I have always been drawn to geometry. Growing up surrounded by Persian art and architecture, I was immersed from childhood in a world built on pattern: the interlocking stars of a Safavid tilework ceiling, the radiating lattice of a mosque window, the repeated hexagons pressed into a painted tile. Geometry was not decoration. It was language.
So when I began studying jewellery design seriously, it was perhaps inevitable that Art Deco would captivate me. Here was a Western movement from the 1920s and 1930s that had independently arrived at something Persian artists had understood for centuries: that geometry is beautiful. That clean lines, precise angles, and repeated forms can produce objects of extraordinary elegance.
Art Deco jewellery remains one of the most influential and enduring design movements in the history of fine jewellery. Understanding it will not only help you appreciate the pieces you see in auction catalogues and museum cases, it will help you understand what makes great design timeless.
The Origins of Art Deco Jewellery
Art Deco emerged in France in the early 1920s, reaching its height between 1925 and 1935. The name derives from the Exposition Internationale des Arts D��coratifs et Industriels Modernes, the grand Paris exhibition of 1925 that showcased the new aesthetic to the world.
The movement was a reaction. It pushed back against the flowing, nature-inspired curves of Art Nouveau, which had dominated the previous two decades. Where Art Nouveau celebrated organic forms, trailing vines, insect wings, and the soft asymmetry of nature, Art Deco looked instead to the machine age. To speed, modernity, and the bold confidence of a new century.
The timing was significant. The First World War had shattered old certainties. Women had entered the workforce in unprecedented numbers. Fashion was changing rapidly. The flapper silhouette replaced the corseted Edwardian form. Hairstyles shortened. And with them, jewellery changed too. Long necklaces, geometric brooches, angular bracelets, the jewellery of the 1920s was designed for a different kind of woman and a different kind of life.
Key Design Elements of Art Deco Jewellery
If you want to identify Art Deco jewellery, there are several defining characteristics to look for. As a trained jeweller with over seven years working in fine jewellery design and production, I can tell you that these elements appear again and again in the pieces I most admire.
Geometric Patterns and Angular Forms
This is the defining characteristic. Art Deco jewellery favours straight lines, right angles, triangles, hexagons, and stepped forms. The circle appears, but disciplined and precise, not organic. Chevrons, fan shapes, sunburst patterns, these are the vocabulary of the movement.
The fascination with geometric purity was partly inspired by the discoveries of the age. Howard Carter opened Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922, and the bold geometric forms of ancient Egyptian art electrified Western designers. Influences also came from Aztec and Mayan architecture, with their stepped pyramids and angular reliefs. Art Deco was a cosmopolitan movement, drawing from cultures across the world.
Platinum and White Metals
Art Deco jewellers largely abandoned yellow gold in favour of platinum and white gold. These cooler metals suited the angular, precise aesthetic of the movement. Platinum in particular became the metal of choice for fine jewellery, as it could be worked into extremely delicate settings that held diamonds with minimal metal visible, allowing stones to appear to float.
Contrasting Colour
Far from being monochromatic, Art Deco jewellery often used bold colour contrast. Black onyx against white diamonds. Deep green emeralds alongside icy sapphires. Vivid red rubies set in geometric platinum mounts. The Cartier 'tutti frutti' jewels, with their carved Indian gemstones in ruby, emerald, and sapphire, are perhaps the most celebrated expression of this approach.
Enamel was also widely used, often in vivid electric tones. The pairing of colour with geometric form gave Art Deco pieces a graphic quality quite unlike any jewellery that had come before.
Milgrain and Pav�� Setting
The setting techniques of Art Deco were as precise as the designs themselves. Milgrain, a technique of adding tiny beaded edges to metal borders, gave Art Deco pieces their characteristic fine texture. Pav�� setting, where small diamonds are set close together to create a continuous surface of brilliance, was used extensively to fill geometric forms with light.
Both techniques require exceptional skill. When executed well, they are virtually invisible as techniques: you simply see the intended effect, a shimmer of light, a precise edge, a surface that seems to glow from within.
The Great Houses of Art Deco Jewellery
Art Deco jewellery was elevated to an art form by a handful of extraordinary Parisian houses. Cartier, Van Cleef and Arpels, Boucheron, and Mauboussin were the leading names, and their 1920s and 1930s output remains among the most sought-after jewellery ever created.
Cartier's Art Deco pieces are characterised by an almost architectural rigidity, precise platinum structures holding stones in geometric arrangements that feel engineered as much as designed. Van Cleef and Arpels brought a softer geometry, with the mystery setting they patented in 1933 becoming one of the period's most extraordinary technical achievements, stones set so tightly that no metal is visible from above.
These pieces did not just reflect the era. They defined it. And they continue to define what fine jewellery can be at its most ambitious.
The year of the Paris Exposition that gave Art Deco its name and launched a design revolution
Art Deco Engagement Rings: Why They Endure
Of all the jewellery categories influenced by Art Deco, engagement rings may be where the movement has had its most lasting impact. Art Deco engagement rings are among the most popular choices today, and it is not difficult to understand why.
