Brooch, Lea Stein Paris

Léa Stein (born 11 February 1936) is a French artist and accessories designer, known for her compressed plastic buttons, brooches, and bracelets. She is often hailed as "the most remarkable and innovative plastic jewelry designer of the 20th century". Little is known about her childhood, but some sources suggest that she spent part of it in a World War II concentration camp. She also trained as an artist from a young age. Stein entered the fashion industry in 1957 working in textiles, and in 1965 developed an interest in plastics. She worked with her husband, chemist Fernand Steinberger, to develop a process of layering very thin sheets of cellulose acetate (or rhodoid) and laminating them to form a "multi-colored plastic sandwich".[4] Each "sandwich" was baked for a long time, then cooled and cut into shapes. The process could take up to six months. This technique allowed Stein to insert different fabrics (such as brocades and lace), colors, and textures into the plastic. Jewelry The back of a Lea Stein "Quarrelsome" brooch. Note the inscribed V-shaped metal clasp. Stein's brooches depict animals, cars, household items, celebrities, and people in a distinctive style, sometimes resembling Art Deco (leading some to mistakenly date her work to the 1920s). Each brooch has a name, sometimes as simple as "Fox" or more descriptive like "Quarrelsome" the cat. Each design can come in dozens of different colors and patterns. The brooches were made in two periods: vintage (1969 to 1981) and modern (1991 —). Each brooch has a distinctive V-shaped metal clasp inscribed "Lea Stein Paris." Some collectors suggest that the clasp determines when it was made. Vintage brooches had the clasps hot-stamped into the plastic; in modern brooches, the clasps are riveted. Some early brooches had V-shaped clasps without the "Lea Stein" inscription. However, other collectors suggest that this is not true. The only way to distinguish vintage from modern is to have a thorough knowledge of Stein's designs cf wikipedia