CNN Style
September 2024
Emili Vesilind
A forgotten gemstone that reigned during the Victorian era comes back into focus
Radiant diamonds, sapphires, and rubies have been among the most coveted gemstones on the planet for nearly a century. But long before their reign, a far less dazzling gem captured the hearts of jewellery lovers – and now it’s making a comeback.
Jet, a flat-black, opaque gemstone derived from wood that has experienced extreme compression over millions of years, was the haute stone throughout the Victorian era, a time when fashion and jewelry deftly signaled a person’s social status, financial wealth and even emotional state. Victorian dress was rife with symbolism and evolved around rigid codes of propriety and caste. Tightly pulled corsets and top hats, to name two ubiquitous items from the era, signified wealth and propriety, while jewels depicting doves hinted to an individual’s deep religious devotion.
Surprisingly lightweight and inky-black, jet is one of the oldest known gemstones, and has been carved and shaped by the artistically inclined since the Neolithic era {7,000-1,7000 B.C.). Both the Romans and Vikings fashioned items with jet, ranging from buttons and rings to tiny sculptures and protective amulets. But it was Queen Victoria who delivered jet to fashion’s highest heights in the mid-1800s. The monarch wore jet often, most notably in the second half of her reign; the gem matched the all-black ensembles she wore exclusively following the death of her husband, Prince Albert. (Jet has been synonymous with mourning dress ever since.)
“Anyone who was anyone was wanting to wear jet in the Victorian era,” said British gemologist Sarah Steele, one of the world’s only jet researchers. “We went around the world looking for sources of jet – to Venezuela, to the north of Spain – and exported it back to the UK.”
Sustained interest in the gem, however, meant the market was slowly flooded with lower quality jet that chipped and cracked more easily, eroding consumer confidence. Simultaneously, the plastic revolution was accelerating. The popular (and now acutely collectible) jewellery resin Bakelite was invented in 1907, and certain manufacturers even perfected a plastic jet – an effective, if accidental, category killer.
All this led to jet’s popularity plummeting. “Everyone was absolutely sick of mourning, and then the first World War happened, and that was that,” Steele added. “We’re actually lucky the industry survived at all.”
So while jet has been sold on the souvenir jewellery circuit for decades, the gem has long been near-universally ignored by fashion and “high” jewellery designers. But that might be changing.
A handful of esteemed designers have recently been embracing jet, incorporating the featherlight gemstone into fine jewellery pieces stocked by influential stores. And these designers aren’t using just any old jet – they’re purposefully picking Whitby jet, which is widely considered the gold standard of jewellery-ready jet.
Though the gemstone was mined in several discrete regions in the 1800s, including Spain, France, and the American Southwest, Whitby jet formed exclusively underground around the North Yorkshire coastal town of Whitby in England. And “Whitby jet is definitely in the running for the best jet in the world,” explained Steele, who also co-owns Ebor Jetworks, an historic jet workshop and retail shop in the town.
Whitby jet is renowned for being pitch-black in color and tough in temperament. Generally speaking, Whitby jet won’t crack or fade over time, like less hearty, no-name jets are wont to do.
Sussex-based fine jewelry designer Natasha Wightman debuted her first-ever collection for her brand exclusively at Dover Street Market, a retail concept conceived by celebrated fashion designer Rei Kawakubo and her husband and partner Adrian Joffe, earlier this year.
Called “Ravens,” the series features black ravens in mid-flight, intricately carved from Whitby jet by British artisan Graham Heeley and set in gold by local jeweller Ian Fowler. Wightman is intent on exclusively using UK materials and craftsmanship in her collection. Her debut also includes pieces carved from Moorland boxwood and shed deer antlers she plucked from her yard.
“I wanted to use something that came from our land and country,” she told CNN. “Jet is one of the oldest materials that has been used for jewellery, and certainly in Great Britain … I loved the romance of that, the history.”
