Wearing Fruit Salad
Hello Cape Girardeau, Missouri and beyond,
Yummy! Fruit salad is a treat, but you can wear "fruit salad" jewelry all year long. The expert jewelry reference writers and jewelry historians have a definite style for fruit salad jewelry, and it is the original and correct style. However, the market has evolved and dealers and collectors include other styles with the original, and term them, "fruit salad".
Alfred Philippe was a lead designer for Trifari from 1930 through 1968. Phillippe's copy of Cartier's "Tutti-Frutti" jewelry pieces are now referred to as "fruit salad" by collectors and by costume jewelry experts. Cartier's "Tutti Frutti" was made in the 1920's and early 1930 and has precious gems carved and shaped like small fruit. What costume jewelry is made from, is molded glass made in the same style of "Tutti Frutti", resembling fruits and leaves.
It is the shape of the stone, and not the color, that qualifies a true piece of costume jewelry as "fruit salad". They are not carved glass, they are molded glass.
The '30s and '40s fruit salad used precious jewel colors, to mimic the original Cartier pieces. There were only a few pastels and white used in this time period.
Today, "fruit salad" has a different meaning, correct or not, to most dealers and collectors, it is any piece of jewelry that looks like a bowl of fruit salad. That includes multi-colored rhinestones, multi-colored rhinestones with faux pearls, jewelry made in the shape of fruit -- plastic and glass, and more. Although this is frowned on by jewelry experts, this is the way it is. Just be aware and knowledgeable of what you are purchasing.
I freely admit, I am not a personal fan of molded fruit jewelry, jewelry made in the shape of mini-fruits, or the true Cartier, but, give me a bold broach of multi-color rhinestones with faux pearls (marshmallows) and it looks like fruit salad to me.
Wear what you love to wear, wear your personality in fruit salad of any type.
Have fun. Be classic, be you, wear vintage.
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