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First published in 1991, text and images are re-published here with kind permission of Marie-Jose Opper and Howard Opper 
Lifestyles changed rapidly during the period after the first World War. Modern women, more liberated than before, preferred fashions that were easier to wear. The appearance of affordable jewelry imitating semi-precious gems allowed women of fashion to choose from a large variety of adornment. In the 1920s, costume jewelry invaded both Europe and the United States, having originated in France where Parisian designers made it to enhance the high fashions of the day. Scheherazade, Salome and Cleopatra emerged as heriones. Oriental and Egyptian exotica became quite the rage. After the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922 Egyptian motifs such as pharaohs, scarabs, sphinx, mummies, and hieroglyphs appeared as popular themes in jewelry, as did Oriental motifs such as elephants, pagodas and buddahs. Every woman aspired to resemble a princess from A Thousand and One Nights or to take on the "barbaric look" of a dancer from a faraway land by wearing sumptuous clothing of silk or other delicate fabrics, covering themselves with bracelets and necklaces.
Among the many kinds of necklaces, the most successful ones were made in Gablonz in Czechoslovakia and were composed of press molded beads and pendants of different colors. There was a great variety of Egyptian and Oriental motifs created by anonymous craftsmen full of imagination and know-how, whose international reputation was already well established. During the 1920s, there were some 45,000 people involved in the production and trade of glass beads and jewelry in Gablonz, today called Jablonec. More than 10 percent of this production was destined for the United States.
Molded glass beads were pressed in a machine that could produce up to 100 beads in one single operation. The mold joint is evident on many of the smaller exotic beads, indicating a poor quality mass production with little attention given to finishing. These methods, plus meager wages paid to the craftsmen, allowed the beads to be sold at low prices which made them very successful as an export item.
Today, original necklaces made from these alluring beads can be found for sale at antique fleamarkets, estate sales, and antique stores. Prices range from $ 5 to $ 85, depending on how "exotic" the components are. Different lengths of necklaces exist. The most common style incorporates many spacer beads interspersed with fancier ones displaying more elaborate designs. All beads are monochrome, the principal colors being opaque white, blue, light blue, red, orange, yellow, green, beige, and sometimes black. Two translucent colors also exist: nile green and carnelian. Both the opaque white and the translucent green examples glow under ultraviolet light, indicating the use of uranium as a component of the glass. Bead motifs were highlighted using colored paint, much of which has worn off over the years.
Although most necklaces represented either Egyptian or Oriental motifs, others combined elements from both styles. Also included in many of these necklaces were mold pressed beads in the shape of roses, pansies, grapes, jarrots, full moons, wizards, etc. Many of the beads could and usually did exist in several different sizes and colors. The different kinds of imaginative and artful combinations used to make the original necklaces seems to be almost endless.
Many thanks to Marie-Jose Opper and Howard Opper for this interesting article. (Feb. 2008) |
