A LETTER FROM A READER · ELEANOR & JAMES

Why one small bracelet earned a letter

I GAVE UP ON BRACELETS AT SIXTY. A WOMAN AT THE SATURDAY MARKET CHANGED MY MIND

Six things a little bird bracelet gets right that a whole drawer of bracelets got wrong, written down by a customer, not a jeweller.

Robyn McKenzie · Customer · Whitianga · 5 min read

I

’m 68, and for about eight years I didn’t wear a bracelet at all. Not because I didn’t like them. 

I

’m 67, and for about eight years I didn’t wear a bracelet at all. Not because I didn’t like them. I just got tired of them.

 They clanked on the bench while I was cooking, caught on every jersey I pulled on, and slid down over my hand when I was weeding. One by one they went into the top drawer of my dresser, and none of them came back out.


Then one Saturday morning I was at the farmers’ market, paying for a bag of feijoas, when I noticed the wrist of the woman behind the stall. Soft brown cord, and a little silver charm of three birds on a branch. I said, I like your bracelet. She said, everybody does. I went home and looked it up before I’d even unpacked the feijoas.

 

It’s called the Vintage Bird Bracelet, from Eleanor & James, a small boutique that makes things for women our age. I bought it fully expecting to be disappointed when it arrived. I wasn’t. So I wrote to the boutique to tell them why, and they asked if they could share my letter with other women. So here it is: the six things this one gets right.

If you’ve shopped for a bracelet lately, you’ll know that most of them are made for one of two women.

 

The first is going out on a Friday night. Her bracelets are all sparkle and dangling charms, and they look lovely on a 30-year-old wrist and a little silly on mine.

 

The second doesn’t want to be noticed at all. Her bracelets are so thin and plain you could forget you’d bought them, and most people do.

 

I’m neither of those women. I’m the one popping to the garden centre on a Tuesday, meeting a friend for a flat white and doing the crossword in the afternoon.

I wanted one small thing that looked nice on an ordinary day, and I’d almost given up believing it existed. This little bracelet is the proof that it does.

1

THE THREE LITTLE BIRDS — DETAIL WITHOUT NOISE

Sitting on the cords is a small silver toned charm, three little birds side by side on a branch. It is the sort of detail nobody sees across a room and everybody sees across a table. People lean in, and then they ask. It reads like a piece with a story behind it, a gift, an heirloom, a holiday, rather than something that came off a rack of fifty identical bangles.

The three birds, up close. This is what people lean in to look at.

"Everyone asks me about the little birds. It looks like something passed down, not something bought last month."

Margaret W., Tauranga

2

SOFT CORD, NOT CLATTERING METAL

The band is two slim rounds of soft brown cord, smooth and flat against the wrist. It does not rattle on the table when you are eating, it does not catch on knitwear when you are pulling a cardigan on, and it does not leave that green mark cheap bangles do. It simply sits there, quietly, all day.

The two cords and the little coiled knots that finish them.

“I forget I am wearing it, which I cannot say for a single bangle I own. No noise, no catching.”

Susan T., Hamilton

3

IT GOES WITH EVERYTHING I OWN

Brown cord and a silver toned charm is about the most forgiving combination there is. It looks right next to my watch, right on its own, right with my two old bracelets, right with a summer dress or a winter jumper. There is no outfit in my wardrobe it argues with, and I have tested most of them.

On, next to nothing else. It holds its own.

“I put it on in August and it has gone with every single thing I have worn since.”

Janet C., Christchurch

4

YOU CANNOT FEEL IT ON

The straps wrap right round the body of the bag, so the weight is carried by the whole bag rather than a few stitches, and they are covered in little embroidered-look daisies so even the practical bits are pretty. They sit comfortably in the hand or over the forearm, and there is nothing to dig in.

Its spot on the dresser, on the rare occasion it is off.

 

“So light I honestly forget it is there. I only take it off for the washing up, and I am not sure I need to.”

Janet C., Christchurch

5

A PROPER CLASP, AND IT FITS ANY WRIST

The 4O centimetre one does an overnight, the gym, or a cabin bag. The 46 centimetre one does two to three days with room for shoes and a towel. The boutique prints the measurements plainly and even tells you most women are happier with the bigger one, which matches my experience of weekends and of life.

The clasp and chain. No knots, no second pair of hands.

 

“Does up in seconds and actually fits my small wrist, which almost nothing does.”

Wendy R., Nelson

6

IT MAKES A PRESENT WITH A STORY

I went back and bought a second one within the fortnight, for my sister’s birthday, and I will tell you why. It arrives looking like a considered gift, a little piece with some character to it, not a plastic pouch of costume jewellery. The woman from the hairdresser’s bought one for each of her daughters. That tells you everything about the sort of thing this is.

The morning mine arrived.

“Bought one for myself and two as gifts. My daughter in law asked where on earth I found it.”

Helen M., Whangārei

SEE IF STILL IN STOCK

The Vintage Bird Bracelet, against the bracelets you have been buying

You can find a bracelet for under twenty five pounds almost anywhere. I know, because a drawer upstairs is full of them. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.

Most bracelets under $40 NZD

Glittery costume pieces made for somebody half your age

Heavy bangles that rattle and catch on knitwear

Fiddly tie-on cords you cannot fasten alone

One size that fits nobody properly

Forgotten in the drawer within a month

The Vintage Bird Bracelet

A quiet vintage-style charm people lean in to look at

Soft rounded cord that sits flat and silent on the wrist

A proper clasp that does up in a second

A short extender chain, so it fits the wrist you actually have

The one that stays on

About the price

I will be straightforward about the price, because it was the thing that made me suspicious. The bracelet is $39,95 NZD, and it was $80,00 NZD.

 

The boutique says the spring sale price is about welcoming the new season, with no middleman taking a cut, and that at this price they are barely making anything on it. That is their arithmetic, not mine. 

 

 And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.

4.2 ★

from 300+ reviews

100%

happiness guarantee

FREE

NZ delivery

If you have wanted one small piece that goes on in the morning and simply stays, this is the one I would put on your wrist myself.

Robyn

VINTAGE BIRD ROPE BRACELET

4.2 out of 5 from 300+ reviews

$80

$39.95 NZD

Three-bird vintage-style charm in a silver tone

Soft double cord, light and silent on the wrist

Proper clasp with extender chain, fits any wrist

Lovely as a gift, arrives with its charm intact

Free NZ delivery and 30 day returns

SEE IF STILL IN STOCK

Spring sale ending tonight. Small batches, and once this one is gone it is gone.

About the writer. Robyn McKenzie is 67 and lives in Whitianga with a labrador. She is not a home writer. She has bought jewellery for fifty years and written to a boutique about it exactly once. She is not a jeweller.

This page is an advertisement for Eleanor & James. Robyn's letter is presented with her permission. Eleanor & James · Free NZ delivery · 30 day returns · 100% happiness guarantee.
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