you can find in bridal boutiques across the country and online. For one of the most glamorous and striking bridal jewelry combinations for winter is the combination of both white pearls and Swarovski crystals. More on beautiful jewellery: jewellery wholesale, jewellry, jewelry, jewelry appraisers, jewelry armoire, jewelry beads, jewelry boxes, jewelry buyers, jewelry designers, jewelry designs, jewelry diamonds, jewelry necklace, jewelry necklaces, jewelry organizer, jewelry ring, jewelry rings, jewelry store, jewelry stores, jewelry supplies, lampwork beads, loose gemstones, mens jewelry, 14k gold jewelry, Putting these two together, makes for the perfect complimented winter bridal jewelry. You will have the best of both worlds, beautiful pearl bridal jewelry combined with gorgeous Swarovski crystal bridal jewelry. Don’t forget about the winter bridesmaid jewelry for your bridesmaids. With winter comes many lush and rich color choices. Of course there is the ever popular hunter greens and ruby reds. These make for wonderful winter Christmas season bridal jewelry selections. Deep burgundies and maroons, as well as royal blue and persimmons are also beautiful choices. Let the color pallet of winter help you decide what style and color of bridal jewelry you will wear. The winter season brings on such a romantic and special air, that a winter wedding is perfect for the season. In the end, find winter bridal jewelry that matches you, your gown, your personality and of course your wedding colors and theme. By Bonita Beck  Paved In Gold A thing of beauty is joy forever said John Keats. Beauty attracts human like a magnetic field. Jewels have long been the most alluring ornamental force for women and even men. Kings and queens, emperors and their wives clad themselves with heavy gold. Somehow gold has always been preferred over other elements. Diamonds hold a secondary place when it comes to wedding rings, bracelets, necklaces and earrings. Although it can't be denied that this drift is more relatable to the Asians. Europeans are inclined toward white gold and diamonds.      There was a time when people wore pure heavy gold jewelry. It was a symbol of the rich. Brooches made of gold with convoluted designs where a must on the women gowns during balls and other occasions. The use of white gold is comparatively lesser than yellow gold because it is relatively expensive. Weighty gold earrings and necklaces plus the anklets are worn on weddings. Not only the bride is adorned with gold jewels but every woman in the wedding room has something or the other around her neck or wrists and fingers. Nothing short of gold tends to give a sense of completion. Today's gold jewelry is it not heavy and purely original any longer. The economies of the world now face a shortage of supply of resources that embraces every single criterion. Technological changes have placed its print even on ornaments. Gold jewelry once shaped into a necklace or ring manually passed on to generations. Now the inheritors simply get those jewels remade according to the trend. A 24 carat gold set is melted and remade occasionally. That reduces its value double fold down to 13 or 12 carat only. A single gold bracelet can now give a woman two pairs of gold earrings. A conventionally smart transaction! More on jewelry: amber, amber rings, amethyst, amethyst earrings, amethyst jewelry, amethyst pendant, amethyst ring, amethyst rings, ancient jewelry, ankle bracelet, antique engagement ring, antique jewelry, antique jewelry costume, aquamarine, jewelry armoire, beach glass jewelry, bead beaded jewelry, beading beads, belly button rings, birthstone, birthstone ring, birthstone rings, bling, blue Gold is assorted with other metals in order to make it light weight and economical. Besides this factor plain gold jewelry has become obsolete. Necklaces and rings made out of gold are decorated and embodied with beads, pearls, emeralds and stones. Another feat of jewelers is gold platted jewelry, making gold affordable. Most gold jewelry patterns are machine made and designs repeated. What the present world is doing with gold jewelry makes a person think, all that glitters definitely isn't gold. But at least it helps self and status conscious people in showing the world, they too can afford to wear gold. Kadence Buchanan writes articles on many topics including Jewelry, Society, and Beauty Jewelry that reflects a facet of the past, The survival of antique jewelry has always been at the mercy of a three-headed beast: fashion, familial greed and insolvency. Respect accorded to Two rows freshwater pearl necklace photo by freshwaterpearl

