A forgotten gemstone that reigned during the Victorian era comes back into focus

By Emili Vesilind, CNN

(CNN) — Radiant diamonds, sapphires, and rubies have been among the most coveted gemstones on the planet for nearly a century. But long before their reign, a far less dazzling gem captured the hearts of jewelry lovers — and now it’s making a comeback.

Jet, a flat-black, opaque gemstone derived from wood that has experienced extreme compression over millions of years, was the haute stone throughout the Victorian era, a time when fashion and jewelry deftly signaled a person’s social status, financial wealth and even emotional state. Victorian dress was rife with symbolism and evolved around rigid codes of propriety and caste. Tightly pulled corsets and top hats, to name two ubiquitous items from the era, signified wealth and propriety, while jewels depicting doves hinted to an individual’s deep religious devotion.

Surprisingly lightweight and inky-black, jet is one of the oldest known gemstones, and has been carved and shaped by the artistically inclined since the Neolithic era (7,000-1,7000 B.C.). Both the Romans and Vikings fashioned items with jet, ranging from buttons and rings to tiny sculptures and protective amulets. But it was Queen Victoria who delivered jet to fashion’s highest heights in the mid-1800s. The monarch wore jet often, most notably in the second half of her reign; the gem matched the all-black ensembles she wore exclusively following the death of her husband, Prince Albert. (Jet has been synonymous with mourning dress ever since.)

“Anyone who was anyone was wanting to wear jet in the Victorian era,” said British gemologist Sarah Steele, one of the world’s only jet researchers. “We went around the world looking for sources of jet — to Venezuela, to the north of Spain — and exported it back to the UK.”

Sustained interest in the gem, however, meant the market was slowly flooded with lower-quality jet that chipped and cracked more easily, eroding consumer confidence. Simultaneously, the plastic revolution was accelerating. The popular (and now acutely collectible) jewelry resin Bakelite was invented in 1907, and certain manufacturers even perfected a plastic jet — an effective, if accidental, category killer.

All this led to jet’s popularity plummeting. “Everyone was absolutely sick of mourning, and then the first World War happened, and that was that,” Steele added. “We’re actually lucky the industry survived at all.”

So while jet has been sold on the souvenir jewelry circuit for decades, the gem has long been near-universally ignored by fashion and “high” jewelry designers. But that might be changing.

A handful of esteemed designers have recently been embracing jet, incorporating the featherlight gemstone into fine jewelry pieces stocked by influential stores. And these designers aren’t using just any old jet — they’re purposefully picking Whitby jet, which is widely considered the gold standard of jewelry-ready jet.

Though the gemstone was mined in several discrete regions in the 1800s, including Spain, France, and the American Southwest, Whitby jet formed exclusively underground around the North Yorkshire coastal town of Whitby in England. And “Whitby jet is definitely in the running for the best jet in the world,” explained Steele, who also co-owns Ebor Jetworks, an historic jet workshop and retail shop in the town.

Whitby jet is renowned for being pitch-black in color and tough in temperament. Generally speaking, Whitby jet won’t crack or fade over time, like less hearty, no-name jets are wont to do.

Sussex-based fine jewelry designer Natasha Wightman debuted her first-ever collection for her brand exclusively at Dover Street Market, a retail concept conceived by celebrated fashion designer Rei Kawakubo and her husband and partner Adrian Joffe, earlier this year.

Called “Ravens,” the series features black ravens in mid-flight, intricately carved from Whitby jet by British artisan Graham Heeley and set in gold by local jeweler Ian Fowler. Wightman is intent on exclusively using UK materials and craftsmanship in her collection. Her debut also includes pieces carved from Moorland boxwood and shed deer antlers she plucked from her yard.

“I wanted to use something that came from our land and country,” she told CNN. “Jet is one of the oldest materials that has been used for jewelry, and certainly in Great Britain… I loved the romance of that, the history.”

Jacqueline Cullen, whose work is produced in ateliers in London and Whitby, was one of the first fine fashion jewelry designers to use Whitby jet, roughly 20 years ago. Her “Dark Matter” collection ushered jet into the future: Rounded forms carved from hunks of Whitby jet are set with black diamonds, resulting in jewels that affect little galaxies flickering with dim, tonal sparkle.

The Irish designer wasn’t aware of jet’s long history when she began working with it as a student at acclaimed design school Central Saint Martins in London, but since learning about jet’s past, she explained that she believes the gem’s reputation and place in history is “something it needs to be liberated from.”

“Whitby jet suits my aesthetics and practice,” said Cullen. “I am inspired by elemental energy and dramatic forces of nature. Hand-carved explosive fissures in Whitby jet embedded with black diamonds makes a perfect combination for representing the vortex of a black hole sucking in and crushing dark matter.”

But for many, the gemstone’s rambling history in the UK is part of its appeal. (Ebor Jetworks does brisk business around royal celebrations and funerals, for example.) And the gemstone is as British as it gets. Jet is one of only two gems mined in England — the other being Derbyshire blue john, which resembles amethyst streaked with dark veins and bands.

Heeley, the master carver who makes Wightman’s black ravens, said he’s pleased to be one in a long line of master craftspeople who’ve carved the gemstone in England. And like his jet-wrangling predecessors, he carves it entirely by hand. “It’s a soft, flinty material, and you really do need to feel your way into it,” he noted. “A machine probably couldn’t do it exactly the same way, and would you really want it to?”

And if the current fervor for intangible qualities — including handcraftsmanship and true rarity — in our luxury goods continues, jet is perfectly positioned to garner more fans.  One could easily imagine a fashion visionary such as John Galliano or Schiaparelli’s Daniel Roseberry reviving jet dress buttons (a favorite of Mary, Queen of Scots) and jet cameo brooches, or ordering up a carved jet closure for a bespoke clutch.

A further draw for fashion followers looking to stand out in the crowd is that, unlike diamonds and pearls, it’s genuinely rare — scarce, even. Jet artisans and retailers are always in short supply. The only way to acquire new jet is to hunt for it where it’s been flaking off geological formations. Steele and her work associates travel up and down the coastline looking for loose jet that’s washed up with the tide, the only jet you’re legally allowed to gather. (The land in and around Whitby where jet has long been mined is now privately owned.)

“There’s not enough jet out there and you can’t buy big pieces of jet” said Steele. “We get tourists ringing us for rough jet all the time, and the answer is always ‘no.’”

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