Blog — steampunk jewelry

Last week, I got a thick package in the mail. Inside were a collection of travel tokens collected for a best friend's wedding. The bride and groom love vintage - not faux vintage, but the real thing. They're getting married in an old train station and arriving in a beautiful old Studebaker, restored by the groom himself. I love this couple - even having never met them, I adore them and was honored to work on the project! We kept it simple - starting with the tokens from Santa Cruz, San Diego, Sacramento, San Mateo and Crescent City, all from...

The history of fashion and design is at the center of our work at Compass Rose Design Jewelry and I love sharing the historical moments of beauty and imagination that inspire our designs. This NeoClassical Revival choker made with a late-Victorian button is a direct reference to the jewelry worn the women in Napoleon's life from 1790-1814.Victorian Button Ornate Neoclassical Necklace by Compass Rose DesignThe emergence of fashion as an expression of individuality rather than social class alone was a concept that took form after the French Revolution as the old aristocratic regimes began to crumble and transform. We can...

It comes as no surprise that I find Victorian and Edwardian fashion, jewelry, design and technology endlessly fascinating, particularly as represented early photography.  Perhaps it is the very availability of photography and the ability to see faces of the past that is so compelling.  We are reminded that we are descended from actual people, like these ladies caught in a candid street style photos by Edward Linley Sanbourne. You might enjoy the fashion and photo collections I've compiled on Pinterest on Victorian Fashion and Jewelry and Edwardian Fashion. However, it's all too common for photos to appear without context and...

Victorian inspired steampunk insect jewelry has risen in popularity, but few know the history of these designs are echos of elegant designs made more than a century ago. Throughout the Victorian era, images of the natural world were popular in jewelry, fashion, and furniture design.    One of my most popular Time Flies necklace designs harkens back to earlier designs.  I made this large statement pendant with an ivory colored antique pocket watch face, probably art deco, with red and black numbering. The  detailed antiqued gold and brass butterfly stamping is reminiscent of art nouveau designs by the French designer...