From the Back Cover: When Coco Chanel carelessly threw about her neck the heap of jewels given her by Grand Duke Dimitri of Russia, she commented: 'It doesn't matter if they are real, as long as they look like junk!' The year was 1924. 'Junk jewelry' was beginning its slow seduction of haute couture. Chanel's enthusiasm was matched only by that of her archrival Schiaparelli and in the 1920s and 1930s the two queens of fashion raised costume jewelry to new heights. At first the other fashion houses resisted such upfront fakery, but by the 1950s costume jewelry had found its place in the jewelry boxes of fashion-conscious women across the world. The story of what has been variously called dress jewelry, costume jewelry, fun jewelry or fashion jewelry is told here in illustrations from the lavish pages of Vogue. Jane Mulvagh's comprehensive and informative text covers every fad and fashion-from dress clips to salvage jewelry, from gilt chain bracelets to poppets and from the paste of the 1910s to the plastic of the 1960s. Here too are fashion jewelry's most famous names, from Gripoix, di Verdura and Schlumberger right up to the stars of recent years: Giorgio di Sant' Angelo, Paloma Picasso, Billyboy and a host of others. Now that costume jewelry has become as collectable as precious jewelry, this pioneering book will be the indispensable guide to an enthralling subject.