Léa stone

Léa Stein (born February 11, 1936 in Paris ) is a French jewelry designer . She designs costume jewelry made of laminated , colored cellulose acetate . Her best-known designs include brooches in the shape of stylized animals, colorful buttons and hair combs, as well as bracelets and hair clips . Léa Stein prefers stylistic forms of Art Deco . She is one of the most innovative designers of plastic fashion jewelry of the 20th century. Her designs can now be found in influential design museums around the world .

Life

After finishing school, Léa Stein studied applied arts in Paris. After marrying the chemist Fernand Steinberger in 1954, she began experimenting with plastic materials. First she worked for a short time in Coco Chanel's fashion studio . She then opened her own fashion studio in Belleville at the end of the 1950s . Her husband supported her in the technical implementation of her creative ideas. The couple developed a process to laminate very thin sheets of colored cellulose acetate, rhodoid or secoid together. These plastic laminates were firmly baked together in oil and cut into shapes after cooling. The artist also worked various other materials into these plastics, such as fabric, brocade , lace , mother-of-pearl or metal, thus creating structured plastic surfaces. The plastics that she then processed into costume jewelry were sometimes made up of up to 50 thin layers of cellulose acetate. The production of such plastic sheets was a lengthy process and could take several weeks to months.

From 1967 she first made buttons, later bracelets, hair accessories and, above all, brooches from the colorful plastics. The success of their designs in the late 1960s to early 1970s led to an expansion of their production. The colorful designs for plastic bracelets and brooches corresponded to the zeitgeist , so that she could sell her jewelry in department stores and boutiques . For the French children's series l'ile aux enfants , she made buttons and badges with the popular characters from the television series in the 1970s .

At the beginning of the 1980s, sales of plastic fashion jewelry collapsed and Léa Stein sold her company shares to an American investor , who marketed her collection particularly successfully in America . Due to its commercial success, she was awarded the title Famous designer of french jewelery .

In 1988 Léa Stein resumed her own jewelry production. In addition to proven models in new color combinations, she also presented new designs, including a. the fox and cat head earrings , Ric the terrier, the Attila, Gomina and Bacchus cats and numerous owl and eagle owl designs .

Léa Stein's jewelry designs can now be found in numerous design and jewelry museums, such as the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum , the Museum of Design in Plastic , the Denver Art Museum or the World Jewelery Museum in Seoul . Some of her brooches owned by Madeleine Albright were shown in the exhibition Read my pins - The Madeleine Albright Collection in 2012 , including the designs Foxy Lady , Black and White Turtle , Wise Owl and Polar Bear .

Work (selection)

Laminated cellulose acetate for the back of a brooch

Laminated cellulose acetate for the front of a brooch

The signed pin of the Famous fox pin melted in plastic

Léa Stein designed numerous strictly geometric and figurative brooches. There are countless color combinations of each shape, which were created through the lamination of colored cellulose acetates. The success - especially of the animal brooches - began with the three-dimensional fox brooch, which is still available today. In her early creative phase, she designed plastic brooches that she decorated with serigraphy drawings of women's heads. In addition, she designed brooches as an homage to famous personalities such as Elvis , John Travolta , Josephine Baker , Joan Crawford and Scarlett O'Hara . In addition to badges for everyday objects such as shoes, hats, Christmas trees and cars, she also made a collection of combs made of colored plastics in the 1970s .

Their geometric designs she was inspired by the paintings of Sonia Delaunay and the Art Deco -Modeschmuck from Bakelite inspire the late 1920s and early 1930s. Léa Stein's jewelry is signed on the V-shaped pin with the words Lea Stein Paris . Although the individual designs in series were partly published several times, the plastic brooches are now traded between 80 and 500 euros. The most famous jewelry designs include:

• Famous fox pin (brooch)
• Tennis lady (brooch)
• Flapper (brooch)
• John Travolta (brooch)
• Elvis (brooch)
• Joan Crawford (brooch)
• Josephnie Baker (brooch)
• Rhana the leaping frog (brooch)
• Cat Attila (brooch)
• Gomina sleeping cat (brooch)
• Bacchus cat face (brooch)
• Quarrelsome (brooch)
• Cat with ball (brooch)
• Ric the terrier (brooch)
• Ladybird pin (brooch)
• Carmen (brooch)
• Indian head (brooch)
• Rolls Royce Phantom (brooch)
• Maya the Bee (brooch)
• Kimdoo dog Scottie Terrier (brooch)
• Chauffeur boy (brooch)

literature

• Judith Past: Lea Stein Jewelry . Schiffer Book for Collectors, Atglen 2001, ISBN 978-0-7643-1381-3

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} The Colorful World of French Jewelry Designer Léa Stein . In: Tablet Magazine . ( tabletmag.com [accessed June 11, 2017]).
2. ↑ ^{a b} Lea Stein Jewelery - Does Anyone Wear It? In: Decolish.com . ( decolish.com [accessed June 12, 2017]).
3. ^ Ginger Moro: European Designer Jewelry . Schiffer book, Atglen 1995, ISBN 978-0-88740-823-6 , pp. 106 .
4. ↑ Jewelery Monthly: The art of Léa Stein . February 25, 2015 ( jewellerymonthly.com [accessed June 11, 2017]).
5. ↑ Lea Stein - | Antique jewelry, fashion & design jewelry. Retrieved June 11, 2017 . 
6. ^ Plastic Virtue Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum . In: Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum . February 7, 2017 ( cooperhewitt.org [accessed June 11, 2017]).
7. ↑ AIBDC: 007334 | Museum of Design in Plastics, MoDiP. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on October 10, 2017 ; accessed on June 12, 2017 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
8. ↑ Read my pins - The Madeline Albright Collection. Denver Art Museum, accessed June 11, 2017 . 
9. ^ Judith Miller : Costume Jewelery . Dorling Kindersley, London 2008, ISBN 978-1-4053-3404-4 , pp. 160-162 .
10. ↑ ^{a b} Lea Stein - Jewelery Designer . In: World Collectors Net . March 5, 2005 ( worldcollectorsnet.com [accessed June 11, 2017]).

Remarks

1. ↑ In some literature references the year of birth is given as 1931.