At Jessica McCormack’s recent jewellery presentation in Paris, she tied cotton friendship bracelets around the wrists of the industry’s great and good. Against the backdrop of the couture shows – where the celebrity circus hogs more limelight than the clothes – it was a sweet moment of simplicity that chimed with the overarching mood for homespun pieces on the bijoux scene. For McCormack’s part, the thoughtful trinkets made for “a cute gift that represents not only the new Tapestry collection – an ode to friendship and the knotted bracelets of the ’70s – but also a nice way to mark relationships with people the brand really cherishes”. The innocent string charms became folksy bedfellows for the beaded confections snaking up wearers’ arms already, thanks to another tastemaker dominating the accessories scene. Sorry Jessica, Taylor Swift has had major stakes in the friendship bracelet market for some time.
Indeed, digital director Kerry McDermott was compelled to purchase a bracelet-making kit (clay beads, 200pcs), despite her craft days ending when she left primary school, to make a colour-pop token of friendship for global network lead and executive editor Giles Hattersley, who bagged the features desk tickets to see Swift on the first London leg of Eras. Strictly reserved for the frenzied confines of Wembley stadium, McDermott is now “swapping [her] homemade ‘Down Bad’ merch for a pile of Roxanne Assoulin’s playful stretchy bracelets, or one of Kirstie Le Marque’s cute beaded necklaces” this summer. Hattersley’s bracelet has never been spotted in the Vogue office either, but – should you be mulling over your own “Folklore” or “Evermore” tributes – there’s plenty of inspiration to be found on the Instagram accounts of squad members, such as Gigi Hadid, who proudly jangle their arm parties on concert days. (Side note: Travis Kelce once tried to give Taylor a bracelet with his phone number strung onto a braided band.)
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While the economy-boosting popstar – who is also responsible for the recent surge in sequin and rhinestone sales – can link the jewellery trend back to a lyric in “You’re On Your Own, Kid” that Swifties ran with, the craft movement has a renewed personal resonance for some creatives in the fashion space. Rosh Mahtani of Alighieri, for example, has swapped her signature stacks and stacks of gold-plated necklaces and bracelets for a single talisman strung around her neck on black Japanese cord, because of the “naivety of childish simplicity” that currently appeals to the thoughtful jeweller.
“As a child, I would always wear a black cord around my neck, and whenever I would find a special shell or stone, I’d find a way to tie it to my cord, and wear it for luck,” shares Mahtani, who launched the Link of Wanderlust and Gone Fishing chokers last year as an ode to those escapades, and has since expanded the black Japanese cotton cord offering to include brown leather cord and red holy string. “While my family isn’t religious, there are a couple of rituals that have stayed with them,” recalls Rosh, regarding the latter material she’s suspending her charms from. “Every August, around the full moon, women will tie a red string around their brother’s wrist, with a candlelit prayer. In return, the brother offers a small token or gift – it’s supposed to be a way to keep your bond strong through life’s ups and downs.” Her Catch of the Day necklace, featuring a dinky molten gold fish, felt like the perfect nod to her own brother, who is a Pisces.
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The use of cord to provide “a certain ease and organic elegance” to Mahtani’s signature Dante-inspired treasures is one that resonates with Alexia Karides, whose brand YSSO also sits at the more affordable end of the jewellery market. “I found that the look of a chunky pendant on cord was a good way to mix dressing up and dressing down – I thought it looked very cool,” notes Karides, who used a string necklace her mother wore in the ’90s as the blueprint for her vision of modern jewellery with ancient beginnings. “I remember thinking how timeless and fun it looked, while at the same time being precious.” Sales show this sense of effortless glamour, where “nothing attracts attention away from the pendant”, is resonating with customers buying into the former corporate lawyer’s organic, sculptural pieces made in collaboration with her mother Stalo, an archaeologist and art historian.
Net-a-porter.com has seen a 150 per cent increase in searches for cord necklaces over the last six months alone, with market director Libby Page citing the trickle down effect of Chemena Kamali’s new Chloé vision as responsible for the bohemian jewellery trend putting the onus on craft-centric storytelling. Page’s hero picks? AGMES’s wishbone gold vermeil cord necklace, and the simplest of neck ties cropping up in Loewe and The Row’s collections. Keep an eye on etailer for new brand Maison Mayle, but know you can always fall back on the quiet, artistic pieces of Sophie Buhai, who is cashing in with covetable mermaid jade and pearl necklaces.
Over at Mytheresa.com, it’s the Crayola-coloured jewellers who are currently riding a commercial high. Bead queens Ileana Makri, Suzanne Kalan, Roxanne First and Sydney Evans are now creating limited-edition capsules for the platform to keep collectors with a magpie eye for detail engaged. “These pieces combine meaningful jewellery with summer fun,” asserts Mytheresa.com chief commercial and sustainability officer, Richard Johnson. Valerie Messika, too, declares that her eponymous brand’s zany Move Uno bracelets “embody the mood of the season”, and are hugely popular because of their styling potential (think beach to bar etc.)
Who will be wearing their sweet holiday purchases or homemade trinkets come autumn? For Mahtani, switching up her jewellery goes far deeper than trends or endearing throwback sleepover club connotations. “It feels like a renewal of my creative practice, bringing me all the way back to the beginning,” says the designer, whose beloved brand has just turned 10. And let’s face it, no one wants to take a friendship bracelet off first, do they?
