A History of Engagement Rings, Vol. 7: The 1920’s
Norma Shearer with her Art Deco engagement ring from movie exec Irving Thalberg.
We were packing up for our weekend show last night and couldn’t bring you the history of engagement rings from the 1920’s. But don’t worry – we weren’t going to make you wait too long for the era that has a firm grasp on our heart.
The wedding of a 1920’s couple.
The 20’s ushered in the beginning of the Art Deco period (it spanned a few decades) and with the era came rings in mostly white gold and platinum, constructed of bold geometric shapes and lines with accent stones like sapphires and onyx for contrast.
Some women were true lucky ducks, like one of Hollywood’s first movie starlets, Norma Shearer. She married MGM exec Irving Thalberg in 1927.
A 1920’s Wedding Couple
It’s rumored that in true movie exec style, he called his starlet into his office and presented her with a tray full of diamond rings and let her pick the one she liked best. She chose well, picking a hunk of a marquis – geometry at its finest.
Others to wed, and we assume to have Art Deco inspired engagement rings, included Joan Crawford marrying Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Oscar Hammerstein who married actress turned interior designer Dorothy Blanchard.
Do you have an Art Deco ring? Tell us all about it in the comments. We can’t wait to hear about all of your gorgeous rings!
We’ve been patiently waiting to get to this edition of the History of Engagement Rings because….. ART DECO! Yes, the 30’s were smack dab in the middle of the Art Deco period and this is one of our favorite times for engagement rings. And we also get to talk about two of the world’s greatest jewelry collectors, as they married during the 30s. Let’s dig in.
But there was another American that was also had a jewelry collection to rival any royal – 
Others to marry during that period were Lawrence Olivier, Mary Pickford, Norman Rockwell and Bebe Daniels. While images of engagement rings associated with those weddings are hard to come by, we’re certain they were fashioned in the style of the day, similar to those shown here (some of which are available on our website).
Many men and women were forgoing engagement rings all together and engagements weren’t the protracted events we know them to be today. If your love was heading off to war, you may skip the formal engagement all together and head right down the aisle.
And Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart opted for simple colored stone center with some small diamond accents for her ring. All in all still pretty understated given their fame and fortunes.
But once the war was over – whew boy did things change. Many of the men, having been away at war and now desperately searching for “normalcy” were coming back home and proposing to their girlfriends, old flames and in some cases, women who were practically strangers. With the end of war, came more money and the return of extravagance. And that included diamonds!
The diamond geometric lined engagement ring of the Art Deco period had been replaced with rings that included more floral details and a larger center diamond, instead of many smaller stones centered together. It was in the 40s, after all, that DeBeers’ ad agency coined the term “A Diamond Is Forever,” kicking off a now long-standing tradition of diamonds as the engagement ring centerpiece. And who might be one of the most iconic examples of the diamond engagement ring of the later 1940s?
None other than Queen Elizabeth, Great Britain’s current reigning monarch. The soon to be Prince Philip gifted her with a ring created from diamonds once in a tiara having belonged to his mother, Princess Alice of Greece.
