Admiring all the spangled loveliness in the window of Kutchinsky was always a joyous thing for me. This whole wrist arrangement would look fab for an informal garden party/barbecue, with a khaki vest and a pair of black knickers.



Along with the much missed Fior store slightly further up. Two very sadly vanished stalwarts of the Brompton Road.

Sorry, CT, but that is a ghastly waste of precious, rare, natural mineral resources.

Trash.

If you want that kind of bling then go for costume jewellery - fool's gold and rhinestones.

Much cooler and less of a burden on the impoverished people of the countries who have to mine for them.

I've known quite a few serious, prestigious silver/goldsmiths in my life and they wouldn't give you tuppence-halfpenny for all that gack.

Well, they would, but they'd be down Hatton Garden at 9am sharp to deal at melt-down trade price.

Yes, my grandmother always said the same. But I love a bit of vulgarity in jewellery. There is joy in some vulgarity. 

I agree with the ethical objection, but it's already been mined. As long as it's just old stuff circulating I think it would be more disrespectful to smash it all or break it into pieces than just enjoy it for what it is.

Fior was just costume jewellery, so there's no problem there. As for the real stuff, I have driven a couple of hard bargains myself in Hatton Garden. Most regrettably in hindsight, my engagement ring, which I miss.

And finally, everyone from the Stalins to the Brezhnevs to the Gorbachevs stocked up on gak at the first opportunity. While it doesn't get anyone over the ethical hurdles, there is at least an honesty in not saying one thing and wearing another. There is also cultural heritage to be factored in - if nobody in your family line ever had to get out of a country by bartering their jewellery, then you can afford to comfortably call others trash.

But that's what dress jewellery'd for.

My first proper girlfriend - a spoilt Germano-Scouse brat with an adolescent obsession for the Art Deco and a BA in jewellery from John Cass - has a penchant for humble gems and marcasites, but she had a dowdy-looking silver ring on her left middle finger with a huge murky-green emerald cut stone in it.

Well, that humble-looking ring (and gem) was an original 1920s platinum ring with an 8 carat size opaque emerald at its heart.

An obviously less valued stone, but nonetheless probably worth more than £10.000.

Exactly. German - renowned for their understated taste and appreciation of fine engineering. Others have to get by with Tak and gak that might ultimately appeal to a mercenary.

cosmictanya wrote:

And finally, everyone from the Stalins to the Brezhnevs to the Gorbachevs stocked up on gak at the first opportunity. While it doesn't get anyone over the ethical hurdles, there is at least an honesty in not saying one thing and wearing another.

But that's the Russians.

They take the whole concept of bling and shame the rest of humankind with lavish excess.

My LAST proper girlfriend's aunt* was working for ages on a fitted cabinet of bespoke silver cutlery for Putin for all the time I knew her.

She kept submitting illustrations and detailed technical drawings and plans only for them to be sent back with more and luxurious demands.


*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jocelyn_Burton

Oh God, I've just noticed that she's died.

Just the other day.

I feel completely torn.

I'd like to message my ex to sympathise, but she was so insultingly crap at reaching out during my Grandpa's hospitalisation and death that I'm loth to.

Oh...

I'm broken up.

Joss was one of the very last of her kind.


Sorry to bugger up this happy thread.

I'm very jealous. The young Osama was almost worth becoming a stateless hate figure for, although I like to think I'd have influenced him towards a less destructive path.

Alternatively it can manifest in the other way - my uncle is obsessed with all things German, and will only ever admit to an Anglo Swiss great grandparent. He mocks my 'Jewish' tastes in these things but that criticism is only within the family. Outside it, he still mocks to all in the vicinity but attributes it to my vulgar Cockney side, and we let him because we all understand that he's horrified by the partial Hebrew, the swarthy Italian, and the Irish peasant within himself. But mainly the Jewish bit. These currents can run very deep.

I'm sure you remember all those old ladies to be found around St John's Wood and similar, in their fur coats with their plastered on make up. They bartered and flogged their gak to get here. If they were reliant on the discreetly impeccable taste of a bit of dowdy silver they'd have been in the cattle trucks going in the other direction.

I'm really very sorry to hear that she's gone. That's very difficult. There isn't really anything helpful that anyone can say about a young/ish death.

Post something happy. It'll help.

You might like her stuff.

That's all.

https://www.jocelynburton.com/?l=n

Neoclassical hardly covers it.

Just to add ever so quickly should anyone get the wrong impression, we never had any of that bleak shetl sh*t going on. They were Mizrachi Baghdadis who ended up in Bombay.

You might be unsurprised to know that Joss knew all the Bin Ladens BTW.

cosmictanya wrote:

I'm very jealous. The young Osama was almost worth becoming a stateless hate figure for, although I like to think I'd have influenced him towards a less destructive path.

I don't know how this post ended up above several posts and before your revelation of links to (albeit glamorous) international terrorism.

Yeah, that's made me sad all over again.