Insights
A Lifelong Love of Jewellery
Two minutes with writer and scholar, Melanie Grant.
When did your fascination with jewellery begin?
When I was a child, my grandmother collected Art Deco costume jewellery, which she let me wear all the time. As a teenager, I would go to London’s Camden market and buy whatever silver jewellery I could afford. When my grandmother passed away, I bought my first diamond ring in her honour. The older I got and the more I understood, my collection grew.
Can you tell us about a piece of jewellery that is personally significant to you?
There was a pair of earrings by Hemmerle, a German jeweller based in Munich, that fuses Egyptian artefacts with modern Bauhaus. The earrings had these massive eyes, artefacts from ancient Egypt, that were blended with a modernist design. I loved the fact that they combined the ancient with the modern. But my favourite era for jewellery is the 1970s. I love GRIMA, a British jeweller from that era, with their textured gold, big, over-the-top, pieces that are modernist yet futuristic.
What can a piece of jewellery tell you about society or culture?
Before written history, jewellery is one of the earliest records that we have of the evolution of style and culture.
A lot of what we understand about ancient Egyptian culture comes from jewellery, something the Egyptians had a phenomenal appreciation of. They used gold and emeralds. Because the materials were precious, the jewels were often preserved and portable enough to be passed down the generations.
In the 1920s, there was a surge in Egyptian revival jewellery following the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. Later, after World War II, women bought bigger, ‘edgier’ jewellery enjoying more disposable income after joining the workforce. There’s a lot that jewellery can tell you about what was going on in the world at a given time.
How is jewellery a symbol of empowerment?
Throughout history, jewellery has been a vehicle for survival and freedom, especially for women. Indeed, for many women, their jewels were the only thing they ever truly owned.
In wartime, women have been able to flee conflicts with only what they could carry of their jewellery. In ancient Rome, where their rights were limited, women were able to buy and sell their jewels at whim.
In Victorian society, a woman’s father passed his fortune to her husband when she married. If she left home, her husband often kept the children. Her jewellery, however, was hers, an economic engine.
Melanie Grant's The Jewelry Book is out now.
Stonehage Fleming recently hosted guests at a private view of 'Hotel 87 & Other Relics', an exhibition that Melanie curated.