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When Aretha Franklin sang "Chain of Fools," she was singing about a woman who realizes she's one of many who've fallen for a heartbreaker. But if you find yourself falling for chains, it's one of the savviest fashion decisions you could make. Chains are the accessory that no one is talking about and yet--as if they’d all made a secret pact --many of the major fashion and jewelry designers are using to highlight this year's fashions. It's almost as if the beauty of wearing chains is so obvious that no has to mention it. It's the secret code for the perfect look.
A Brief, Incomplete History of Chains
Chains have been used in jewelry since ancient times and have been made from gold, silver, copper, and just about any metal that could be formed into a series of connected links. According to Tino Volpe, humans began working with gold in Neolithic times and found that "certain metals, most notably pure gold, were extremely ductile and could be hammered and stretched to a great degree. It's theorized that gold chains developed along with the invention of gold wire, which required hammering gold into flat strips and then " pulling them through die forms until they were thin. Each link then had to be individually curved and soldered. A chain machine was invented in the seventeenth century, but until then all chains were handmade.
An art unto themselves, chains have been fashioned with almost endless variety and worn either on their own or as a means to suspend pendants or jewels. Chains are defined by a number of characteristics including the way the links interlock; the shape of the links (oval, circular, rectangular); whether they're twisted or flat; and whether the links are single or multiple.
Among the most common types of chains are: the bar chain and bead chain, which alternates between bar-shaped and bead-shaped links; the rope chain, a simple style, where the links tend to be uniform in thickness and breadth, and the chain looks like a rope; the cable chain, made with oval links; the box chain, which has box-shaped links; the snake chain, which has very tight links that give a bit of a zigzag look; bead chains, which look like old key chains—tiny metal balls joined by short lengths of wire; the curb chain which has flat, interlocking links that are similar to each other; and the herringbone chain, a distinctive chain, made of v-shaped links that lie flat and have a shimmering liquid effect. |
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