Late Victorian Characteristics	Close Window
		1880s jewelry went very simple, almost modest utilizing plain gold, simple and neat earrings, and pastel or nearly colorless stones. Sporting jewelry expands in scope to golf, hiking, badminton, and sailing. Chains become popular with more severe and simple clothing styles. Evening clothes redolent with lace trimmings gave rise to whimsical small pins being scattered everywhere on a dress: bodice, front and back of skirts, shoulders, and wrists. Hairstyles had the same treatment of little jewels being tucked into curls and hats. Diamonds were abundant from South Africa, and the trend towards colorless exploded. Electrical lighting, which favored diamonds, was being installed in wealthy homes, theaters, and clubs. Aesthetic movement started as a reaction against using jewelry to display wealth and expensive materials. Social consciousness growing in wealthy upper class. Aesthetic jewelry, both Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau, was to be admired for its jewels (natural state and not necessarily precious) and the intrinsic design of the piece rather than its monetary value. Sterling jewelry for the middle to lower classes emulates the wealthy, and tends to be very sentimental.