A plastron necklace is a massive piece of jewelry that goes down from the neck to the chest and almost completely covers it. It came to us from Egypt and was called uskh there. The open-circle necklace consisted of several rows of beads with ties or curly clasps on the back. Sometimes it was made of solid gold plates, on which multi-colored stones and minerals were already fixed. The decoration was a symbol of the sun and served as a badge of honor.

A heavy and massive collar didn’t come to Europe soon, only in the 19th century. The name plastron, which came from the French language meant bib. This was originally the name of the starched part of the men’s shirt, which could be seen from under the tailcoat. Then the name passed to the shirt front with ties, which replaced the snow-white shirts. Later, a tie in the form of a narrow strip of fabric on the neck with acute-angled ends was called a plastron. It became widespread in the second half of the 19th century. In Great Britain it is also called ascot.

The same time, women were offered large necklaces with many decorative elements that covered their breasts. It is also called plastron.

This type of necklace periodically comes back to fashion. So plastrons were very fond of Yves Saint Laurent, who studied the costumes of ancient civilizations and turned to their forms. He showed a variant with multi-colored cabochons in his 1989 collection. Tiffany recently teamed up with Elsa Peretti to unveil an 18K gold plastron necklace with an aged emerald bead.