Explore Juliana Designs
DeLizza & Elster jewelry changed dramatically over the years.
The company worked with rhinestones, glass, plastics, enamels, beads, chains and cast metal components, creating everything from delicate floral designs to whimsical figurals and bold later statement jewelry.
This section of The Juliana Collector explores those designs by form, material and design family, making it easier to see how individual pieces fit into the larger DeLizza & Elster story.
Choose an area below to begin exploring.
Figurals & Novelty Designs
Bugs, butterflies, animals and other whimsical forms are among the most popular and recognizable areas of Juliana collecting.
Explore the construction, variations and small details that distinguish different D&E figural designs.
Explore Figurals & Novelty Designs →
Materials & Finishes
DeLizza & Elster used far more than traditional rhinestones.
Explore enamel, heat-formed plastic, molded components, unusual surface treatments and other materials that helped D&E jewelry change with fashion.
Wood Jewelry
DeLizza & Elster occasionally moved far beyond rhinestones, using painted and carved wood in pendants, figurals, earrings and bracelets. These unusual pieces show just how experimental D&E could be with materials and design.
Enamel-Back Designs
DeLizza & Elster sometimes used colored enamel on the reverse of a design as part of the jewelry’s construction. Documented examples show the same basic designs made with several different enamel colors, giving collectors another reason to study the back as carefully as the front.
Heat-Formed Plastic
Discover another side of Juliana through sculptural flowers, butterflies, owls and novelty designs. Frank DeLizza’s account explains how D&E worked with a plastics specialist to turn softened plastic into imaginative jewelry components.
Twisted & Textured Metalwork
From rope-like frames to textured butterfly antennae and sculptural leaves, Juliana’s decorative metalwork often deserves as much attention as its stones. Compare the distinctive treatments used in documented DeLizza & Elster designs.
Stones, Beads & Components
The stones and components chosen by DeLizza & Elster are an important part of the company's design vocabulary.
Explore unusual stone shapes, glass treatments, molded stones, beads, pearls, chains and other distinctive components found in D&E jewelry.
Explore Stones, Beads & Components
Motifs & Design Families
Certain ideas appear again and again in DeLizza & Elster jewelry.
Flowers, leaves, grapes and vines, geometric forms and other recurring motifs can help us see relationships among pieces that might at first appear very different.
Juliana's Uncommon Multi-Prong Design Families
Two distinctive families—one featuring oval multi-prong stones and the other round—show how related setting techniques create very different designs. Explore the families and a few Frank DeLizza-confirmed exceptions.
Explore Motifs & Design Families
Later Juliana & Changing Fashion
DeLizza & Elster did not stop evolving after the classic rhinestone jewelry of the 1960s.
During the 1970s and 1980s, changing fashions brought new materials, larger forms, cast components, chains, plastics and increasingly dramatic designs.
This section explores a side of D&E that can look very different from the Juliana many collectors first learn to recognize.
Explore Later Juliana
Continue Exploring
Learn the construction clues used to identify DeLizza & Elster jewelry:
How to Identify Juliana Jewelry
Return to the main educational library:
Return to The Juliana Collector
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