“What goes around comes around,” is a saying that certainly applies to fashion jewelry. As designers and manufacturers dip into the past for inspiration, so do today’s consumers. Vintage Victoriana, both reproduced exactly from older jewelry, and interpreted into newer looks based loosely on old styles, is one interesting fashion revival.

          The Victorian period was only the second era in history when fashion jewelry was mass produced, making an available to a large public than ever before. The time of Queen Victoria’s reign (1837 to 1901) was so long, and so full of style changes in jewelry and fashion, that it provides a treasure chest of ideas, which today’s jewelry designers are reinterpreting in bolder, more modern forms.

          Styles ranging from neoclassic designs based on ancient Greek and Roman jewels to cut steel work to filigree and openwork, often decorated with rhinestones (strass glass, a formula created by Joseph Strass, or paste imitating diamonds or colored gems were two types of rhinestones) began the Victorian era. Today’s designers have more colors, cuts and styles of rhinestones available than the Victorians imagined, and tend to restyle older motifs with more fashionable color combinations than the Victorian jewelers could use.

          Though the Victorians weren’t as concerned about ecology as today’s consumers, they shared a deep interest in nature and natural themes, often mixed with romantic symbolism. Nature themes, flower basket motifs, butterflies, bunches of grapes, vines, seashells, sea creatures, tree parts, animals, and flowers began their rise to popularity which continues now.

          Many manufacturers are offering jewelry lines based on endangered species. Kabana, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, even contributes a portion of sales revenue on its two ecology-based jewelry lines procedure in karat gold and sterling silver, to conservation societies.

          Animal and flower jewels have been recreated in many modern forms based on Victorian designs. Marquerite McNally of The Bead Store in San Francisco says, “We have animals in both vintage and modern styles in pins, pendants, earrings, charms, bracelets and necklaces, and the older styles sell as well as the modern looks in every category.”

          Medieval, Gothic and Renaissance revivals, often with no trace of authenticity compared to the original styles, began as the Victorian era’s hottest trends. Stained glass effects created with glass, enamel, or inexpensive gem materials were one popular style we see again today. Another fashion craze in mixing many jewel or glass colors in a single pendant, brooch or bracelet, creating a Renaissance riot of color.

          Girandole earrings, with three dangling beads or stands hanging from a central point, carried over in popularity from the preceding Georgian era. Girandoles and other dangling earrings added sparkle to the Victorian lady’s wardrobe, a trait revisited in the more moderate shoulder dusters still so popular today. The newer dangle earrings tend to combine more materials than Victorian types. You’ll find beads in many different materials grouped together, often combined with bold metal beads or plaques in textured metals.

Marquerite McNally comments, “We carry earrings, necklaces too, with wonderful combinations of the elaborate old-style metal beads with colored stones, or with carved wood or minerals made into beads. The dangling earrings have been popular for years, but now customers are looking for new color combinations and interesting textures in vintage styles.”

Another Victorian trend we see again today is the revival of elaborate medieval chatelaines, which hung from a belt and carried miniature household or personal objects ranging from keys to scissors and thimbles to vanity cases. Watch chains and fobs, often set with jewels or richly enameled, also became an important men’s accessory throughout that era.

Alice San Germano of La Belle Epoque in New York City has given those popular Victorian accessories a bold, modern look for today’s sophisticated consumers. She explains, “Though the inspiration is Victorian, the look is strictly American. Our pieces are dramatic, and demand attention. We’ve become successful with men’s watch fobs and watch chains, as well as the chatelaines with newer accessories. Demand is fantastic.”

Cameo jewelry became a craze through most of Victoria's reign, and still crops up in new styles and materials. Natural cameos from coral, shell, or gemstones (such as chalcedony, onyx, sardonyx and other banded agates) are being supplemented by cameos molded in plastic or glass to give a wider variety of subject themes, colors and price points than ever.

Kerri Wirkula, associate buyer in bridge jewelry at Dayton-Hudson, says, "We have a line of cameo jewelry set in gold that’s doing well for us. It's a steady seller - not huge but good."

