MiriamHaskell 1926-1929 Shell Glass FauxPearl Crystal Silver Art Deco Sautoir

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...

During the Art Deco period, Miriam Haskell's first designer Frank Hess designed this blue-and-white glass-beaded hand-sewn torsade set of dangle earrings and a choker necklace, whose knotted string is capped with their characteristic Russian-gilt brass flora filigree. Coinciding with the American Great Depression, to offer some less expensive costume jewelry than her initial ready-to-wear styles featuring Parisian hand-crafted materials found in French couture, Haskell reduced the cost of some of her findings by locally sourcing stamped metal and incorporating hand-pressed glass beads from Germany and Czechoslovakia. With a loop, the line from hand pressing the glass can only be found on the blue beads, while the white ones are coated in an organic material like authentic French faux pearls. The ends of the textured cords that string the beaded set were frayed to form a fuzzy opaque dome that hides the knots attached to the filigree caps. No Haskell jewelry was signed before 1947. The unsigned necklace...

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