Jewelry with a secret.
Animated adornments for some magic in your life.
Nothing is more delightful than a tiny thing that does a magic trick.
Fairies and elves, sure, but this concept was actually inspired by a pair of earrings. As soon as my Floating World Angel Trumpet Earrings arrived a few weeks ago, I hooked them eagerly into my ears and ran to the mirror to admire them. When I moved my head, I discovered, to my delight, that the pearls chimed sweetly against the silver bell of the flower, enchanting me immediately. This feature was mentioned in the product page but I had totally missed it:
“Hallucinogenic in nature, these casted silver [angel trumpets] will hypnotize just as easily, with a gentle tinkling from the freshwater pearls hanging inside.”
Listen to the tinkle here.
It’s certainly not a feeling everyone enjoys, but I love being surprised, especially by unexpected whimsy and magic, and I’ve loved passing that surprise on to others - having them lean in closer when they notice my earrings and waggling my head so they can hear the sound.
Now I’m on a mad hunt for more pendants and trinkets with a secret. Some dynamic quality, a utilitarian aspect, a hidden compartment, maybe even a past life as a living being or household object that was cursed and damned to live out its days as a metal trinket hanging from someone’s ear.
Charmed, in other words. I suppose that’s what sets “charms” apart from other types of jewelry and why I like them: an animated aspect that feels playful, approachable, and anti-luxury. Perhaps because they don’t give the impression of being jewelry, but rather of objects, toys even, that just happened to be strung on a chain for easy access. I want bells, vessels, boxes, kitchenware…body parts. Maybe I want my jewelry to be a little bit alive.
I expected to find mostly one-off oddities during my online search, and as I did, I also managed to identify a few broad categories of historically functional jewelry or charms that excited the collector in me. Here are three notable ones.
1. Vintage movable charms
This extra special type of vintage charm was popularly produced from the late 1800s to the the mid 1900s, according to the kind salesperson at Brooklyn Vintage Company, who sold me this amazing opening marriage license charm and who lamented that “they just don’t make them like this anymore”.
Charms are ubiquitous of course, they serve as tiny renderings of ordinary objects or life forms. But this mechanical kind pushes the life-likeness even further by mimicking an essential movement of the object. These exist for the same reason that we prefer dolls with articulated limbs to ones without: you can fidget with them better, pretend harder, believe more in the probability of miniature people who need little hand mixers, eyeglasses and bowling alleys just like us. Talk about a magic trick!
Another thing that makes these charms so sweet is that because of the era in which they were popular, they’re often in the form of retro things like Punch and Judy theater boxes, dunce caps, typewriters. Here are just a few of my favorite online finds:
L to R: Cuckoo clock, Eyeglasses case, Toaster, Spinning Wheel
L to R: Dancing girls, Weather house, Elvis TV, Adam and Eve apple.
I totally opted out of the charm bracelet trend as a kid, and they still seem a bit jangly and loose to have around the wrists, but I’d love to accumulate a collection of these movable charms to sling onto little hoops and wear as earrings.
2. Mexican Milagros, Greek Tamata
Milagros (Catholic) and Tamata (Greek Orthodox), while not jewelry per se, are votive prayer charms that symbolize an aspect of a person’s life in need of divine assistance. They're often in the shape of body parts - a leg could symbolize a bad knee in need of healing, or a runner in need of luck before her big race.
These charms are both functional and hauntingly alive.
While they’re commonly kept in purses and affixed to altars, Milagros are also worn as charms on the body. A Google search for “Tamata jewelry” didn’t yield much, but as a Greek myself I should probably just have some nailed to my wall for good measure.
3. Perfume/Prayer/Snuff Bottles
In the category of “jewelry that’s a vessel”, my favorite kind is vintage bottle pendants. Their roots, deserving of their own essay, seem to be everywhere from Mexico, to Tibet, to Afghanistan, to Turkey. They vary slightly in their usage and name: Perfume bottles, prayer boxes, message, poison, snuff etc. The through-line: personal or taboo contents.
It makes total sense that as a superstitious and ritualistic species, we would find ways to not only keep our comforts close to us, but to disguise them as adornments for easy—and fashionable—access.
Although I find this jewelry so beautiful and cool, realistically a lot of it a bit too ornate or proprietary to a culture that isn’t my own for me to wear. I’d probably go with something more simple, like this modernist Mexican perfume bottle. Very Elsa Peretti!
To cap it off, a few one-off picks that I’d be remiss not to share <3
L to R: Floating World Candle Ring, Dunton Ellerkamp Egg Pendant, Vintage purse pendant.
Thank you for reading!
Anna
I have a tiny vintage desk fan charm and the blades move. ☠️ It remains one of my most fortuitous estate sale finds.
I have been lusting after charms like these for quite some time, and am elated to find my fellow charm appreciators dilettantes (I'm sure you're more committed than I but I personally identify as a moveable jewelry charm dilettante!) Brava!