Beginning to collect

The need to ornate our body with jewels is as old as the human being. Whether with seeds or bones in prehistoric times or with the innovative materials of today, jewelry tells us the humankind history that seemed to live in a whirlpool in the last century. At the beginning of the 20th century not everyone could afford a fine jewel so in times of war and in decades in which fashion was going to run fast Coco Chanel changed the rules of the game with its philosophy of complementing the outfit and beautifying the person encouraging to mix the fine jewelery of precious stones and metals with another that imitated it, playing to provoke and confuse others as far as status was concerned. With the wars came new materials and shapes and colors changed quick as needed, fostering an entire industry that, at times, created real art objects. Today is not uncommon for us to go in search of these pieces wanting a quality and beauty that is difficult to find at a reasonable price among the offer of modern pieces But...Is my piece vintage? What era is it from? Well, the truth is that identifying costume jewelry is not an easy task. It helps a lot that the piece has some kind of mark on the back, but many times it does not and the pieces of the puzzle of the history have to be put together as much as possible. If we take a good look at the front and the back of a piece, we will be able to distinguish different designs, different closures and different workmanships, and each element will give us clues about its time. We ourselves are constantly learning with each of the pieces that come into our hands and every day we learn more things trying to decipher those pieces as if it's a mystery. All the knowledge that this brings us will be shared with you on this blog and on our social networks, so stay with us in the Barvintage world.