In Jewelry, Tassels Hold Sway

As an indicator of opulence, the tassel naturally was used in jewelry: One of history's most infamous necklaces - the subject of the so-called Affair of the Diamond Necklace, a scandal that discredited Marie Antoinette and the French monarchy before the French Revolution - was an elaborate confection of diamond pendants and tassels In jewelry, Mr Everett said, the current rage for tassels began in 2011 when Natalie Portman wore a pair of Tiffany & Co.

rubellite tassel earrings to accept her best actress award for "Black Swan." Pompon is the French name of Boucheron's permanent collection dedicated to tassels; it also included them in its latest high jewelry collection, Nature Triomphante At Van Cleef & Arpels, Catherine Cariou, the house's heritage director, showed a 1920s-era advertisement picturing a flapper with shingled hair dancing as she displayed a sautoir with a tassel pendant and, from the 1950s, a bracelet of four twisted gold ropes ending with a tassel.

Lucia Silvestri, the house's creative director, said the Italian jewelry house has used three tassel variations: beads of pink gold, oval-shaped colored gems such as sapphires and rubies and small colored diamonds The Lucky collection by Carolina Bucci has bracelets and necklaces made as a single rope of twisted silk threads and golden chains, with tassels at both ends The Munich jewelry house Hemmerle employs tassels "For the immense movement they create within a piece and their ability to capture light in unique ways," said Christian Hemmerle, a fourth-generation family member now at the house's helm. Source