Presentworth

For the late British designer's Spring/Summer 1999 fashion show, this Vivienne Westwood runway-look three-piece ensemble of a black corset-sty...

Made in 1962 by Swedish Rune Tennesmed, this modern minimal sterling silver geometric brooch features a faux ruby poured-glass red cabochon, concave sheet metal, and openwork that forms two corners of the two-tier triangular brooch. This simple abstract design is characteristic of the rounded geometric shapes that framed his silvery pieces, while his early work sometimes included a pop of brightly colored glass. Tennesmed (1929-2011) was a 20th-century studio metalsmith, who changed his given name Carlsson to reflect his craft and his business name, which means "pewtersmith" in Swedish. This unusually elegant and sleek piece was made for Scandinavian Atelje Stigbert, which was recognized for producing modern jewelry designs in sterling silver and gold. The brooch was likely commissioned by the Stigbert workshop founder Stig Engelbert who died in 1962, before his artisan sons evolved the family business to be known as Engelbert. Recognized as one of the most significant and popular Scandinavian artists of the mid-20th century, Tennesmed revived ancient Viking...

This mid-century modern sterling-silver openwork stylized-leaves set of brooch and screw-back earrings was handcrafted by metalsmith Otto Robert Bade (1921-2019). His distinct work i...

Swedish artist Pia Wallen made this modern bold black overlapping-discs link bracelet from her signature thick 100%-wool felt, which is assembled with silver round hardware for interior snap closure at the one signed "PW". Like Surrealist-artist Meret Oppenheimer's famous use of fur on a bracelet interior for Elsa Schiaparelli, Wallen's snug sheep-hair cuff...

This couture 1980s fuchsia-pink evening bag by Christian Lacroix in ribbed silk moire features a double-bow stitched handle and his script-monogram "CL" embroidered on the exterior of the snap-fastening flap. The interior is printed in gold with "Christian Lacroix Paris". Signs of wear that are not visible until inspection of the wavy reflections and shadows of the textural shiny fabric include: a lighter area below the closed flap that could be part of the moire-watermark pattern; interior loose threads at top corners; and thread-bare spots underneath at two of the four corners. The handle, back side and interior of the bag are in excellent condition. As we found it difficult to capture the bag's bluish-magenta color, our photos include some taken with studio lights and others in sunlight. We have listed this evening bag among bracelets, boxes and cases because we assume that the buyer will be a collector of Christian Lacroix jewelry...

Epitomizing the organic subjects and hand-craftsmanship spanning the Arts-&-Crafts to Art-Nouveau movements that were led in The United States by Louis Comfort Tiffany, this commissi...

Featuring yellow-gold sinuous-pattern rondelles and carnelian rock-crystal round 8mm beads, this ancient-revival heavy necklace is knotted in stations a...

This mid-century like-new Bakelite and yellow-gold-gilt beaded double-strand necklace still sports the CoroCraft pegasus 1940s retail foil-tag as if never worn. As an elegant take on...

Elsa Schiaparelli famously embraced "shocking pink" for her Surrealist-aesthetic couture clothing and handcrafted costume jewelry, which she commissioned from Parisian paruriers beginning in the late 1920s--when some of the most expensive gems were fuchsia Burmese rubies. In this antique glass-beaded sautoir tassel necklace, 37 unusual fuchsia faux-pearls are each delicately caged like hot-air balloons by seven textural strands of faux-pearl-and-gold seed beads. These spherical stations are spaced by lustrous white medium-size faux pearls, ending in a four-strand seed-bead tassel that cages four of the fuchsia beads. The beads are strung on bright magenta silk cord without a clasp. Sautoirs were an essential element of flapper style since Schiaparelli's couture-mentor Paul Poiret changed the silhouette of clothing in the 1920s, while the long necklaces remained popular until wartime 1939. To compete with her rival couturier Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, Schiaparelli (1890-1973) relied on the same French glassmakers, Maison Gripoix and Louis Rousselet--the masters of faux pearls at the time who added organic-ingredient coatings to their handmade glass beads. Either glass workshop that was established by the 1920s could have been commissioned to make the progressive hot-pink pearls for this unsigned necklace that dates to the Art-Deco period. The design of this highly-textural tricolor sautoir featuring fuchsia spheres could suit the style of one of Schiaparelli's most frequent paruriers through the 1930s, Jean Clement. Some of his relevant unsigned work for Schiaparelli is in museum collections like The Met, including highly-textural tricolor sphere-decorated buttons/brooches and a fuchsia-toned metal-rosebud bead necklace. After Schiaparelli had become associated with fuchsia, she made particularly prolific use of this bright magenta in the late 1930s. In her demi-couture collections such as "Circus" and "Comedia del' Arte" (see our 3 photos), fuchsia jackets are adorned with similar colorful spherical glass beads among embroidered appliques and animal/clown brooches, as well as whimsical painted-ceramic buttons...

