Posts Tagged ‘jewelry’

Shine on

Yesterday’s post on the ring with a hidden diamond put me in mind of all the jewelry I keep seeing with just enough of the sparkly stuff to put a spring in your step— but not so much sparkly stuff that you have to shell out anywhere near four figures to pay for it. Like this rose gold ring with a diamond bar, for instance, which brings all sorts of quiet elegance to the party.

As talismans go, you can’t beat a horseshoe— for good luck and straight-up cuteness.

Itsy fishies with shiny, bright eyes.

Satomi Kawakita is one of my new favorite jewelry designers: her pieces are both delicate and un-girly, which is a combination you do not find everyday. My stack of rings suddenly feels incomplete without this hexagon.

From estate jeweler Doyle & Doyle’s heirloom collection: a fly  perched and ready to strike.

And its cousins, the crawly little spiders.

Department of: self gifts we wish we could rationalize

If this this Anna Sheffield gold diamond ring isn’t the coolest thing ever, I don’t even know what is.

Check out the wee hidden diamond!

Ten Thousand Things contest: we have a winner

If you’ve ever read any publication’s “Best Of” issue,  know that in the end, it all comes down to the editors making the most well-informed, carefully considered, completely arbitrary decision they can. How is one to determine the ultimate cheeseburger, or end-all mascara, or band of the year?   Every once in a while, you get your Beatles or  your Joy of Cooking, but even their genius is, in the moment,  rarely felt unanimously. And so it has been with the Girls of a Certain Age/Ten Thousand Things challenge, in which you were asked to describe the piece of jewelry that meant the most to you. There were over 200 entries, and from the first day—from the first few hours—I knew I was in for it.  Your stories were so insightful, so moving, and so very often really funny that the notion of picking any one—or even any ten—as the very best became impossible to imagine. To be hideously trite for a moment, these stories are the stories of your lives, and quite often the very most dramatic moments of your lives: marriages, deaths, births, personal breakthroughs and difficult relationships at long last resolved. And good lordy, so much more. If you haven’t taken a look at all of the entries yet, by all means, do. They’re fascinating. You might cry.

As a typically very decisive person thrown into a vortex of indecision, this has been nothing short of torture. I actually called upon a couple of friends for input, and they made matters worse, disagreeing violently on my final choices. And so in the end, I went with one that felt particularly resonant, by a reader named Kim.

 

I’ve been given two pieces of jewelry in my life; both rings.

My parents had me when they were barely out of their teens. They were very young and were distracted by the things that they wanted to be and to do. Also, maybe they were too puzzled by the shy, moody, bookish girl that I was, to know what I needed. But my grandmother loved me unconditionally, fiercely. Although, out of necessity, she was frugal, when I was about ten years old, she gave me a gold ring, with a small topaz, my birthstone. I recall being disappointed that my birthstone wasn’t a sapphire, because blue was my favorite color and at first, I wore the ring mostly out of politeness. But, I came to love that ring. I wore it for years, switching it to different fingers as my hands grew. I remember looking down at the ring and seeing that the stone had fallen out, after so much wear. I found the stone later and put it and the ring in a box, vowing to one day have it fixed and resume wearing it. Decades later, despite my best efforts, that ring is long gone, but still with me as a reminder of being really loved, really treasured, during an otherwise difficult childhood.

The other ring was my wedding band, hastily purchased by my then soon-to-be husband, who was late to work and leaving me to finish the sales transaction, while he rushed off to a meeting. The marriage did not fare well and I stayed much longer than I should have. But, finally I got the courage to leave. I’d stopped wearing the ring years before leaving. I wasn’t married in the ways that most mattered to me and the ring had come to feel like a mockery of me and the person I’d become, the life that I had. Like the topaz ring, the wedding ring was put into a box. It wasn’t something I treasured, but I wasn’t ready to get rid of it. Then, while looking for hairbands, I was surprised to find the ring in a plastic shoe box. I knew I still had it, but had forgotten where I’d put it. Without further thought, I picked up the ring and tossed it into my kitchen garbage can. It felt good, freeing, forward looking.

So, for one ring, the magic was in the having and wearing; for the other the magic was in the gradual letting go.

Not the most upbeat story of the bunch, to be sure. But so many of you wrote about pieces given to you by parents and grandparents that brought you courage and strength or, like Kim, just reminded you that you were loved. So it felt right to pay tribute to that.  And I admired the spirit of everyday fortitude in Kim’s story, because in many ways that is the most difficult kind to summon. I know that for many of you, the notion of tossing a perfectly good wedding band might seem like throwing money down the drain, but for me, that was part of what made the tale so human. Pieces that we attach meaning to often come to represent something quite different along the way, but the fact that this new meaning might be painful or sad doesn’t always make them any easier to part with.  That she chose to put the band in the trash, as opposed to something more dramatic like tossing it off a bridge or throwing it into a fire, spoke to a woman at peace.

So congratulations, Kim. I’ll be in touch. The rest of you can have at me in the comments.

 

We love when things look more expensive than they are: Roost

I am so surprised that I haven’t posted already about the jewelry line Roost that I had to do a search of my own blog just now to confirm that I hadn’t. I discovered the line this summer one afternoon when I was raiding the jewelry case at the Cobble Hill outpost of Bird. The smoky topaz ring you’re looking at right here? 56 bucks!

All this pretty jewelry is under $100

Doesn’t this Bing Bang crystal shard  ring look all luxe and edgy? Sixty eight bucks!

And look: an eternity ring, except instead of diamonds there are itsy bitsy bitsy bitsy skulls.

Typically I’d find teardrop cabochon earrings too costumey, but there is something about this pair in particular, with its navy and red combo, that is driving me mad with desire.

Leather wrap bracelets can get cheap-looking really fast if they’ve got too much beading and frippery going on. I like how clean—but still plenty cool—this one from Giles and Brother is.

This snake necklace is rather elegant, no? Just worn simply with a t-shirt or button-down?

 

 

Keith-a-porter

Dear lord, were Patti Hansen and Keith Richards the hottest rock star couple ever or what? I’m asking this as a serious question. Has anyone else even come close?

Also, for those of you looking to take just a demure touch of Keith with you  wherever you may travel, may I suggest one of these  excellently diminutive skull rings?

 

Don’t change a hair for me, Etsy

Seriously, my moss ring goes with everything.