Prior to Swarovski's move, around 1890, a group of Viennese artists inspired by the Art Nouveau movement emerging in France called themselves Secessionists and began to openly dismiss the frilly, Rococo adornments of the past. These architects, sculptors, and painters (including Gustav Klimt) rejected the country's proud historical traditions, which they felt were stifling new artistic expression, and embraced the sinewy, organic lines of Art Nouveau.

Secessionist designers Josef Hoffman and Koloman Moser, backed by financier Fritz Warndorfer, established the artist cooperative Wiener Werkstätte in 1903. This influential group was known for its symmetrical geometric forms and works of art in contrasting black and white. These aesthetic motifs appeared in Wiener Werkstätte furniture, glassware, pottery, metalwork, and jewelry. Foreshadowing the Art Deco style of the '20s, the jewelry pieces, often made from enamel and metal, had clean, eye-popping lines that made them elegant in a way that worked for both dressy and casual outfits.

Coco Chanel's 1920s concept of "costume jewelry" gave Austria's rhinestone industry a tremendous boost. Naturally, local jewelers took advantage of this resource, too. Austrian firm Schoffel & Co. began producing top-notch, precisely set crystal costume jewelry in the 1930s, each piece marked with a crown, often accompanied with the words "Austria" or "Made in Austria." Schoffel jewelry, made until the 1960s, is now difficult to find and coveted by collectors.

Austria entered its darkest period in 1938, when the country was occupied by Nazi Germany. Many countries banned jewelry from Nazi-occupied regions, so Austria produced very little jewelry for export. The occupation ended in 1945, but the Austrian jewelry industry didn't recover until a few years later.

When the restrictions on manufacturing Czech and Austrian pastes, or rhinestones, was finally lifted, glass makers returned to producing "gems" in a marvelous rainbow of colors. These vivid rhinestones were often cut into large, obviously fake stones and worn in showy bib necklaces popular in the early 1950s. That same decade, Swarovski introduced its "aurora borealis" rhinestones, diamanté crystals with a special iridescent sheen. New innovations also led to machines that could cut rectangular and baguette-shaped stones, which Schoffel would set in trademark arrays.

Postwar, a newly prosperous America was crazed with consumerism, and a particular taste for whimsy. That's why, during the late '40s and '50s, Austria began manufacturing glass fruit pins almost exclusively for export to the U.S. These little brooches, made of glass that was molded or carved into the shapes of strawberries, pears, cherries, or bunches of grapes, came in vivid colors like scarlet, violet, tangerine, amber, cobalt, and emerald green.

Using Swarovski's foil-backing technique, these pieces have an even deeper shine. The stems and leaves tend be silver, gilt, or japanned metal, but those with leaves made of navette-cut or enamel crystals are even more valuable. Some fruit pins even came with matching earrings, and particularly rare pairs are marked "Germany."

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