The intricate glass artistry, wired clustered arrangement and earring findings are characteristic of one of Chanel's first Parisian paruriers, Louis Rousselet, who was a lampwork master with a workshop since 1920 specializing in faux-pearl glass beads and wire-work construction. As the three-piece flat-brass lever clips without hinge-holes on both sides predate Rousselet's wire-horseshoe clips, they can be dated like the patinated well-worn brass hardware to the mid-1920s. The beads of various sizes and ecru colors that are wired to each earring include five round graduating iridescent mother-of-pearl disks, along with lampwork glass replicating nine baroque pearls, five round pearls and two seed pearls. There are natural imperfections on the green-and-rose-reflecting cultured pearls, while there is some nacre-enamel loss on the glass beads that is not eye visible. On closer view, one of the central round glass beads has a lighter blister, which appears like the texture of some uncultured pearls. Of note, Chanel did not include a brand signature on any of her couture costume jewelry prior to the mid-1950s. As many of her clients who came to Paris for their couture-clothing fittings were foreign, the coordinated unique jewelry that was expected to leave the country was merely stamped "Made In France" or "France". We acquired these earrings in The States along with a similar set with less but larger "petals, berries and leaves", which we priced the same in a different listing despite the slightly greater size and weight of this pair. So we know that they both were created for a single commission of multiple unique earrings with like lampwork-glass shapes and findings to be paired with the ecru mother-of-pearls provided by Chanel. While we have acquired over a dozen pre-signature pieces commissioned by the founder, these are the earliest earrings that we have discovered by Chanel. We have never found a single match to contradict our recognition of her early couture creations nor to attribute them to another designer. Further, Art Deco couture...