Top

A lady with a love for literature and shiny things discusses books & bling.

You are here: Home / Archives for featured

A Halloween snake jewelry roundup.

Good morning, my darlings, and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!

I love this holiday so much. Silliness, exuberance, the breaking of rules, and the possibility of magic – what’s not to love?

A Halloween snake jewelry roundup.

In honor of Halloween, I’ve decided to do a roundup of fantastic snake jewelry! As we’ve discussed before, snakes motifs in jewelry represent all kinds of wonderful, romantic things – but, being snakes, they still exude an air of sensuous danger and temptation.

Without further ado, please enjoy the following glorious serpentine jewels.

Antique snake rings from Roy Rover.


A box of delicious antique snake rings from Roy Rover!

A magnificent antique snake bracelet.


I met this mind-blowing snake bracelet at last year’s Lueur show.

A spectacular set of Victorian jewelry with blue enamel and diamond snake details. Stunning. At Keyamour.


A spectacular set of Victorian jewelry with blue enamel and diamond snake details. Spotted at Keyamour.

Read More

Julie Lamb’s NYC Manhole Cover pendant makes city grit pretty.

I saw a lot of fabulous jewelry at Metal & Smith last month, but a few pieces made a lasting impression. Today, we’re going to look at one I loved so much that I decided it needed to have its very own post. I’d like you to meet Julie Lamb’s phenomenal NYC Manhole Cover pendant.

Julie Lamb's NYC Manhole Cover in yellow gold with diamonds! Handmade in NYC.I’ve always been drawn to the random, inanimate details that makes cities unique. If you look at my vacation photos, you’ll see streetlamps, windowsills, bits of graffiti – the minor, ubiquitous details that give a place its identity. I think that’s why Julie Lamb’s NYC manhole cover pendant resonates with me so much.

Julie Lamb's NYC Manhole Cover in yellow gold with diamond accents. Handmade in NYC.New York City is a place bursting with landmarks. There are a million and one iconic symbols of the city, which have been used in a million and one different ways.

Immortalizing one of the city’s most pedestrian details – one that the people who live there walk over on a daily basis – feels like such an intimate, genuine way to pay tribute to the everyday beauty of a place that’s so frequently dramatized for commercial consumption.

Two different ways of styling the Julie Lamb NYC manhole cover pendant.

This piece comes in yellow gold or silver, in a large or a small size, so it’s incredibly versatile. You can style the small one like a charm while the larger comes on a long chain and feels like more of a medallion.

I love asking designers about their inspiration when I find a piece especially interesting. I was expecting Julie to say that her NYC manhole cover pieces were inspired by manhole covers: but actually, it was Time magazine that gave her the idea for the design.

In Julie’s own words:

I grew up in Brooklyn and attended the High School of Art & Design in Manhattan. Commuting an hour and fifteen minutes each way by subway and bus. Manhole covers and subway tokens were daily industrial details (among others like graffiti, garbage, skyscrapers, cement, etc.) that served the city we scurried through.

Seeing that golden manhole cover image [on Time magazine] made me look at this common street detail in a whole new way. Let me cast it in 18K Gold, let me add a few diamonds, let us revere this industrial design by translating it in luxurious materials.

Julie Lamb's NYC manhole cover pieces are made in New York, by New Yorkers - and it says so on the back.The back of Julie Lamb’s NYC manhole cover pendant really seals the deal for me. This design isn’t your typical “yay, the Big Apple!” souvenir-type of piece. It’s made in the city, by the city, for the city.

Read More

Jewels for votes for women: let’s talk suffragette jewelry.

I had such a cool post idea for today, darlings. I was going to write everything I knew about suffragette jewelry: about how the use of green, white, and violet means “Give Women the Vote” and how many great examples there were of suffragette jewelry online.

The Google image search results for suffragette jewelry.

Jewels for votes for women: let’s talk suffragette jewelry.

Here’s the thing: before I write anything for you, even if I’m writing about something I think I know, I do research. I went looking for information on suffragette jewelry expecting confirmation of what I already knew plus maybe a detail or two.

But lo and behold: most of what I know about suffragette jewelry is wrong. Or if not actually wrong, at least drastically oversimplified.

You know nothing, Jon Snow. Gif via Giphy.

What I thought I knew: jewelry from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s with a color scheme of green, white, and violet is suffragette jewelry! The colors stand for the acronym “Give Women the Vote.” Suffragettes are awesome, jewelry is awesome, this is all awesome.

This turned out to be partly true.

At least one of the most popular suffragette groups – the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) did claim the colors purple, white, and green (in 1908). But not because it makes up an acronym; rather, because the WSPU felt that the three hues represented qualities that every suffragette had: nobility/dignity, purity, and hope.

The WSPU also never said “Give Women the Vote” at all. Their rallying cry was “Votes for Women.”

A purple, green, and white suffragette sash.


That’s not to say there was never any high end jewelry produced in the purple/green/white color scheme that was an intentional nod to the suffragette movement: we have primary source proof that there was. (Image source.)

Mappin & Webb, a renowned London jeweler, dedicated a page of their 1908 Christmas catalog to green, white, and purple suffragette jewelry. At least some high end suffragette jewelry definitely existed – pretty pieces that I imagine mostly on elegant noncombatants, like the mom from Mary Poppins, rather than on the women who were getting arrested.

But such pieces would only have been produced for a small window of time: after the WSPU declared their colors in 1908 but before the start of World War I in 1914.

Actual pieces of suffragette jewelry tended to be buttons and badges, rather than high end precious pieces.


In the United States, suffragettes were more likely to wear celluloid buttons (a recent invention) demanding votes for women or to sell their jewelry to raise money for the cause. (Image source.)

Also worth noting: the suffragettes were not a subtle bunch. Expressing their beliefs in secretly color coded jewelry really is off-brand for them, for the most part.

Read More

Follow along with me on Instagram