The Basics of Fashion Jewelry

Fashion jewelry or costume jewelry as it is sometimes called, is typically the kind of jewelry that will not put a large dent in your pocket book!  Fashion necklaces and other costume jewelry is usually designed and made with low cost materials including base metals such as copper and plated silver, glass, bone, agate stone, leather, imitation stones such as cubic zirconia, and hemp.  These low cost materials take the place of precious metals like gold and platinum, and replace high quality gemstones such as diamonds and rubies which are quite expensive, and tend to drive up the price of the jewelry.  Fashion jewelry is targeted towards teenagers, most of whom have little money to spare.  So controlling the cost of costume jewelry without sacrificing the appearance of the piece is a must.  Today, fashion trends among teenagers are largely controlled by what they see in the entertainment industry on both the big and small screens.  While entertainment celebrities can certainly afford fine jewelry that can run thousands of dollars, most teenagers and their parents cannot afford spend that kind of money on jewelry.  That’s where fashion steps in.  Good jewelry designers can imitate designs from the world of fine jewelry, but using cheap materials, thereby making jewelry that everyone can afford.  Most teenagers love to look like a million bucks by using jewelry that costs just a few dollars!

Pearls have been popular materials in jewelry designs for many centuries now.  However, until less than a hundred years ago, they were too expensive to be used in fashion jewelry.  However, the introduction of freshwater pearl bracelets and necklaces changed that.  To understand when, we first need a bit of background information on pearls.  When an irritant such as a parasite or a sand particle enters the shell of an oyster, the mollusk puts out a secretion to coat the irritant in order to isolate it.  With time, the nacre grows and hardens and becomes the pearl that we know today.  Until about a century ago, pearl formation was left solely to the forces of nature, and the corresponding pearl was termed a “natural” pearl.  However, natural pearls are rare and thousands of oysters had to be destroyed before a single pearl could be found.  So natural pearls were – and continue to be – very expensive.  Today, most of the pearls in the market were created through the intervention of man.  The irritant needed to trigger pearl development is introduced by man, and several irritants can be implanted into the same oyster.  These pearls are called “cultured” pearls and are much less expensive than natural pearls.  With this drastic reduction in cost, cultured pearl jewelry such as necklaces, bracelets, and earrings have become important players in the world of fashion jewelry.  While the classics like single and multi-strand white pearl necklaces and bracelets are still very popular, designers have worked hard to create more innovative and trendy designs.  New pearl jewelry designs include the use of baroque pearls, dyed pearls, and button pearls.  Combining pearls with other materials such as coral and turquoise has also become a popular theme in recent years.