Office Outfit - navy silk shirt and silver pink pearl

Necklaces can serve many purposes, depending on colour, size, and material.
Here the pearl acts as a step from the very dark navy shirt to my paler skin, making the contrast less dramatic. Office outfits need to keep that balance between adding contrast to add interest, without tipping over into clashing and becoming distracting.

Nineteenth Century Day Jewellery - Chatelaines

As I wrote in my previous post 'Nineteenth Century Day Jewellery', women of the nineteenth century were constantly instructed not to wear 'showy' jewellery during the day, often on the grounds of taste, marriageability, and morality.

One way women who wanted to wear jewellery but still be 'in good taste' could get around this problem was by wearing ornaments that served a purpose - Chatelaines.

Chatelaines were originally the keys to the castle, worn in earlier centuries by the Lady of the castle, then later by the housekeeper of great houses. At a time when pockets in women's clothing were seen as symbols of privacy and secrecy,  and depicted in paintings to symbolise a woman's private (sexual) life and therefore her immorality (!), the keys to the castle were worn on a chain fastened over the clothes around the waist. N.B. - I'd intended that to be a shorter sentence, and to provide a single link to explain. Turns out this is a larger topic than I'd remembered, and a single link won't be enough. Try here, here, or here, for some good articles on the history of women's pockets.

Necklaces at the office.

As I wrote in my last post on officewear, conservative clothing is not supposed to draw attention to your body, or distract people's attention from your work. While bright patterns, long flowing fabrics, and loud (literally and figuratively) accessories are great for expressing yourself on your own time, they are best worn away from the office.

In most of the western business world a suit is still the outfit of choice, made in a dull fabric, in a quiet colour, cut to follow but not draw attention to the body's lines. Drawing heavily on the dandy menswear tradition rather than the peacock one, the men's business suit is designed to be visually formal, often in dark colours to imply authority, with a general lack of pattern, contrast, or texture.

Although this can be very confining in some ways, it does allow individualism in the small details. Menswear blogs write at great length about the size and shape of pockets, which buttons to use, which cuff style is appropriate when, and the best width of jacket collars and ties. (I know this because I have spent many happy hours reading their almost obsessive discussions.)

Personally, I like to keep the cut very simple. I tend to wear silk shirts rather than cotton ones because I find them more comfortable, and I add interest through texture and colour. In the above image, I am wearing a simply cut, dark coloured velvet jacket, with mid-grey pinstripe straightline trousers. Not the most formal option, so appropriate for my workplace.

Blank Canvas

After three months of waiting, and a very tense final 48 hours of worrying it might not happen, I have finally settled on my first apartment. Watch this space 😊

Which pearl when? At the office.

Officewear in a corporate environment is not supposed to draw attention to your body. This is a formal environment where people are supposed to be employed for their knowledge and skill, not their physical attractiveness. Although we all know this isn't always true, it does mean the dress code tends to be conservative.

Bright colours, loud patterns, and clothes and jewellery that move when you do are best worn away from the office. The classic corporate outfit - the suit - is traditionally cut to create clean lines from the shoulders downwards; in the most conservative office the only interest in the outfit provided for men is by the tie, while women may wear a coloured blouse.

Pearls are perfect jewels for officewear, as they are usually in a neutral colour, have a beautiful understated lustre, and, frankly, if the morality of nineteenth century ettiquite allowed pearls to be worn during the day, you can't go too badly wrong.

Cultured South Sea pearls are no longer rare. They are produced in Australia, Indonesia, Fiji, Tahiti, and Myanmar. The farming process has been improved over decades, and the industry now produces a huge number of high quality pearls each year. This has lead to the recent high fashion re-interest in pearls, and their gradual shaking of the 'ladies who lunch' image. Although the classic round white pearl will probably always be the one most people think of, there are many other colours and shapes that can also reflect your personality and style.

