Go Marvel at the NGV’s Art Deco Exhibition

Need I say more?

This exhibition is as popular (it was packed out when i was there last Saturday, and it’s been open for over a month) as it is far reaching and ginormous. I was in there for three hours (until the security bums threw me out at closing time), and still didn’t feel like I had adequately gawped in wonder at the collection of more than 300 art deco goodies that were on display.

How to Identify Jet and Its (Many) Imitators

You’ve probably seen jet jewellery before. It’s black, it’s shiny, it’s reminiscent of the Victorian era, when Queen Victoria wore it during her long period of mourning after the death of Prince Albert in 1861 and accidentally caused a fashion sensation.

This fashion during the high Victorian period meant that jet (especially from Whitby in Yorkshire, England) became immensely popular as a material for mourning jewellery. Which means it became more expensive. Which, in turn, means that many cheaper alternatives to jet were employed to make less expensive jewellery that captured the sombre elegance of jet.

Unfortunately, the differences between jet and its imitations are sometimes very hard to distinguish; it’s not like comparing a rhinestone to a diamond. Jet isn’t actually a mineral, as it’s made when decaying wood is under extreme pressure (sort of like coal). Its what’s known as a mineraloid. Thus some traditional measures of the intrinsic material can’t be used in this instance.

Anyway, down to business…here’s a few pointers if you want to work out whether something is jet:

Madeleine Albright Sez: Read My Pins

Here’s something I didn’t know: Madeleine Albright, ex-US Secretary of State, is an avid brooch collector and wearer.

The following is an extract from CNN news, including Ms Albright’s comments on her brooch fixation:

“I have a lot of different pins … and it all kind of started as a joke,” Albright said. “I do like jewelry, but when Saddam Hussein called me a snake, I happened to have a snake pin. And I was doing an interview, actually with CNN, and your cameras picked up that I had on a snake pin, and I was asked why and I said, ‘because Saddam Hussein has just called me a snake.’”

Soon, the whole world watched the brooches that Albright affixed to her lapel as some kind of signal, a sort of international reading of the tea leaves.

“When people asked me what kind of a mood I was in or what I was working on I’d say, ‘read my pins.’ So, then it kind of got to be a thing in itself, and I now have a lot of them and they mostly have wonderful stories attached to them …”

Apparently she also wore a snake with a dagger through it after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Ouch.

She’s also been known to wear a gold eagle brooch when feeling patriotic, and a dove brooch (pictured here), given to her by Leah Rabin, when giving speeches in the Middle East.

I found all of this especially interesting, particularly in light of Ms Albright’s comment that: “Fifteen years ago, the first President Bush suggested that the way to keep our bearings was to read his lips. When I was Secretary of State, I asked everyone to read my pins”.

As an avid brooch collector and wearer myself, this struck me straight away. I had only ever chosen which brooch to wear by how well it matched an outfit, or via some vague sense that ‘i felt like’ wearing a certain brooch on a given day. This is a whole new world. Actually, it’s kind of olde-worlde too - the idea that jewellery has the power to communicate something about its wearer is both ancient and potent.