A Hard Metal for Delicate Jewels

The bright, white metal exudes purism, suggests technical aptitude and hints at progress, zeitgeist and perfection. Jewelry made of stainless steel is a recent but also timelessly old idea. By using non-precious materials, jewelry artists in the nineteen seventies intended to put an end to the traditional perception of jewelry. Thanks to its unique properties and charisma, stainless steel is now a metal frequently used in jewelry.

Steel is the most important material for our civilization and the history of technology. The greatest ideas humankind ever dreamt of, starting with the railway, going on with airplanes, cloud-bursting skyscrapers or spectacular bridge constructions, giant ocean liners, cars or even space travel would never have been possible without this material. It is the material of our age, but not only for large, technical constructions: the metal is practically omnipresent, from pots and pans and screwdrivers right through to scalpels.

Iron is everything other than rare: it accounts for around five percent of the earth's crust. After aluminum, it is therefore the second most frequent metal found on our planet. The Ice Age, when human beings learned how to mine this hard metal in adequate quantities, was the most important period in the development of humankind, following on from the Stone and Bronze Ages. The Egyptians were the first to process meteorite rock containing iron. Even at that time, they used the easily corrodible metal as a material for jewelry. Items placed in tombs included small balls made of iron in addition to the gold jewelry. Around 1,400 BC, the Hittites, a tribe from the Near East, used bellows to create the sufficiently high temperatures in wood charcoal fires in order to forge iron into steel. In Europe, the Iron Age started around 800 BC. The Celts discovered the first, major iron deposits in Upper Austria and started to produce iron weapons and tools, but also jewelry. After this, not much was heard of iron as a jewelry material. People preferred precious metals. Steel was used exclusively for tools and weapons, etc. Jewelry made of cast iron did not reemerge until around 1786. They were forged in the Prussian smelter shop in Gleiwitz. The rediscovery of the jewelry metal used in ancient times went hand in hand with the growing significance of the material for prosperity and progress. Huge steelworks were constructed, and the so-called steel barons like Thyssen or Krupp were the first nabobs of non-ristocratic origins, who owed their wealth to the industrial revolution. Iron was regarded as a modern material, as a synonym for transformation.

The material was also well suited to the strict perception of form in classicism. In the period of the Napoleonic Wars (1807-1812), jewelry made of iron experienced a golden age. Citizens donated their golden jewelry in order to finance armor. Iron jewelry from Berlin, with its delicate, small casts and its black and blue hues was popular throughout Europe. Inscriptions such as "l exchanged gold for iron" remind us of the patriotic purpose. The glorious ascendance of steel jewelry started around 1800. It was most popular, especially in France. British manufacturers replicated the facets on polished diamonds using tiny little steel platelets. Brooches or pendants with natural motifs such as butterflies or blossoms were much in demand. Women from the urban, bourgeois class wore broad chains or bracelets made of woven steel wire, decorated with coins. This costume jewelry was by no means cheap. The fashionable trend reached its apex around the middle of the 19th century, and from 1870 onwards, iron and steel were barely used in order to produce jewelry.

It was not until 1974 that the original material of technical progress experienced its barnstorming revival with the Linzer Symposium for Steel Jewelry organized by Peter Skubic, although individual jewelry artists were already using the material for their creations. For example, the firm Stahl from Birkenfeld produced a small stainless steel collection in the nineteen fifties. However, the material remained mainly reserved for individual, artistic pieces. It was not until the Viennese maverick arrived that the material found widespread approval, not only in the jewelry industry. The provocative figure of the jewelry scene loves developing visions that fly in the face of materialistic convention within the goldsmith trade. Jewelry made of iron became his trademark. The material was intended to thumb its nose at gold and its aspirations of conservative, materialistic value. The metal taken from the world of technology symbolizes functionality and strength, the opposites of the soft gentleness of the malleable precious metals. The Düsseldorf-based, renowned artist Friedrich Becker also focused intensively on steel as a material for his kinetic objects and jewelry. The material reveals all of its strength in this context: steel can be used for voluminous, but nonetheless light objects, which remain extremely stable. Robust, moving jewelry objects with joints holding ball bearings, hinges and cogwheels, etc. are now realistic. Steel can be processed with a far greater degree of precision than gold or silver. These are precisely the material properties that form the basis for its victorious ascendancy in the world of technology; but this means that steel is equally interesting for the production of jewelry.

Most recently, the topic of jewelry was the title of an exhibition, which was initiated and organized by the Colloquium North Rhine Westphalia in the Jewelry Museum in Pforzheim and four other venues. 16 jewelry artists from Germany were selected and invited. In addition, the exhibition featured the submissions by students at the Pforzheim Goldsmith School for the last competition held by the Colloquium. In total, 100 pieces were submitted.

Iron and steel are not expensive. However, processing these materials to form jewelry places the highest demands in goldsmiths. Its hardness and resistance mean that the metalworker or blacksmith must draw on all their crafts skill, reliant also on the creativeness of the jewelry designer. The material permits countless variations on surface treatment, ranging from a high gloss polish, a matt grey grind, black etching and even corroded in black and brown or full of brown rust. A combination with precious metals such as gold, silver or gemstones creates a very impressive contrast.

The topic of steel is not only of interest for artists. A lot of leading jewelry firms are now turning to the trendy, white metal. Their products cover a very broad range, from fashion jewelry through to precious items with brilliants set in Pavée cut and gemstones or even combined with precious metals. Steel has been out of the closet for a long while. The former provocateur is now part of a broad movement with a rapid-growth market.

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