                                           

A pair of round silver grey Tahititan earrings, a pair of Keshi silver grey Tahitian earrings, an antique natural pearl ring, and a triple strand of vintage Akoya pearls.
Both my pairs of Tahitian South Sea studs have a body colour of silver, and a slight overtone of pink. The spherical pair are cultured, they are the result of a seed being implanted in the oyster. The oyster treats this as an irritant and covers it with layers of nacre over a period typically of up to two years. The aim of this is to produce a large, round, smooth pearl.
The irregular pair are Keshi pearls. Keshi's are naturally occurring pearls within a farmed oyster. They cannot be sold as 'natural' pearls as this implies they were found in a wild oyster. Keshi's happen when the seed is rejected by the oyster, or a speck of sand, or some other tiny object gets in to the oyster, and the oyster covers it with nacre. Because the nacre is much thicker than on a seeded pearl, the lustre is quite different, and mine have an iridescent 'orient' over them. The lustre of a Keshi is very similar to the lustre of a natural pearl, as both of them are pure nacre.
The antique pearl ring shows the similarty of the lustre to the Keshi pearls.
I put together the triple strand of Akoya's from a double strand and a separate single strand. The colours don't match exactly, but I don't feel they need to. The lustre and size match, and they all have warm pinkish overtones, so I feel they sit well together.

Nineteenth Century Day Jewellery

'A lady is never so well dressed as when you cannot remember what she wears.'

The moral subject of jewellery appropriate to wear during the day came up over and over again in nineteenth century books and publications aimed at teaching young women style and etiquette. Young women in Europe and America were expected to want to get married and then manage their husband's households, staying out of the public sphere. Young men were expected to want 'modest' (whatever that means) and quiet wives, someone who would be happy to stay home and raise their children. Most if not all etiquette and household management books used moral arguments against wearing large or 'showy' jewellery during the day, and many were aimed at the growing 'middle' class, people who were the first generation in their family to have a disposable income, and who were nervous of disposing of it incorrectly.

The new possibility for people to start with very little and make their fortunes, regardless of family or connections, was a massive social change from previous centuries. The aristocratic/wealthy classes of the eighteenth century had assumed that family, connections, property, and power all came together, and always would. The famous 'gilded age' and Louis 14th jewellery show off wealth and splendour on an enormous scale.

With 'new money' gaining access to property and therefore power, 'good society' (old money) retreated behind a wall of 'good taste', so that admiring or displaying wealth for wealth's sake became frowned on. Jewellery worn in the 1800s was supposed to be either inherited from past generations, or gifted from close family. It was also supposed to be an expression of the young woman's 'artistic' nature and good morals, - pieces were meant to be prized for their design and workmanship over the size or cost of the materials. Having said that, the materials were always to be of the best quality, never imitation gemstones or plated metal. Imitation jewellery was always said to be in bad taste, as it appeared to be falsely advertising wealth and status. The fact that a woman might wear gold plated pieces because they were very well designed, or because she didn't want to spend so much money on jewellery, doesn't seem to have been considered.

  

Two images of women wearing day jewellery, on the left, Judge Mary Margaret Bartelme wearing a cameo brooch, and on the right, 'The Children's Holiday: portrait of Mrs Thomas Fairbain and her children', by William Holman Hunt 1864-5, showing Mrs Fairbairn wearing a coral brooch and earring set. 

Riches of Nature in Art - Sultan's wife drinking coffee - Charles Vanloo

Charles Vanloo
French 1705–65
Sultan's wife drinking coffee (1750s)
oil on canvas
120.0 х 127.0 cm
The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg

I finally visited the NGV exhibition 'Masterpieces from the Hermitage' yesterday, and fell in love with the jewels in this beautiful painting, particularly the diamond earrings. A double pair of double rose cut diamonds? How could I resist? Here is a closer view - 

Apparently the sitter was Madame De Pompadour, so there is a good chance these earrings actually existed, as well as the matching diamond and pearl necklace. These earrings are the newest items on my jewellery wish list. Now I just have to find someone who still carries double rose cuts...