The combination of a central stone, often an old European cut or emerald cut diamond, surrounded by geometric pav�� shoulders and intricate milgrain detail, produces a ring that is simultaneously bold and delicate. The geometric framework gives structure and personality, while the pav�� diamonds add warmth and sparkle.
Art Deco engagement rings also have a quality that many modern rings lack: they are interesting from every angle. The gallery, the shoulders, the profile, all carry detail. They reward close attention. And in my experience, pieces that reward attention are the ones people wear and treasure for a lifetime.
The most popular stone shapes for Art Deco style rings today include the emerald cut, the Asscher cut, and the old European cut. All three have a faceted structure that aligns naturally with the geometric character of the setting.
Persian Geometry and Art Deco: A Shared Language
This is where, for me, things get genuinely exciting. Because the geometry that defines Art Deco, the interlocking patterns, the stepped forms, the precise repetition of angular motifs, is not unique to the 1920s. It is the visual language that Persian and Islamic artists perfected over more than a thousand years.
Walk through the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque in Isfahan and you will see geometric tile patterns of extraordinary complexity: sixteen-pointed stars, interlocking hexagons, stepped lozenges that seem to shift and dance as you move past them. These patterns are not decorative afterthoughts. They are expressions of a philosophy that saw geometry as a reflection of divine order.
Persian geometric art reached its mathematical peak during the medieval period, centuries before Art Deco. Scholars and artists in Iran, Central Asia, and the Arab world developed geometric tessellation to a level of sophistication that continues to astonish mathematicians today. The girih patterns found in 15th-century Persian architecture, for instance, anticipate Penrose tiling by five hundred years.
Art Deco designers in Paris were certainly aware of Eastern art. The orientalism of the early 20th century, though complex in its colonial dimensions, brought Persian, Indian, and Chinese visual traditions into direct contact with Western luxury design. Cartier's exploration of Indian carved gemstones and Persian decorative motifs during the Art Deco period is well documented.
For me personally, this convergence is the heart of what I do at Silux London. I am a British-Iranian jeweller, trained in Birmingham, working within Western fine jewellery traditions. But the visual grammar I reach for instinctively draws from Persian geometric art. When those two traditions meet in a piece, something distinctive emerges. Not Art Deco exactly, not traditionally Persian exactly, but something that belongs to both.
You can see this dialogue in the Firouzeh collection, where Persian turquoise is set within geometric frameworks that owe as much to Art Deco precision as they do to Islamic tilework. The language is shared. The voice is new.
Art Deco's Influence on Contemporary Jewellery Design
Art Deco has never really gone away. It retreated during the 1940s and 1950s, when wartime austerity and then mid-century modernism shifted design priorities. It enjoyed a significant revival in the 1980s, when bold geometric fashion jewellery was everywhere. And today, it is genuinely influential again, particularly in bridal jewellery.
Contemporary Art Deco style jewellery tends to take the vocabulary of the 1920s and apply it with modern materials and sensibilities. Emerald cut diamonds in sleek platinum settings with subtle pav�� shoulders. Geometric cluster rings that reference the period without copying it. Stepped bangles in two-tone gold. The design language translates remarkably well to contemporary tastes, perhaps because it was never really about the 1920s. It was about the timeless appeal of precision and clarity.
In my own work, I would not describe myself as an Art Deco designer, but the movement's principles resonate with me deeply. Precise geometry. Deliberate colour contrast. The belief that a setting should be as considered as the stone it holds. These are values I hold too, and they trace a direct line back through Art Deco to the Persian traditions that first gave me my visual language.
Designing a Bespoke Art Deco Inspired Piece
If Art Deco style jewellery appeals to you, particularly for an engagement ring or a significant piece, bespoke design is the ideal route. Original Art Deco pieces from the 1920s and 1930s, while beautiful, often have limitations: sizing can be difficult, prongs may be worn, and the metals were not always alloyed to modern standards of durability.
A bespoke Art Deco inspired piece, designed from scratch, gives you the aesthetic you love with none of the compromises. You choose the stone, the metal, the precise geometric motifs that appeal to you. The result is something that honours the tradition while being entirely new, and built to last for generations.
At Silux London, I bring my own perspective to Art Deco inspired design. The geometric patterns I draw from are as likely to reference a Persian tilework ceiling as a 1920s Parisian jeweller, and I think that produces something more interesting than a straightforward reproduction. If you have an idea, however early in its development, I would love to talk it through with you.
Firouzeh Collection
Persian turquoise set within geometric fine jewellery inspired by centuries of Islamic art
Explore FirouzehFinal Thoughts
Art Deco jewellery endures because it is grounded in principles rather than fashion. Precision. Clarity. The bold use of geometry and colour. These are not trends. They are fundamental qualities of good design, and they resonate across cultures and centuries.
For me, Art Deco represents something personal too: the proof that the visual language I grew up with in Persia speaks a universal grammar. When a Parisian jeweller in 1925 and a Persian tilework master in 1425 both reach for the same geometric forms, it tells you something profound about human taste and the deep appeal of ordered beauty.
If you would like to explore Art Deco inspired design, or any bespoke commission, you are very welcome to visit my bespoke service page or learn more about my background and approach on my about page. I am always happy to talk jewellery.
