About 1900 in Paris, this revival of the goldsmith's art was carried further by the jewelers of the art nouveau movement, led by René Lalique. Ignoring historic styles, he took his themes from plants, birds, and insect forms. Emphasizing design more than the costliness of material, he used enamel, ivory, glass, and horn as often as semiprecious stones and gems. The art nouveau style was introduced in the United States by Louis Comfort Tiffany, one of the first important American jewelry designers.
Modern jewelry reflects important changes in fashions and technology. After World War I (1914-1918), the vogue for short hair for women resulted in the disappearance of formerly popular jeweled combs and hair ornaments. In the same period jeweled vanity cases, wristwatches, and cigarette cases came into style. Strong, lightweight metals such as platinum, iridium, and palladium permitted unconventional settings for gemstones, and new casting methods resulted in more sculptural designs and a greater use of different metallic textures and finishes. As in the Renaissance, painters and sculptors again designed jewels. The works of French painter Georges Braque and American sculptor Alexander Calder combine appropriateness with wearability. The jewels of Spanish painter Salvador Dalí were more extravagant and were more representative of design for its own sake than as a function of the jewel to be worn. Although a great deal of modern jewelry is designed and made by large firms, the tradition of the artist-craftsman is strong in Scandinavia and the United States, where silver, semiprecious stones, hammered copper, and other less costly materials are commonly used. Plastics are often employed in inexpensive jewelry. Arts-and-crafts shops produce a vast selection of abstract and naturalistic designs in rings, bracelets, earrings, necklaces, and brooches. Although jewelry in the 19th and early 20th centuries was worn primarily by women, in the late 20th century some men were wearing jewelry such as neck chains, bracelets, and earrings.

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