A story in the stars

With the arrival of a new year, I thought I would touch on a subject that always lifts my spirits. The night sky, with all its twinkling lights and bright beams of moonlight is quite magical and is surely a jeweller’s dream.

I am not alone taking inspiration from the celestial night sky - these cosmic motifs have enthralled stargazers and jewellers alike throughout history. The phenomena of Halley’s Comet in 1758 created a legacy of comet inspired jewellery and during the Victorian period the author Jules Verne released a novel called ‘From the Earth to the Moon’ which further captured the Victorians fascination with stars and moons.

This was a time for sentimentality and meaningful symbolism which was almost like a second language where love, friendship, loyalty could be silently communicated through specific styles and motifs.

Crescent moons were said to represent the powerful feminine ‘moon goddess’. Queen Victoria inspired women to wear crescent moons, especially with the fruition of the suffrage movement and this trend continued into the Edwardian period with Queen Alexandra wearing countless stars and crescent moons across her bodice.

This obsession with celestial jewellery was demonstrated further in star settings in antique gipsy rings. Starburst shapes worked beautifully when set with old cut diamonds, pastes, pearls and moonstones.

In the 1930’s Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel presented her first high jewellery collection inspired by her love of stars, comets and the sun. Chanel famously declared ‘I wanted to cover women in a constellation of stars’. Twenty years later, a Stars and Moons necklace was designed for the jeweller Tiffany with a centre diamond of 5.29ct and 586 diamonds said to mimic a clear midnight sky.

When the Soviet satellite Sputnik was launched in 1957 it created great excitement and is often heralded as the beginning of the “space race”. In turn, it led to creative jewellery interpretation with among others the jeweller Cartier designing funky spiked gold orbs set with stones.

There is however, something truly magical about ‘Stars’ and I had never really thought about and wondered why this is so. Their motif continues to be associated with awe, wonder, symbolic of guidance and hope. The ‘4 ‘pointed star is representative of a cross and star of Bethlehem whereas the ‘6’ pointed star is the Star of David, a symbol of the Jewish faith.

Back in October of this year I was in awe as the aura borealis was visible around the country. I was lucky enough to get a faint glimpse of this wonderful phenomenon just outside our home and would love to see it again. With this in mind, I have used my picture of that night on the back page!

Jewellery history is a fascinating window into our past and as you can see designers of today continue to look to the night sky for inspiration.