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Avon Calling

10.27.06By Lorraine Newberry

So many of us grew up playing nearby as the Avon lady showed her wares to our mothers in the living room. Today many of those Avon products and even their containers have become collectors items. While there are collectors for everything from Avon’s trinket boxes to photo frames, their perfume bottles are particularly popular. Available in figures ranging from hands to race cars, the surprising shapes of the Avon perfume bottles make them fun to collect and display.

Originally called the California Perfume Company, Avon started way back in 1886 with a single saleslady. As the name suggested, the company focused exclusively on perfume at first. The company quickly added more sales reps and expanded their product line to include cosmetics. In 1939 the California Perfume Company was renamed Avon Products Inc.

It was during the 1960s that Avon began creating the novelty perfume bottles. The first novelty bottles were a big hit and Avon continued creating them in shapes like guns, school desks, all sorts of animals, Victorian ladies, football helmets, chess figures - you name it. The perfume bottles often came in colorful, whimsically decorated boxes as well.

When collecting Avon perfume bottles, make sure that you have all the parts of the bottle, including caps. Avoid pieces with scraped paint, chipped or cracked glass, damaged labels or any other flaws. It’s always a good thing to have the box that originally came with the bottle (in good shape of course) since that can increase the selling price.

This site shows many of the Avon perfume and cologne bottles, as well as other Avon collectibles: http://www.robinsfyi.com/fun/hobbies/avon/avoncollecting.htm

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René Lalique

07.18.06By Lorraine Newberry

René Lalique talented French designer whose career spanned the last years of the 19th century and early years of the 20th. Not only was he a jeweler of great talent and creativity, but his glasswork is legendary among collectors.

René Lalique was born in 1860 in the town of Ay, France. In his teens he was apprenticed to a Parisian jeweler and later moved to England to study at London’s Sydenham Art College. Upon returning to France Lalique designed jewelry for several different jewelers until opening his own shop in 1885.

René Lalique’s jewelry is said to define the style of the Art Nouveau era, which was popular from around 1895 to 1910. Art Nouveau jewelry tended to use lower-cost gems, and enamel was a common material used in the designs. Decorative elements were taken from nature – leaves, butterflies, flowers and such – and there’s an Asian flavor to many of the pieces. The female form was also a popular subject in the Art Nouveau style. Lalique was noted for his unique work with materials like enamel, pearl, ivory and horn. He won great acclaim with his designs, creating jewelry for the actress Sarah Bernhardt and causing a splash at jewelry exhibitions all over the world.

In 1908 Lalique chose to abandon jewelry making and focus his artistic talents on glasswork. He began creating unique perfume bottles, first for the French firm Coty. He soon was designing bottles for numerous top perfume companies, including Guerlain and Worth. All told, Lalique designed over 250 perfume bottles.

Lalique was also known for his graceful vases and embraced the Art Deco style in his glasswork. In the 1920s René Lalique began designing elegant hood ornaments for automobiles. The glass ornaments were designed to be lit by a bulb and were featured on Bentleys, Bugattis and more.

Although he died in 1945, the company that René Lalique founded is still in operation today. Today his designs are highly sought and while some of his work fetches prices of tens of thousands of dollars, other pieces are available to collectors of more modest means.

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