Weiss Jewelry (1942-1971)
Albert Weiss founded his company in 1942 in New York. Previously he gained experience in the costume jewelry business by working for CORO, Marvella, and Grad and Schrager.
Weiss went on to become a hugely successful costume designer in the 1950s and 1960s to the extent he had to contract out work to be manufactured by Hollycraft, to keep up with demand.
Their characteristic look was based more on the rhinestones than on the metalwork, the settings became a mere mechanism for displaying as many rhinestones as could fit on a single piece.
The finest Austrian rhinestones were used, because of their higher lead content which gave Weiss’s pieces a particularly dazzling appeal. The use of inverted stones and the introduction of the ‘black diamond’, a smoky grey crystal that went on to become a best-seller, were widely copied by competitors in the 1950s.
Albert Weiss retired in 1969 leaving the company to one of his sons, but finally closed its doors in 1971.