Featuring five intricate rose-flower charms, Krementz finished this chain link bracelet with its characteristic multi-color gold gilding, which is known for being as much as 30 times thicker than the overlay of other jewelry companies as a testament to the enduring quality of its designs. The elegant textured linked shapes and flowers recall the Art- Nouveau style that distinguished the earliest designs by Krementz for women in the 1920s. The brand signature is on the fold-over clasp. As three pieces of this listing, the excellent-condition bracelet comes with its original signed green-velvet...

Between 1948-1955 this early Vendome crystal set was made for a high-end line by Coro to include a three-strand tricolor beaded necklace with flowe...

These Hattie Carnegie multicolor glass, crystal and gilt-metal earrings notably include her script last-name signature without copyright symbol that is found on clips produced before...

Line Vautrin created "flame-radiating" resin mirrors in mid-century that are very similar to this sculptural resin edelweiss-flower set of highly-textural, hand-carved and enameled c...

Dolce & Gabbana featured silk-rose jewelry like this versatile pale-peach seven-inch-diameter accessory on many of the runway looks from the design-duo's Spring/Summer 2000 collection (see photo). The rose is a signature motif of this pair of Italian designers, while the Dolce & Gabbana brand tag is sewn to the back of this piece that was "Made in Italy" in 1999. The unusual "cufflink" hardware on the back of the faux rose enables it to be secured through a buttonhole or as a pendant for a necklace, neckerchief, or narrow belt...

Beginning in the mid-1920s, Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel collaborated with Parisian Louis Rousselet for a wide variety of handcrafted unsigned glass-beaded costume jewelry to compliment h...

Robert Goosens, the French haute-couture Chanel-favorite parurier who enjoyed reinterpreting ancient and antique styles of jewelry with rock crystal and faux stones, also collaborated with Madame Alix Gres. Relevant to this statement necklace, the Parisian theatrical-costume designer, who founded the French fashion-house Maison Gres, commissioned Goosens to make spiral-wire adornments for her couture gowns. This handmade hammered brass wire choker necklace with five dropped en-tremblant pendants is decorated with unique colorful beads and wrapped wire. The piece dates between 1969-1971 based on similar unsigned spiraled-wire metal jewelry without goldsmithing marks in the museum collection of TheMet (see our photo), which acquired it from Maison Givenchy founder Hubert de Givenchy, who was one of most supportive fans of Gres. Like the legendary sculptural clothing designs of Madame Gres, this necklace was inspired by Greco-Roman costumes, while its sculpted shapes by Goosens reference her signature curvilinear fabric techniques that earned her the sobriquet of "the master of the wrapped and draped dress". Goosens (1927-2016), nicknamed Monsieur Bijou, also made jewelry inspired by other periods of antiquity to compliment the couture clothing of Coco Chanel, Cristobal Balenciaga, Elsa Schiaparelli, Christian Dior, and Yves Saint Laurent. After Goosens collaborated with Gres, he revisited golden spiral designs with Saint Laurent. Similar to the free-flowing fabric manipulated in Gres gowns, this hand-shaped necklace that we photographed in sunlight is a study in motion that drapes across a curvy cleavage. Adding drama to this necklace below its wire choker, the top teetering-wire pendant is a twisted and hammered horizontal double spiral, which is a Hellenistic symbol of life and transformation suggesting the breasts of a goddess of fertility and motherhood. Yet distinctly Goosens, 18 hand-cut and hand-dyed "ancient-Roman-blue" rock-crystal beads are wire-strung to weight a second tier of two separate vertical double-spiral pendants. On each, a wrapped-wire tube divides the blue beads. Between these vertical pendants in two tiers, the central vertical pendants each feature a one-of-a-kind multicolor bead (yellow/blue/red/black/white) in two lengths with abstract organic patterns recalling ancient Italian glasswork. Four more blue beads bracket these larger colorful beads. An additional 10 blue beads and 5 wire tubes decorate the bottom looped wire pendant, as well as the bottom of the wire choker. Like the hammered-wire jewelry designs of modern artist Alexander Calder, the creative complex construction of this necklace surprisingly required no metalsmith techniques, such as soldering or casting, just great skill with a jewelry pliers and hammer. For a bigger picture of couture clothing by Madame Gres during the decade beginning in 1969, she notably designed many museum-collected one-color silk-taffeta draped long gowns with empire waists and simple high collars or geometric cut-outs. Remarkably, the focal points for some of these unique dresses were at the wrists, from where long pouf sleeves voluminously droop around the hands to nearly the floor like two enormous long-petaled flowers. If paired with this equally downward-focused and balanced necklace from this same period, its bold Greco-Roman elements would have pulled a viewer's gaze of the dress from floor to face. Although there is no significant provenance for this necklace, hammered brass and tinted rock crystal were among the few materials repeatedly associated with Goosens from 1969-71. For example, in his overlapping interior-decor collections based on themes of waterlilies or foliage, Goosens hammered gilt brass wire and sheets (see our closeup photo) to represent plant parts or he wired rock-crystal beads to appear as tiny fruits. While the two multicolor glass or resin beads in this necklace are atypical, the combination of blue, yellow and red is a palette that the designer used for other pieces of rock-crystal jewelry and he created many kinds of multicolor faux stones with glass or resin paste, such as faux Tibetan turquoise including black and white. According to journalism based on interviews with Goosens, he often acquired unusual stones and glass for inspiration during his extensive travels exploring museum-collected antiquities. Since Maison Goosens was acquired in 2005 by Maison Chanel, it opened the Parisian showroom Galerie Goosens and associated shops to sell many kinds of reproductions and reimagined works by the founder, which fortunately does not suit the completely handmade elements of this necklace. So this couture piece remains one-of-a-kind. If desiring a vintage haute-couture original by Robert Goosens, we recommend perusing the Maison Goosens website so that a reproduction with a contemporary signature is not mistakenly purchased. Madame Gres (1903-1993) was born Germaine Emelie Krebs, but initially identified her fashion designs with the pseudonym Alix and later Alix Barton...

