Materials

All kinds of material used in costume and jewelry could be listed here, from cobbles to silks and from seeds to dyes. However, I would like to use this page as an entry for a list of materials dominating in costume that personally fascinates me. Such as silver associated with bridal wealth for example, or alloys that are sometimes deliberately used to lower the monetary value of silver in jewelry. Instead of describing glass beads on veils, I would like to describe those under patterns and colors, since glass may be replaced by other materials and has no specific meaning to the object. Replacing semi-precious stones with other less valuable material however, is an subject I would like to address here. In our worldview these replacements may seem strange but in antiquity as well as in some contemporary cultures this is in fact very much accepted.

However, the aspect that intrigues me most about materials is the combination of materials used in costume and jewelry. The unlikely combination of glass with fibre, silver and plastic, cloth and stone has my fascination. Especially finding some of them in (archaeological) context, describing them and attempting to preserve them for future generations.

the unlikely combination of materials used in wearable heritage