BIJOUTERIE: Jewelry that goes from Rags to Riches

You gotta love the French language. It can make the most ordinary object sound exclusive and expensive. When the fashion industry borrowed the word “bijouterie” (from bijoux, French for “jewels”), a whole category of jewelry was transformed from cheap trinkets into collectors’ treasures.

In a nutshell, “bijouterie” is the new name for what we used to call “costume jewelry”.

That’s right. The low-cost, glittery or glossy “wear for fun”

A Word from a Word Artist

This being my first blog at ArtLeah, I should confess that I’m not a jewelry maker. But maybe that’s an advantage in commenting on jewelry. By profession I’m a writer, and that is an advantage in commenting on a lot of things. But why jewelry of all things?

I was always fascinated by jewelry. My earliest memories of my grandmother were of sitting on her lap and playing with her dangling earrings that caught the light, and her chain bracelets with charms that clinked and danced from her wrist. They were wonderfully shiny things I was too young to wear at the time – but not too young to love.

Another thing captivated me from childhood: Words. I was making up rhymes, songs and stories in my head before I knew how to write them down. (No doubt my learning to read from “Dr. Suess” books had a lot to do with that!)  I wrote non-stop for school projects, for self-expression, for fun.