Strauss, Allard & Meyer. Jewelers of the Art Deco era.

The names of such jewelry brands as Cartier, Van Cleef and Arpels or Boucheron are on everyone’s lips. But only specialists know the company Strauss, Allard & Meyer. But at the beginning of the 20th century, these jewelers worked in close cooperation with famous companies. Not all the goods sold in the stores of large companies were produced by them in their own workshops. Cooperation with small jewelry workshops was beneficial for both parties.

In the period between the two world wars, which is now called the Art Deco era, the workshop Strauss, Allard & Meyer became one of the most famous manufacturers of high-quality accessories for many famous French jewelry brands. The workshop’s products were marked with their own hallmark, and then the store’s hallmark was applied to them. Most often, such items are considered to be the product of a famous company, and the name of the workshop is not always mentioned, although behind all jewelry brands there are, first of all, experienced and talented manufacturers who developed and created products for large brands.

It is believed that Jean Gustave Maurice Allard (1882-1949), received a jewelry education in England, and in 1909 opened a workshop in Paris together with Albert Emile Meyer. Allard was an artist, and Emile Meyer was responsible for the commercial success of the business. And the workshop prospered, since from the very beginning it received orders from Cartier, Janesich, Lacloche Frères for letter openers, lighters, cigarette cases, business card holders and other accessories for wealthy clients. The workshop changed several addresses and eventually settled on the Place des Vosges in Paris.

According to the memoirs of his son Maurice, Allard was a very good designer. When he was drafted into the army during the war in 1914, he continued to sketch everything that surrounded him: landscapes, trenches. It was during the war that he met Raphael Strauss, who joined the firm in 1919 and turned out to be an excellent businessman. Cosmetic bags with precious stones became popular accessories in the 1920s. Life changed after the First World War. And this was reflected even in such a small thing as a cosmetic bag: it became acceptable to use cosmetics in public.

Parisian jewelers responded sensitively to the emerging demand, creating compact toiletry bags and powder boxes made of gold, diamonds and ornamental stones, with such exotic materials as jade, coral and lacquer, combining geometric shapes of Art Deco with Japanese, Indian or oriental ornaments. This is how compact powder boxes and cosmetic bags appeared, “which smart women like”, usually with two compartments for powder and blush, a lipstick holder and a mirror in the lid.

Large firms managed to survive all the storms and wars of the last century. Small jewelry workshops were less fortunate. Raphael Strauss was forced to emigrate to the USA in 1941. The workshop continued to operate for some time, but I did not find the exact date of its closure.