About this section

Culture & Craft is background reading to go with the jewellery. Nothing here is selling, and nothing promises an effect. The aim is to explain a few things clearly: how to choose a piece, where a motif comes from, how to make it last, and what the numbers in a specification actually mean.

The reason for writing these pieces is plain. Anyone buying this kind of jewellery is usually offered two kinds of information: a screen full of "attracts wealth", "wards off evil", "brings luck", lively and unverifiable; or a cold table of figures with dimensions and materials and nobody to explain what they mean. The middle ground is empty. We wanted to fill it, without the mysticism and without the dryness.

The articles are not long, and they do not appear on a schedule. They are slow to write because every statement has to land somewhere: which tradition a motif belongs to, what a technique should be called, how a particular number was measured. Where there is no basis for a claim, the space stays empty, or the sentence does not get written.

The four below are easiest read in order. If time is short, start with the one that covers what is on your mind.

One: How to Choose Jewellery That Suits You

Sequence is the argument: decide where the piece sits, then size and weight, then material and work, and leave motif and style until last. Plenty of people start with the pattern and discover at home that it is too heavy, too large, and goes with nothing in the wardrobe. Change the order and there is much less to get wrong.

There are a few crude methods in the piece: hold a thread against yourself in the mirror to judge chain length, hang a pendant over a finger to feel its weight, cut a piece of paper to the stated size and hold it up. All more reliable than imagining from a screen.

Read How to Choose Jewellery That Suits You

Two: The Difference Between Daoist, Buddhist and Folk Motifs

Taiji, bagua, lotus, vajra, pixiu and gourd are often sold side by side and lumped together as "Eastern culture". They belong to three systems: Daoist motifs lean towards an abstract expression of order, Buddhist motifs continue a figurative sculptural tradition, and folk motifs are wishes stated plainly.

Telling them apart is not about antiquarianism. It is about not giving offence, and about knowing what the thing you are wearing is saying. The piece lists a few common misreadings, among them the pixiu described as a Buddhist beast, and bagua paired with a votive plaque and called an "Eastern mystical symbol".

Read The Difference Between Daoist, Buddhist and Folk Motifs

Three: Wearing and Caring for Your Jewellery

Silver going dark does not mean it is fake; it is silver reacting with sulphur compounds. Copper darkening has nothing to do with quality either — it is how the metal gets on with its environment. Once that is clear, care feels different: rather than fending off age, the aim is to make the change slower and more even.

Methods are set out by material: silver, copper, plating, beads and cord each handled differently. Storage, travel and climate are covered too, along with when to stop wearing a piece. There is a five-minutes-a-week checklist at the end.

Read Wearing and Caring for Your Jewellery

Four: How to Check Specifications, Dimensions and Fittings

A photograph conveys character; it does not convey scale. The same pendant looks a delicate thing on a model and enormous in a white-background studio shot. What deserves close reading on a product page is the lines of numbers.

The common specifications are taken apart item by item: pendant height, width and thickness; chain length and width; ring inner diameter and band width; bracelet bead size and slack; earring weight and pin material. Fittings — three-hole bead, spacer bead, extender chain, dangling charm, gau box — are each explained. Read it and you can judge, before ordering, roughly what the piece will look like on you.

Read How to Check Specifications, Dimensions and Fittings

Two more, on how we work

How We Choose sets out the standard for listing anything: sound form, a traceable motif, clean work, a clear description. It also sets out what we do not do — no promises of effect, no invented provenance, no concealed flaws.

About Us answers a different question: why the shop exists, and what it is trying to become.

Read How We Choose · Read About Us

A few rules we keep when writing

Be specific about sources. If a motif belongs to a particular tradition, name it, rather than waving it away as "mysterious Eastern culture". Promise no effects: culture can be described, but it should not be turned into a selling point that guarantees an outcome. And admit uncertainty — "material to be confirmed" where the material is unclear, "as described by the actual item" where the technique is unclear. Do not invent a version because it reads better.

Prefer the concrete. Dimensions in millimetres, weight in grams, chain length in centimetres, tolerance as plus or minus. Fewer adjectives, more numbers. And allow "we do not know". Some designs genuinely have no traceable origin; saying so is enough, and there is no need to supply a plausible legend.

These articles get revised

Products change, the trade changes, and our own judgement changes. The articles are revised from time to time, particularly where they touch on material, technique and care. If something is inaccurate, or you have a better way of putting it, the contact details are at the foot of the page.

Being told what is wrong is more useful than being praised. These pages are meant to be accurate before they are meant to read well.

Appendix: a few terms

Antiqued finish: a chemical or physical treatment that leaves dark tones of varying depth on the metal surface, deepening the recesses of a pattern and bringing out its layers. It has nothing to do with a flaw, and nothing to do with second-hand goods; it is an effect deliberately kept.

Chasing: a chisel is tapped point by point across the metal to raise a pattern, leaving the hesitation of the hand in the line, so that two pieces of the same design are never identical. Casting: the piece is formed in a mould, with a full body and stable detail, suited to batch production, and possibly a faint trace near the parting line at the edge.

Fire gilding: gold is alloyed with mercury, applied to the metal surface, then heated so the mercury evaporates and the gold layer bonds. A traditional technique, relatively costly, with a warm finish. Gold plating: a thin layer of gold deposited electrically, cheaper, and the base metal shows through at points of long friction.

Three-hole bead: the three-hole junction piece in a beaded strand, joining the main strand to a pendant. Spacer bead: a fitting between main beads, separating materials and protecting them. Dangling charm: a small drop hung below the main piece. Gau box: a small Tibetan portable box that opens and closes; for jewellery use, workmanship and proportion matter more than the interior.

Slack: the allowance by which a bracelet exceeds the wrist measurement, usually one to one and a half centimetres. Inner diameter: the inside measurement of a ring or bangle, the most direct figure for judging size. Including bail: whether the height takes in the hanging loop at the top — the difference can be five to eight millimetres.

Appendix: what if you cannot get through it

Four long pieces are a lot. Read the first and last paragraph of each; the core argument is usually in there. What genuinely needs close reading is the part you are stuck on: for size, the first and fourth; for motifs, the second; for wear and care, the third.

These pages are for use, not for memorising. Skip what does not land and come back when a real question arises; that is when it stays.

Reading about jewellery is a little like choosing it. There is no need to understand it all at once. Today you remember how to measure a chain, tomorrow why silver goes dark, and after a few of those you have enough.

After reading

If a single sentence stays with you, it should probably be this: work out what it is, how big, how heavy and how to care for it, and then decide whether you like it. Get the order right and the liking has something to stand on.

None of this will make you buy more, and it is not meant to. Thinking before buying matters more than anything else here. One piece chosen carefully and worn for years is worth more than a drawer of things never worn. If these pages save you one return, or one purchase you regret, they have done their job. The rest is your judgement, and your liking.