There was a time when the contents of a woman’s handbag were every bit as precious as the jewelry she wore. From the 1920s through the 1960s, Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels made gold compacts, lipstick holders, cigarette cases, perfume bottles, and elaborate nécessaires de beauté—gilded, jewel-encrusted objets d’art designed for the rituals of daily life. (Wallis Simpson was an avid collector. When pieces from the Duchess of Windsor’s storied collection went under the hammer at Sotheby’s in 2010, a nécessaire engraved Wallis from Edward 1947 was a major highlight.) Now a new generation of designers is reimagining these once utilitarian objects as jewelry in and of themselves.
Julia Ferentinos, founder of New York–based jewelry brand Juju Vera, collected antique cigarette cases, compacts, lighters, pillboxes, and vanity objects from estate sales and flea markets long before she began designing jewelry. Today those finds inform her own pieces: silver cigarette cases, minaudières, and lighters worn as pendants with tassels dangling below. “They were never just functional to me,” she says. “They were small works of art that reflected a person’s rituals, taste, and way of moving through the world.”