Featuring 12 large patinated pearlescent charms distinctly handcrafted by Parisian Louis Rousselet--the master glass-and-metal-ornament parurier for French couture fashion houses since 1920--this heavy silver chain necklace is made in the unique chunky style of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel that she introduced in the late 1920s. Capping Rousselet's signature Art-Deco-period handmade beads, his intricate multi-texture metal tops for these balls resemble organic shapes like the stems of acorns or fruit. In a bib arrangement, the duotone reflective heavy spheres--in black glass, blue-gray enameled galalith, and silver metal--conform to the cleavage of the wearer. Aside from chain jewelry commissioned by Chanel, Rousselet-style jewelry was usually constructed with thin wires or braided string to enable his beads to attract the most attention. Notably, this necklace fastens with an enlarged spring-ring clasp that became associated with increasingly heavy Chanel costume jewelry. Like 1920s Chanel jewelry by Rousselet, the necklace is both unmarked for French origin and unsigned. In subsequent decades, variations of chunky-charm chain necklaces were reproduced by Chanel with her other paruriers using different materials in which they specialized, such as a similar Chanel-signed piece in the 1960s by bronze-maker Maison Denez...

Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel's earliest fashion motifs of camellias, hearts, and topaz are combined in this Art-Deco period tightly silk-strung metallic-glass couture set of a mixed-bead ...

From the same 1976 collection by Hubert de Givenchy (1927-2018) as this metallic necklace, TheMet acquired a similar design (accession 1984.598.41). Without the rhinestones of the mu...

Kenneth Jay Lane--whose monogram KJL is signed on the white-rose-decorated gold-tone clasp of this double-strand black-resin beaded necklace--is only one of four bylined jewelry designers collected by The Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection At The Metropolitan Museum of Art from the two-decade period between 1970-1989, which was dominated by such bold big shapes in mostly black, white and gold. A must for any collector of the world-renowned American-founded beauty-brand Avon, its rare limited-edition retailed necklace by Lane titled "Midnight Rose" is among the most distinctive that it produced among its lines of primarily perfume, cosmetics, and personal-care products whose origin dates back to 1886 in New York. Notably, the life-sized shiny cast-acrylic rose has the look of a far more expensive carved stone, such as one cut and polished from light-filled saturated-white chalcedony, which is a hard semi-precious stone favored by Lane. Like Lane's own line when it was originally signed KJL, the decorated clasp is uniquely designed. It locks underneath with a semi-circular hinge, which enables the stylized three-dimensional smooth rose to be perfectly positioned on the right side of the upper chest with the bud facing upwards above its three-leaf sepal in contrasting gilt textured metal. This position adds sparkle from above to the three pave rhinestones in a gold-tone setting at center of the rose, as if its dew-covered bud was beginning to open in strong moonlight. To balance the bold rose shape, the black strands cross each other below at a single point, which adds another eye-catching element to the concealed-string-tied necklace. In mint condition with no sign of wear, the necklace was acquired in its original lavender Avon retail box. In contrast, the paper shows wear and tear from handling, while still featuring the jewelry designer's full-name script signature, title, and text details like how to care for this synthetic jewelry. The metal-stamped hallmark is "KJL for Avon...