Berlin iron work, in which industrial iron was cast to look like delicate black lace, finds echoes today in silver filigree romantic reproductions.

Marquerite McNelly confirms, "There have been wonderful reproductions of Victorian filigree jewelry from Holland lately. Items like filigree lockets, and dangle earrings in filigree with colored stones. They sell well to customers of all ages."

High Victorian style included pieces featuring large engraved faux gems, or faux gems inlaid with imitation pearls, small gemstones in contrasting colors, or plated metals, another trend which is returning in both fine and fashion jewels.

Big hollow chains, usually of plated base metal or gold-colored metals and richly decorated, were as hot in Victorian times as their modern counterparts are today. Gold chains would also be worn doubled or tripled if long enough, with enameled plaque chains, or in combination with coral, jet or gem beads in the popular fashion colors. A look around any urban center in America confirm how popular this mixed-chain look has become again, nowadays redone with bolder links and interesting new materials, such a big, imitation pearls mixed with faux gems.

Gemstone beads first became widely available in materials such as agate, garnet, amethyst, rock crystal quartz, pink topaz, spinel, jet coral and amber in the 1860s. Today, many more gem and mineral materials are being carved into beads than the Victorians used, but the idea of long, often multi-colored chains of beads is still similar.

Designs where beads are strung into spheres or flowers around the main stands, or into rosettes or tassels come directly from Victorian times. Long autoir necklaces hanging below the waist, often with jewelled end pieces or tassels attached, made their debut then, and are coming back into style now. Designers today are using chips as well as beads of materials like poppy jasper, picture agate, unakit, malachite, banded agates, many of which the Victorian either never knew or would never have considered for jewelry use.

Lockets, especially with compartments for portraits (or in those days, locks of the loved one's hair), were a personal favorite of Queen Victoria's that was soon shared by people of all social classes.

Alice San Germano of La Belle Epoque sells a line of modern lockets called "Heart's Treasures," popular with jewelry consumers of all ages. "Think about it," Ms San Germano explains, "Everyone has someone they love or want to hold close to their hearts. Our lockets have a covering inside to protect the picture. The styles are larger than and not as fussy as the Victorian lockets, but they still have a sentimental appeal. The line has a broad enough range of styles to appeal to grandmothers and teenagers alike."

Linda Marr, costume jewelry buyer for Gantos, Inc in Michigan says, "We're trying lockets now. I've heard of others doing well with them. Our customers are mostly young. They like bolder looks, not as sentimental as many of the lockets I see."

When Prince Albert died in 1861, Queen Victoria went into deep mourning which was to last until she died 40 years later. This brought jet mourning jewelry into fashion in an enormous range of styles. Though jet isn't used as frequently today in fashion jewels, black epoxy resins and other plastics create the same looks, often in larger pieces with bolder, abstract designs.

To add color to an otherwise all-black jewel, Victorian manufacturers could use ivory, pearls, painted porcelain, pieces of gray or purple shell, coral, small ammonite fossils (still popular today), gemstone mosaics, or colored gem flowers.

For those not part of Victoria's Court, the 1860s and 1870s brought in the first widespread "novelty jewelry." Everything from bugs to watering cans to birds' nests with eggs, and even Japanese dinner plates, were reproduced in fashion jewelry. New jewelry and fashion crazes came thick and fast to fulfill consumers' increasing sophistication. Sound familiar?

Today, we have virtually everything from Disney characters to comic book heroes to the latest movie crazes reproduced in novelty jewelry.

Sporting jewels, especially around themes of horses and horse racing, first showed up during the end of Victorian times. The predecessors of today's licensed sports team jewels, these sporting jewels were usually made in base metals.

On the continent, the Victorian era was the period during which the French mastered the art of making faux pearls, which added luster and lightness to their jewelry. They combined faux and dramatic looks in collars, chokers and long necklaces, a trend we see today.