IMG_5159.JPG
IMG_5161.JPG
IMG_6275.png
IMG_5163.JPG
IMG_5162.JPG
IMG_5159.JPG
IMG_5161.JPG
IMG_6275.png
IMG_5163.JPG
IMG_5162.JPG

Rare vintage Léa Stein Paris geometric clip earrings, laminated cellulose acetate in red & black

€210.00

Léa Stein is one of the most innovative names in 20th-century plastic jewellery. Working in Paris alongside her chemist husband Fernand Steinberger from the late 1960s, she developed a painstaking technique of layering dozens of paper-thin sheets of cellulose acetate into a "sandwich," baking the block over weeks or even months, then cutting it into shape – a process so labour-intensive it's hard to believe the result is plastic at all.

Measurements: 3 cm length, 3 cm width.

Léa Stein is one of the most innovative names in 20th-century plastic jewellery. Working in Paris alongside her chemist husband Fernand Steinberger from the late 1960s, she developed a painstaking technique of layering dozens of paper-thin sheets of cellulose acetate into a "sandwich," baking the block over weeks or even months, then cutting it into shape – a process so labour-intensive it's hard to believe the result is plastic at all.

Measurements: 3 cm length, 3 cm width.

This pair, most likely from her vintage 1969–1981 period, draws on Constructivism: the early 20th-century Russian art movement built on bold geometric shapes, sharp diagonals, and high-contrast colour blocking, originally conceived as a rejection of decorative art in favour of dynamic, architectural form. A fierce diagonal splits each square into fiery red-orange and deep navy, and along the edge you can actually see the layered construction itself – black, white, black, orange – a visible cross-section of the technique that went into making it.

While Léa Stein brooches are typically signed on a V-shaped metal pinback, her earrings and bracelets were very often left unmarked, and are authenticated instead by their construction. These earrings show exactly the features collectors look for: the laminated sandwich edge, and a clip fitting set into a recessed "bed" in the back of the acetate, heat-pressed directly into the plastic – Léa Stein's characteristic earring mounting, distinct from generic clip fittings of the period. Heavy in the hand, beautifully matte, and as graphic today as it would have been in the 1970s.