COLORED GEMSTONES IN ART JEWELRY
The evolution of colored gemstones as a highly desirable component of Haute Couture jewelry maybe the most compelling reason for the promotion of Art Jewelry. Traditionally, the highest value has been placed on diamonds, ruby, emeralds and sapphire as the most valuable and collectible gemstones. All other colored gemstones were distant seconds. Both the steep rise in prices of those four gemstones types and the advent of laboratory-made diamonds contributed to value escalation of other natural and colored gemstones. Over the last few decades, the more humdrum manner of setting precious stones to jewelry gave way to the more artistic and flamboyant styles of Art Jewelry as championed by internationally-recognized master jewelry artists and pioneers like Wallace Chan, Cindy Chao and Anna Hu. Their more imaginative, creative and colorful versions of art as jewelry and jewelry as art made it almost wasteful to use the most expensive center gemstone in the design of any high fashion jewelry. The design of the setting became much more of a colorful and visually stunning art piece, allowing the use of more affordable center gemstones to achieve equal magnificence in wearable jewelry. Therefore, jewelry’s high art element may, in the hands of suitable artists, contribute more value than the cumulative costs of all the precious stones. Just think about invaluable of masterwork oil paintings created with miniscule costs of canvas and paints. Therefore, it is entirely conceivable that the value of the art may exceed the value of the gem.
Art Jewelry, as we choose to define it, has the ability to revolutionize the world of high fashion. This new world is where high art jewelry enhances high fashion; and haute couture fashion rises to new levels because of Art Jewelry. And the escalating value of colored gemstones is here to stay. They simply make the world of high fashion just more colorful, more impactful and simply more beautiful than ever before!