A letter from Dianne, about two copper bracelets
I have had freckles on my arms for sixty summers, and I never found a bracelet that looked right on them. These are the first two I have ever written a letter about.
Six things two copper bracelets get right that every bracelet I ever put away in a drawer got wrong, written down by a customer, not a shop.
Dianne Prescott · Customer · Epping, Sydney · 5 min read
I am 64, and I have the arms of a woman who grew up in Australia before anybody mentioned a hat. Freckles from the shoulder to the knuckles, and a tan that stopped fading somewhere around 1985. For forty years I have been given bracelets, and for forty years they have looked borrowed. Yellow gold goes brassy against my arm, and thin silver looks like something that fell on me. So they went in a drawer, and I stopped thinking about it. Then this spring, at the old lolly shop at Moonta Mines in South Australia, a woman weighing out my humbugs had an arm exactly like mine, and I could not stop looking at it.
Her name is Nola, and she had two cuffs on one wrist. One was all warm copper in a rope twist, and the other was a twist of copper, gold and silver together. They are the Nadine and the Chloe, from Thompson Sydney, a small Australian boutique that has been quietly making lovely things for women our age for a few years now. I ordered both the week we got home, fully expecting to send them back. I did not, and I wrote to the boutique to tell them why, and they asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read. So here it is, the six things these get right.
Bracelets, if you have looked lately, come in two piles. The first pile is the good jewellery, the gold and the silver that were chosen for a much paler woman and come out for weddings. The second pile is the market stall kind, cheerful enough, and looking like exactly what it cost by the second time you wear it.
A bracelet that suits an arm with sixty summers on it, or a bracelet nice enough to wear out to lunch. I stopped accepting that a woman has to choose, and Nola was the proof.
The counter at Moonta Mines. The Nadine nearer the hand, the Chloe above it, and a quarter of humbugs.
The colour looks right on an arm that has seen the sun
This is what stopped me. The boutique calls it a warm, sunset hue, and I cannot do better than that. Copper is the same family of colour as freckles and a tan, so instead of sitting on top of your arm looking lost, it looks as if it belongs there. Graham and I had driven across to the Yorke Peninsula for a late-spring week so he could look at the old engine house, and I spent most of the drive home with my arm out in the sun working out why nobody had ever suggested this to me.
The Chloe on the back verandah in Epping. For once a bracelet that matches the arm.
“I am brown as a boot from the garden and this is the first thing that has ever looked right on me.”
Margaret B., KadinaIt gets richer with time, not tired
Most things I own look their best the day they arrive. The boutique says copper’s colour only gets richer with time, and I had the evidence in front of me before I ever ordered, because Nola has had her Nadine a good while and it had gone a shade deeper than the new one I took out of the mailer. I like that. At my age I am in favour of anything that is improved by a few years in the sun.
The Nadine on the jetty at Wallaroo, the morning after I had decided to buy one.
“Mine has gone a lovely deep colour since I bought it. I like it better now than the day it came.”
Helen R., Port BroughtonThe twist looks as if somebody thought about it
I am married to a retired plumber. Graham has spent forty years with copper in his hands, and the only copper he has ever bought me was a hot water service. When the parcel came he took the Nadine out to the window, turned it over twice and went looking for something to criticise. He did not find it. Flat strips wound round on the diagonal, even all the way along, with a fine dark line between each one. He put it down and said that was tidier work than he ever did behind a wall, which from Graham is a standing ovation.
The inspection. Forty years in the trade, and not one complaint.
“It looks far dearer than it was. A woman at the bowls club asked if it was an heirloom.”
Joy P., ArdrossanThe Chloe goes with what you already own
Here is the clever part, and the reason I bought two. The Chloe is a twist of three colours, copper, a soft gold tone and a little silver-toned rope wire running between them. I wear a gold wedding ring and a silver watch, which I was told for years you are not supposed to do. With the Chloe on, it suddenly looks as if I meant it. The boutique says they layer easily with the rest of your favourite jewellery, and side by side, the plain copper of the Nadine and the three colours of the Chloe look as if they were made to be worn together.
“I wear the three-colour one with my watch and my mother’s ring, and for once everything goes.”
Christine A., MinlatonNo clasp, and they sit lightly
Both are open at the back, so you turn your wrist and slip it on from the side, with nothing to do up and nobody to ask. The boutique says they are designed to sit lightly on the wrist, and I have stopped noticing mine, which is more than I can say for any bracelet in the drawer. A word on fit, because I checked. The Chloe is listed as adjustable and the Nadine as one size, and both have gone on my wrist without any trouble.
The afternoon they arrived, before Graham got his hands on them.
“On in a second and I forget it is there. I have not put it back in the box since it came.”
Sue W., Port VincentThey go with a summer wardrobe, and they make a lovely present
So far they have been out with my white linen shirt, my good floral for a birthday lunch and the old polo I wear to walk Banjo, and I have not once had to think about whether they go. Copper is one of the oldest metals ever worn as jewellery, the boutique says, and it does look as if it has been around long enough to get on with everything. The collection runs to more than a hundred designs across bracelets, rings, anklets, earrings and necklaces, and I lost an evening to it while Graham watched the cricket. A second Chloe is wrapped and put away for his sister Lyn at Christmas. Jenny from over the road, who has never paid me a compliment in her life, looked at my arm and said they were not awful.
Lyn’s, wrapped early for once. The Christmas bush is from Jenny’s garden.
“Bought one for my sister’s birthday and she rang me that night to ask where it was from.”
Pam L., MoontaThe Chloe and the Nadine, against the bracelets in your drawer
You can buy a bracelet almost anywhere. I know, because I have been given most of them, and put every one away in a drawer. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Go brassy or disappear against a tan
Look their best the day they arrive
A tiny clasp you need a second pair of hands for
Gold or silver, and you had better choose
Nobody has ever asked where you got them
A warm colour that suits a sun-lived arm
A colour that gets richer with time
Open at the back, and they slip on from the side
Copper alone, or copper, gold and silver tones together
Asked about over a bag of humbugs in Moonta
About the price
I will be straightforward about the price, because it was the thing that made me suspicious. The Chloe is $52.95, and it was $106.00. The Nadine is $48.95, and it was $98.00.
The boutique says the spring sale price is about making room for the summer stock, selling directly, with no middleman taking a cut, and that at this price they are barely making anything on them. That is their arithmetic, not mine. What I can tell you is that I have paid more than that for a bracelet I wore twice, and I bought three of these.
If your good bracelets have spent forty years in a drawer because they never looked right on your arm, these are the two I would hand you instead.
Dianne
The Chloe & Nadine Copper Bracelets
- ✓Chloe: a twist of copper, gold and silver tones, adjustable
- ✓Nadine: a warm copper rope twist, one size
- ✓A warm colour that only gets richer with time
- ✓Open at the back, with no clasp to fiddle with
- ✓More than a hundred designs to choose from, and a lovely gift
- ✓Free delivery across Australia
Spring sale on now. The popular designs are already going.