Moira Jewels at the LAPADA Art and Antiques Fair

Good morning dearest!  We are back at the LAPADA fair in Berkeley Square from the other week, and today we are admiring the collection of Moira Jewels:

A few beauties from Moira’s collection: a pair of aquamarine and diamond earrings, and a black opal ring with diamonds

I have been told by quite a few people to look closer at the pieces that belong to Moira’s collection, as they are some of the finest antique and vintage jewels around.  Above is a pair of aquamarine and diamond earrings – pretty sure I can hear a few of you swoon!

A few dress rings (also called cocktail rings) from Moira.  I adore the opal at the front here with its soft colours

I obviously have the privilege of looking at Moira’s pieces to my heart’s content, as they have their collection on display at Richard Ogden in the Burlington Arcade!  Their pieces span across the 20th century and you will find signed originals from the finest design houses, covering the art deco period – and continuing on to 1940s gold work and the modernist creations of the 1950s to the 1980s.

Vintage diamond watches from Moira Jewels

… and if you are anything like me, then these Art Deco diamond watches will make your heart beat just a little bit faster!  Oh can you imagine wearing one of these to that birthday party, or to those drinks at the weekend?  As soon as I wear a special piece of jewellery, I get so much more inspired to get dressed up and match it with a lovely dress.  I do think that we have moved away a little bit too much from the times when we would often wear our finest, so let’s just bring that back, shall we?  I am doing a proper summer to winter-wardrobe revamp this week and I will make sure to keep some glorious dresses out to stay inspired to wear them!

 Diamond tiaras from Moira Jewels

And these diamond tiaras were just too pretty you guys!!  Here in the UK (since I know that you lovely readers are based around the world) it is quite common for the bride to wear a tiara, and so it is just wonderful when these lovely ladies come into the shop and try on our collection of vintage and antique tiaras!  I would love to hear whether you would choose to wear a tiara or a veil or flowers or just a gorgeous hairdo at your wedding?

I will write a longer post on Moira Jewels soon and bring you some more photos of these heavenly pieces, and now I would like to wish you a lovely rest of the day!

 

The Beautiful Black Opal

Oh I am so excited about today’s post!!  Yesterday in the Richard Ogden shop I suddenly got my hands on this black opal and diamond ring, and so I thought that we could look closer at this extraordinary stone.  It is the one in the photo below to the left, and you can see how it is so beautifully surrounded by diamonds.  The ring to the right features a white opal, also surrounded by diamonds.

Black Opal and Diamond Ring

The world’s first black opal was found in an area of South Wales in Australia called Lightning Ridge in 1877 – we have already learnt about the history of opals in the previous blog post The enchanting landscape of the Opal.  Well, the world was overjoyed about this amazing find, as they had never seen anything like it!  In fact, opals had had a very bad reputation 50 odd years earlier, when Sir Walter Scott novel “Ann of Geierstein” associated the heroine’s unfortunate downfall with an opal.  Suddenly everyone believed that opals would bring bad luck, and so the opal trade suffered immensely for a long time – for no legitimate reason whatsoever!  This black opal was then fortunately brought to the attention of the world, and opals immediately sprung back into popularity – and Lightning Ridge remains the finest producer of black opals until this very day.

As you can see in the photo above, the body of the stone in a black opal is what gives the stone its name.  This darkness is caused by small trace elements of carbon and iron oxide, which you will not find in other opals (1).  The dark colour ranges from dark grey to pitch black, and the characteristic rainbow of colours that we have seen in “regular” opals will still be present in the stone.  Black opals are the most valuable ones because of the way the colour spectrum stands out so beautifully against this dark background.

You can also see above that the white opal to the right is cut with a cabochon (the shape of a dome) whereas the black opal has quite a flat top.  The reason for this is that the opal colour bar in the black stone is thinner than in the white one, and so it has to be cut thinner to retain its colour.

A white opal surrounded by diamonds

And do remember to wear your opal jewellery, as we have learnt that this lovely stone revels in the humidity of the skin and may break if left unworn for too long!

One of the rings in the first photo comes from the Richard Ogden-collection and the other one from Moira Jewels – and you can viewed them both at our favourite Richard Ogden shop in the Burlington Arcade

Sources:

(1) Opals Down Under