fine art was rarely extended to family jewels that were repeatedly reset as fashions changed, dissipated by avaricious siblings or simply sold off for the value of the larger stones rather than the artistic merit of the setting. Even the most important historical jewels were not invulnerable. At the 1887 public auction of the Diamonds of the Crown of France, over a third of the crown jewels refashioned for the Empress Eugenie were acquired by Tiffany, broken up into smaller pieces and sold in the US to Vanderbilts, Rockefellers and Pulitzers.

On 21 April, Eugenie's diamond pendant hair ornament will go under the hammer at Sotheby's New York with an estimate of pounds 140,000 to pounds 195,000. Made in 1860 by the house of Bapst, the hair ornament is set with 477 brilliant diamonds in a leaf and berry cluster motif. It is the star of Sotheby's Magnificent Jewels sale. Pieces from the 1887 auction are as rare in the salerooms as Faberge's fabled eggs. Eugenie's diamond bow devant de corsage was estimated at pounds 100,000-pounds 200,000 by Sotheby's in 2001. It realised pounds 1.4m.

Yet despite Sotheby's naming their sale Magnificent Jewels, selected estimates may give aspiring collectors hope. A 1900 gold and emerald Art Nouveau brooch fashioned as Juno with a peacock headdress has allow estimate of $1,500. An Art Deco baguette cut diamond and calibre-cut ruby scroll ring mounted in platinum is $1,200-$1,500 while the most exquisite scroll motif 1870s tiara set with old-mine and rose-cut diamonds by Asprey is $4,000-$6,000.

The first rule when buying jewels is never be intimidated by windows blazing with diamonds. If you have a genuine interest in antique jewels these specialist shops will be more than accommodating and will go out of their way to show pieces within your budget.

"Appreciation for antique jewels is a fairly recent phenomenon,"

says Daniella Mascetti, Sotheby's jewellery expert and co-author of the collector's bible Understanding Jewellery. "When I first came to Sotheby's in the early 1980s the salerooms were populated by dealers who bought important jewellery for the break. In recent years the salerooms have become a fashionable place for private clients to be seen. Whereas once jewellery was purchased for its gemstone content, I do believe there is a greater appreciation for the artistry of the great houses like Boucheron, Chaumet, Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and of course Faberge."

Provenance from these old master jewel houses increases the value of a historical piece, which is why some collectors acquire by jeweller rather than gemstone or period. Yet smaller jewels by the great houses are still on the market for the low thousands. "On Bond Street today it is possible to pay pounds 1,500 for a pair of shoes or pounds 1,000 on an evening gown," says Mark Evans, managing director of Bentley & Skinner, London's finest antique jewellery house on Bond Street. "Yet for pounds 3,000 you can buy a little piece of history set with valuable precious stones that men have lost their lives exploring the world to mine. You will be acquiring a design created by a master artist in his field that craftsmen have taken months or even years to fashion."

The popularity of Deco's bold, dynamic, modernist designs today is taking the limelight away from that golden era of jewellery design between 1880 and 1917. This pre-First World War period represented the last hurrah for Europe's royal houses before revolution, war and death swept away regal fashion plates Empress Eugenie, Empress Sissi of Austria, the Tsarina Alexandra and Queen Alexandra. The emergence of America's millionaire industrialist dynasties contributed to a boom in high jewellery that was fuelled by the discovery of South Africa's diamond mines in the 1870s.
Belle Epoque French and English Edwardian jewellery may not have the swagger of Art Deco but even an untrained eye couldn't fail to be seduced by the delicately stylised turn of the century natural motifs interpreted in diamonds and set in platinum such as Bentley & Skinner's scroll work Edwardian diamond brooch (1905) priced at pounds 8,900.

