Maison Gripoix Vintage Blue and Light Blue Flower Dangling Earrings Circa 1980s

Maison Gripoix Vintage Faux Turquoise and White Layered Dangling Earrings. There are three layers to this, all wrapped in an offset gold tone and then a long, dangling piece. These are so stunning and look good with many colors. Clip On. These are proper statement earrings in that they are so well-made. These can also be worn in the winter against dark colors. Guy de Maupassant wrote a famous story about a necklace. The story is about a young, attractive, intelligent, well-educated, but under-endowed bride who must marry a petty official and thus suffers from the limitations of living with a husband who lacks refined qualities. One day, to entertain his dejected spouse, her husband receives an invitation to a ball and gives his wife the 400 francs he had saved for a hunting rifle so that she can order an appropriate dress. However, when the dress is ready, it becomes clear that it is lacking jewelry, and it would be impossible to attend the ball while looking so poor. The protagonist approaches her wealthy childhood friend, with whom she was raised at the monastery, and borrows a diamond necklace from her. The ball is a great success; she is the center of attention. However, when the woman returns home, she discovers she has lost the necklace. To conceal her faux pas from her friend, she buys a new necklace identical to the one she lost. To pay it off, the woman gets into a huge debt, which, over the years, gradually drags her down the social ladder from the bourgeoisie to poverty. Ten years later, having lost her good looks, the woman encounters her friend on the Champs Elysees, who still looks young, beautiful, and rich. The protagonist reveals the entire story about the necklace to her friend, but her friend replies in amazement that the diamonds are fake and would “cost 500 francs at most.” Maison Gripoix starts with a dramatic story. According to other sources, in 1869 (or a year earlier), Paris master glass-maker Augustina Gripoix began making replicas of pearls and crystals, casting glass into different shapes and colors and inserting them into the most sophisticated settings. She used the pâte de verre (glass paste) technique, whereby a traditional ceramic or gypsum form was filled with a multi-color piece of glass and special gluing substances and then baked in a furnace, resulting in objects featuring fantastical hues. Only Augustina made her crystals by pouring the melted glass paste into the press molds, skipping the furnace step, allowing her to achieve purity of color, transparency, and shine. She found a simple method to make beautiful jewelry, and thus Marquises, Duchesses, and Princesses qued up ... so Madame Gripoix would make them replicas of their jewelry in case of robbery or loss, or some unusual jewelry pieces for their new wraps, neckpieces, or boas. The so-called ‘costume jewelry’ emerged to a large extent thanks to the work of Maison Gripoix. Augustina Gripoix earned her fame in the 1890s when she began creating necklaces for Sarah Bernhardt to wear on stage and later designed costume jewelry for Charles Frederick Worth's first high-fashion house. Later, Paul Poiret, the leading couturier of the 1910s, contacted her, and she created sophisticated, Oriental-style jewelry to match his famous Oriental costumes, based on the aesthetic of Diaghilev’s initial Russian seasons. The value of costume jewelry was now being recognized in its own right and not just for imitation purposes. The taste of emancipated young girls, who were gaining more and more freedom and opportunities, was best met with bijouterie. So in 1920, when Augustina’s daughter Susan became the head of the House, Gripoix's prospects became even more exciting—girls with short-cropped hair in short dresses zoomed by in open-top cars wearing bijou rather than diamonds. Everyone ordered bijouterie from Madam Gripoix during this period, from Jeanne Lanvin to Jean Piguet...

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