A letter from Dianne, about two copper bracelets in Kakadu
In forty years of marriage I had never once bought myself a bracelet. These are the first two, and the first I have ever written a letter about.
Six things two copper bracelets get right, written down by a customer who spent forty years waiting to be given one, not by a shop.
Dianne Prescott · Customer · Epping, Sydney · 5 min read
I am 64, and until this spring I had a firm idea that a bracelet was something you were given. A birthday, an anniversary, a big one with a zero on the end. So I waited. Graham has given me perfume from the chemist every birthday since we were courting and one pair of earrings, the year we paid off the house, and I have kept the box. Then this spring, on a sunrise boat at Yellow Water in Kakadu, the guide pointing out the crocodiles had two copper cuffs on her wrist, and I spent the whole cruise looking at her arm instead of the water.
Her name is Kerryn, and when I asked her on the way off the boat whether her husband had chosen them, she laughed and said she bought them herself, because she stopped waiting. They are the Molly and the Holly, 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, half 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 two get right.
Bracelets, if you have looked lately, come in two piles. The first pile is the good jewellery in the glass cabinet, which you are supposed to wait for somebody else to buy you. The second pile is the stand by the register, cheerful enough, and looking like exactly what it cost by the second week.
A bracelet good enough to be a present, or a bracelet a woman is allowed to buy for herself on an ordinary Tuesday. I stopped accepting that those have to be two different things, and Kerryn was the proof.
Yellow Water at half past six. I was meant to be looking where she was pointing.
The pink stone looks grown up
This is what caught my eye from three seats back. The Molly is a polished copper cuff with a little crescent moon at the front, holding one round pink stone that has a soft band of light running across it when it moves. I have avoided anything with a big stone for years, because on a woman my age it can look like it came out of a Christmas cracker. This one does not. The copper is warm, the pink is a dusky rose rather than a little girl’s pink, and the crescent gives it a shape that looks considered. The boutique calls it a quiet, considered character, and I could not put it better.
The Molly on the back verandah in Epping, with the jacaranda dropping on everything.
“I was worried the pink would be too much. It is just enough. My daughter asked to borrow it on the first day.”
Leanne T., Humpty DooThe Holly goes with absolutely everything
The Holly is the quiet one. A slim copper cuff with a raised edge top and bottom and a woven wave running right round between them, so it looks finished from every side. The boutique says it is a clean, everyday design that never shouts for attention, and that is exactly right. I have worn it to the shops, to the hairdresser and to cut up mangoes on a Sunday morning, and it has not once looked out of place.
The first mangoes of the season. The Holly has not been off since it arrived.
“Plain enough for every day, pretty enough that someone at the bank asked about it.”
Dot M., BatchelorLovely on their own, better together
Here is the reason I bought two. On its own, each one is lovely. Together on one wrist, the plain one makes the pink one look more deliberate, and the pink one stops the plain one looking shy. The boutique says they layer easily with the rest of your favourite jewellery, and I can tell you they layer easily with each other. I wear them both on Thursdays for school pickup, and my granddaughter has decided the pink one is a moon with a lolly in it, which I am not going to correct.
Thursday pickup. The moon with the lolly in it, according to the expert.
“I bought one, went back for a second, and now I wear them together every day.”
Sue K., Howard SpringsNo clasp to fight with
Both are open at the back, so you turn your wrist and slip them on from the side. No tiny clasp, no asking Graham to do you up, no going out with a bare wrist because you could not be bothered. The boutique says they go on in seconds and sit lightly on the wrist, and both are listed as adjustable. I have stopped noticing mine, which is more than I can say for the watch.
The afternoon they arrived. I bought these. Nobody gave them to me.
“On in a second, without asking anybody to do me up. I cannot say that about my good watch.”
Margaret D., Pine CreekThe finish is tidier than the price
I am married to a retired plumber who believes everything is badly made until proven otherwise. He picked up the Holly, ran his thumb round the woven pattern and said it was even all the way along, which from Graham is a glowing reference. The Molly has the crescent and the stone set neatly in the middle, and the two little rails either side of it are as even as each other. Kerryn had worn hers on a boat in the Top End heat for a good while, and they still looked lovely.
“It looks far dearer than it was. Two women at the club asked where I found it.”
Coral H., JabiruThe colour gets richer, and it makes a very good hint
The boutique says copper’s warm colour only gets richer with time, and that copper is one of the oldest metals ever worn as jewellery. I like the idea of something that improves with a few years on it. The collection runs to more than a hundred designs, bracelets, rings, anklets, earrings and necklaces, and I lost an evening to it. I have left it open on the computer for Graham, with Christmas coming, and put the Molly on top of his golf cap in the hall in case he needed it spelled out. He has walked past both four times. I have stopped waiting, the same as Kerryn.
The hint. Day four. Still on the cap.
“Bought one for my sister and one for me. Why should she have all the fun.”
Jan S., Alice SpringsThe Molly and the Holly, against the bracelets you were waiting for
You can buy a bracelet almost anywhere, or you can wait forty years for somebody to buy you one. I have done the waiting. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Kept in a box for occasions
A stone that looks like a cracker prize
A tiny clasp you need a second pair of hands for
One look, and you had better match it
Chosen by somebody else, eventually
Worn on an ordinary Thursday
A dusky pink stone in a copper crescent
Open at the back, and they slip on from the side
Lovely alone, better together
Chosen by me, the week we got home
About the price
I will be straightforward about the price, because it was the thing that made me suspicious. The Molly is $48.95, and it was $98.00. The Holly 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 both together came to less than Graham spends on golf balls in a season, and I did not have to wait for him to choose them.
If you have spent years waiting for somebody else to choose your jewellery, take it from Kerryn, and from me. Stop waiting.
Dianne
The Molly & Holly Copper Bracelets
- ✓Molly: a copper crescent holding one dusky pink stone
- ✓Holly: a slim copper cuff with a woven wave pattern
- ✓A warm colour that only gets richer with time
- ✓Open at the back, adjustable, with no clasp to fiddle with
- ✓More than a hundred designs to choose from
- ✓Free delivery across Australia
Spring sale on now. The popular designs are already going.