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Another trend in wearing chains was the sautoir. Now the term is used for almost any long necklace but in 19th-century France, it described a particular kind of woman's necklace: a long neck chain that hung from the shoulders to below the waist, often with a pendant or some sort of fringe at the bottom. Sometimes these were even worn draped over one shoulder. The long necklaces adopted by the Flappers in the early 20th century were also referred to as sautoirs.
It’s said that fashion goes in cycles: Nothing ever really disappears; it just fades for a while and then resurfaces in a slightly different form. It seemed to me that a perfect example of this was the way that the long, heavy gold chains of the Renaissance resurfaced—or came back with a vengeance-- in the 1980s with the advent of hip-hop. Slick Rick, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Jam Master Jay, and RUN-DMC were just a few of the artists who wore the humongous gold "ropes". Outrageous and extravagant, these chains were status symbols (as jewelry has always been), but more importantly, symbols of being accepted, of “being part of the crew. The link below shows a photo of the three members of RUN-DMC, all wearing ropes.
 Then again, it's entirely possible that ropes have nothing at all to do with European tradition. Kanye West calls them "an African thing". While I couldn't find much evidence of heavy gold chains being worn in Africa, the Akan people worked in gold, as did the people on the Côte d'Ivoire. More pertinent may be the long tradition of big, bold, dazzling pieces that are found in so many different types of African jewelry. |
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