“Sobriété, Chic, Discrétion”: Promoting Modern Jewelry and Accessories in Adam: La revue de l’homme, 1925-1940

Abstract

This paper discusses the promotion of modern jewelry and accessories in interwar France using the men’s fashion magazine Adam: la revue de l’homme as a case study. It focuses on a number of the magazine’s features on jewelry and accessories from the period 1925-40 in order to demonstrate how its mission to become “the magazine of the rue de la Paix” encompassed the promotion of jewelry and accessories. Recognizing that jewelry and accessories is an under-researched area, particularly in relation to studies of men’s formal attire of the period, this essay provides evidence of the seriousness with which the style commentators of Adam, complemented by its editorial decisions and advertisers’ contributions, were prepared to lend to the subject. Ultimately, the paper argues that a consideration of modern jewelry and accessories in the context of a relatively conservative men’s fashion magazine can help to further our understanding of the role played by modern objects of personal adornment in the interwar period.