Costume jewellery has been part of the culture for almost 3 centuries. In the 18th century craftsmen started creating and making cheap jewellery made with glass to resemble some precious jewellery items that were worn by noble class. During the 19th century, jewellery craftsmen started using semi precious materials to create costume jewellery and those items were affordable for the common people.
Anyhow, the golden era of costume jewellery is the 20th century. Middle class people wanted to have their own beautiful and fashionable, but affordable jewellery. Industrial revolution made their dreams true, because it was possible to produce some replicas of beautiful and admired jewellery pieces.Even though a lot of people think that machine has spoiled the beauty and rarity of the hand-made costume jewellery, the fact is that industrial revolution has made trendy jewellery items more affordable and has enable industrial companies to produce enough of these jewellery pieces to satisfy desires and requirements of millions of women from every part of the world. In fact, nowadays there are many successful wholesale jewellery companies all around the world.
The key to the popularisation of Costume jewellery was the Hollywood film industry, because the female stars started wearing the unique jewellery pieces crafted by many popular designers. Copies of those pieces were made by the same designers that created the originals, but those copies were less expensive and affordable to a lot of common women. Coco Chanel also made popular the use of faux jewellery.
The ethymology of the therm costume jewellery is related to the use of word “costume” back to the early 20th century, representing something nowadays called an “outfit”. So, costume jewellery is meant and made to complement some fashionable “costume”.