Brooches may not have been in fashion since the 1950s but their return to fashion for spring/summer 2004 will inevitably make Edwardian starbursts, bows, butterflies and crescent moons made in diamonds much more attractive to young collectors and doubly so when you consider the ingenious jewellers made their brooches adaptable into pendants, hair ornaments and even leaves of a tiara. Tiaras, too, are enjoying a comeback thanks not a little to Elton John's annual White Tie and Tiaras ball.

"Ten years ago it was very difficult to sell a tiara," says Mr Evans. "But the strange thing is tiaras are very much in fashion now. We never have enough to meet demand. Of course tiaras that can be made into a necklace are much more popular pieces," he says holding an 1890s rose cut and brilliant cut diamond "proper Princess tiara". "How women glow when you dress them in a diamond tiara, necklace and earrings," he says. This particular tiara is pounds 32,000, which might explain why Bentley & Skinner hire important jewels to import- ant people on important occasions.

Defying fashion or anticipating it -

on the premise that everything old will be new again if you wait long enough - is a smart strategy. The death throes of minimalism will inevitably result in fussy, over-wrought Victorian mourning jewellery set with jet or garnets becoming attractive again to collectors. The brooch bonanza in this season's fashion magazines may be fuelled by fabulous fakes or modern reproductions so it may be chic to seek out the 1950s originals in yellow gold set with large semi- precious stones such as citrines, amethysts, peridots and tourmalines. Jewels from the latter half of the 20th century like Bulgari's 1991 Naturalia collection, floral designs by Gimel and anything from the house of JAR already have immense value on the secondary market.

"I never, ever bought my own jewellery," says thrice-married Ms Shay, now 92, who fought off the advances of Errol Flynn, Johnny Weismuller and Cecil B DeMille and many others.
Her collection, which spans two centuries, includes a demi-parure diamond and baguette cut sapphire Cartier cuff with diamond ring, which is not dissimilar to an Art Deco suite owned by Joan Crawford who was Shay's co-star in the 1939 movie The Women. A pin from the same suite was stolen. "The largest diamond in the bracelet is a particular white blue that I believe is rather rare," she says.

Her exquisitely manicured hand is offset by a white sapphire the size of a gull's egg that belonged to her third husband Geoffrey Steele's mother. The matinee idol whom Ms Shay married in 1941 was responsible for a shower of gems inherited by his actress wife.

The star piece is a Second Empire pearl and diamond encrusted gold locket mounted on a matte gold necklace inherited from a scion of the Steele family who was a lady-in-waiting to the Empress Eugenie at the time when Napoleon III fell in 1870. The necklace was allegedly in lieu of the lady- in-waiting's wages. A gold, mother of pearl and hand-painted china pair of opera glasses are from the same era as are two ivory-handled parasols in black and grey bead-encrusted taffeta respectively. A box of pin brooches betrays an amethyst among diamonds and turquoise surmounted by enamel wings circa 1900.
Article by James Sherwood

FACT FILE THE RISING STARS OF FINE JEWELS

FIONA KNAPP

The more dynamic collectors are seeking out young talent and commissioning pieces before the market catches up. Fiona Knapp, from New Zealand, is one such rising star.

The gemologist understands important stones, has a respect for the history of jewellery design, yet her work is fresh and modern. It's also largely semi-precious so her prices are still accessible. A red tourmaline "Sicilian cardinal's cross" set in 18 carat yellow gold is pounds 1,820.

SOLANGE AZAGURY-PARTRIDGE FOR BOUCHERON

Provenance for important jewellery is vital so if you can combine two great names in one piece - like Elsa Peretti and Tiffany for example - then a piece will increase in value. When the talented London-based jewellery designer Solange Azagury-Partridge was appointed creative director of the house of Boucheron, she bought a sexiness to the house coupled with a respect for its heritage. Unlike Jade Jagger at Garrard, Azagury-Partridge's high jewellery is devoid of gimmicks and truly timeless.