By Ron Dupuis
Jewellery designs over the past few centuries have been influenced by myriad events—some international, some local. Changes in politics and diplomacy, the drama of natural phenomena, exploration, and archeological discoveries have all been contributing factors.
Before the Internet, television, and mass transportation, designers, manufacturers, and the jewellery-buying public often relied on various international expositions for information and inspiration. These much-anticipated events combined museum, art gallery, encyclopedia, and workbook manual, all designed to showcase the exotic, as well as the skilled innovators of the time. This yearning for the unusual merged with a fascination for the romanticized natural world away from the grime and dirt of bustling cities and towns.
