People all over the world have adorned their bodies since probably the beginning of time. Even in hot climes where the indigenous population didn’t wear clothing, tattooing and jewelry as status systems began almost immediately.
Jewelry serves a variety of purposes:
It can serve as currency, or as a display of wealth, and a means to display that wealth.
There’s also a functional u se, such as decorated clasps, pins and buckles.
Then there is the symbolism, or designs that show status.
Jewelry, in the form of amulets, is also used for protection, to ward off the “evil eye” or vampires.
And finally, just as an artistic display, to look pretty or handsome, or stylish.
Despite the fact that people seem to have an innate likign for adorning their bodies, restrictions have probably always been placed on what could be worn, and what could not be.
For example, in ancient Rome, only people of certain ranks could wear rings. Laws, called “sumptuary laws” not only dictated what classes of people could wear what type of jewelry, but also the clothing they could wear (in an attempt, doubtless, to keep the poor from fooling others into believing that they were “above their station.”
Culture plays a role… men in the 15th through the 18th centuries dessed as gaudily as women, wearing earrings and jewelry and brightly colored clothing, by the 19th and early 20th centuries, this practice was discouraged as effeminate.
Body jewellery, such as piercings, is becoming popular in Western culture, as is the ostentatious display of jewelry, which was once ridiculed. Today, the term is “bling” or “bling bling” and huge, clunky pieces of jewelry that would once have been condemned as tacky or tasteless are all the rage.