This handcrafted faux-sapphire-topped-pearl cluster brooch and clip-earrings set dates to around WWII, when fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli (18...

Like Alexander Calder's handmade wire jewelry since 1929, whose smallest one-of-a-kind sculptural subjects ranged from aerial acrobats and dancers to mono...

Louise Nevelson, an American modern sculptor who enhanced found objects throughout the 20th Century, in the 1980s transformed crushed and gilt metal in...

Since 1920, French costume-jewelry glass-master Louis Rousselet was among a handful of paruriers favored by the leading Parisian couture houses, primarily Chanel. Beyond the stamped ...

For Trifari by mid-century, its artistic director French-born Alfred Philippe designed this yellow-gold set including the seven-bar linked collar with central invisibly-set diamante,...

Henry Schreiner, the Austrian-born blacksmith founder of Schreiner in New York in 1932, handcrafted this demi-parure of prong-set colorless crystal stylized-foliage sprays after he b...

In 1996, Japanese Junya Wantanabe (b.1961) made this sculptural red whorled-rose jacquard padded cocoon coat/evening jacket/cape to convert to an equally unique and versatile asymmet...

Strongly resembling the Harry Bertoia Foundation's archived c.1947 unsigned small brooch (D.JE.27) that is essentially an elegant hammered silver curvilinear three-humped squiggle by...

Like the pendant collected by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, this bezel-set lava rock was handcrafted as a modern sterling silver brooch by studio-artist Joan Parcher...

As conceptual art while he transitioned to French artisan-house Hermes artistic director in 1998, Belgian Martin Margiela--whose creations today debut in the setting of a contemporar...

This vintage handcrafted brass-wire pendant was shaped and hammered into lively three-dimensional spirals, loops and squiggles with wrapped construction by an unknown 20th-Century st...

This vintage handcrafted brass-wire pendant was shaped and hammered into lively three-dimensional spirals, loops and squiggles with wrapped construction by an unknown 20th-Century st...

This antique late-Victorian Italian Murano-glass unsigned necklace features three oblong red beads with miniature multicolor swirled-stripe patterns made with the millefiori techniqu...

British Vivienne Westwood (1941-2022) designed this corset-style hourglass-shaped red velvet evening dress with its outsized double bow and sheer moire faux-underlay while producing her "Dressed To Scale" collection in 1998 with protege Andreas Kronthaler. A design from this collection set a Westwood-clothing auction record at Christie's London when a corseted silk gown fetched over $41,000. This fresh interpretation of the classic Marilyn-Monroe silhouette was dubbed the "MM Corset Dress" for Westwood's semi-couture Gold Label, while it can still be made-to-measure as a bespoke dress (see photo of model wearing version as a white wedding gown...

British Alexander McQueen (1969-2010) designed this curvaceous uniquely-draped wool and hand-shredded silk-chiffon black cocktail-dress evening-gown for his Autumn/Winter 2002-2003 collection "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", which set a ready-to-wear $37,500 auction record in 2020 for its complimentary black billowing silk coat. Comparatively, a 1stDibs midi-dress listing similar to ours from his subsequent fashion-season collection for a raw-edge-cut silk chiffon red dress for Spring/Summer 2003 in good condition sold for $10,144. Our intricate ruched semi-transparent silk chiffon and sleek lined opaque wool hourglass midi dress is in very good condition. Although made in Italy, the tagged size 38 will suit a French 38/US 4-6. Like the 2020-auctioned coat from Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, the gown is also among the few that encapsulate this collection according to Alexander McQueen, who was quoted by magazine Numero: "This collection was inspired by Tim Burton. It started out dark and then got more romantic as it went along." This is why The Met Costume Institute showcased a runway ensemble including the aforementioned coat in its museum retrospective, "Savage Beauty", a year after the designer died...