c. 1950s Wooden souvenir jewelry

If you want to collect something more fun and funky than traditional jewelry, take a look at wooden jewelry! Some of the brightest colors and most creative designs you’ll see are available in this mostly unappreciated art form.
Wooden jewelry has been around since man first learned to carve and woman first learned to crave pretty adornments for herself. But it hit the height of it’s popularity during the Great Depression and World War II, when expense and scarcity made other metal jewelry prohibitive for most people. Wood was combined with early plastics such as bakelite, carved, or stamped from sheets of wood and painted. Lady’s home magazines even offered kits to make jewelry . Because of the popularity of cowboy heroes in the movies, much of the jewelry from this period was western in style-cowboys, Indians, horses, and boot theme jewelry from this era are still easy to find, as are soldiers, black American pieces, anchors, fruits and flowers.
When the war was over and metals as well as new improved plastics were available, wooden jewelry no longer was fashionable. The only pieces still sold were found at souvenir shops and were generally imported from Japan, such as the pelican shown above.
It wasn’t until the 60’s when the hippie generation began to wear wooden beads and bracelets as part of their ‘return to nature’ movement that wood and hemp jewelry once again became acceptable. And now in a new century, boldly colored wooden bead necklaces and bracelets are again showing up in fashionable shops. So drag out your old hippie beads and enjoy. Just like any other trend, wood is in !