Five Bracelets In Seven Weeks. I Am Not Proud Of It, And I Am Going To Explain Exactly How It Happened.

A woman of 63 who owns almost no jewellery walks through how one bracelet for a wedding turned into a small drawer of them, and the six things that did the damage.

---

I am 63 years old and until the middle of July I owned four pieces of jewellery. My wedding ring, my watch, and two bracelets I have had since my forties. I am not a woman who buys things. My sister will tell you I once wore the same coat for eleven years, and she is not exaggerating.

There are now five leather bracelets in a dish on my dresser. All five bought since July. My husband has started calling it the habit, and he is only half joking.

So I did something I have never done in my life. I sat down and wrote to the boutique I had bought them from and explained, mostly to myself, exactly how a sensible woman ends up like this. They asked if they could put the letter up for other women to read. I said yes, on the condition that I could be honest about the part where it starts.

I did not set out to collect anything. I set out to buy one bracelet for a wedding in August. That is genuinely where this began.

They are from Evely Rose Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. The whole range is multi-strand leather wraps, five or six thin cords twisted together with little stone chips and beads and a small metal bar across the middle. They all cost the same. Remember that last part, because it turns out to matter more than anything else I am about to tell you.

1 It Started With One, For A Wedding

My nephew got married in August and I had the outfit and nothing else. I wanted one bracelet. Not a statement, just something on my wrist so I did not feel half-dressed in the photographs. I ordered the Eleanor, the tan one, because tan goes with everything and I did not want to think about it.

It arrived on the Thursday. By the Saturday I had worn it three days running, to the shop, to the garden centre and to nothing at all. It had not been off. And that, I can see now, was the warning sign.

2 The Clasp Is A Magnet, And That Is What Did The Damage

Here is the thing nobody mentions until you own one. The fastening is a little magnetic barrel. You bring the two ends near each other and it takes itself. No catch, no hook, no holding your breath while you try to line up a lobster clasp with one hand and your teeth.

My fingers are not what they were and I had quietly stopped wearing anything that needed fastening. I did not realise how much I had given up until something took two seconds instead of two minutes. And once you have one bracelet you can put on without thinking, every other bracelet in the house starts to look like a chore.

3 Five Strands, So One Bracelet Looks Like Three

This is the second thing that gets you. Because there are five or six cords wrapped together, with the stone chips on one strand and the little beads on another, a single one of these fills the wrist the way a stack of three bangles would. You look like you have made an effort. You have put on one thing.

So the bracelet does not sit quietly in the background the way a plain chain does, which is lovely, except it also means you start noticing that the green one would look completely different with the navy jumper. And that is the exact thought that costs you money.

4 They Are All The Same Price, Which Is How This Happens

Every single one of them is the same price. There is no better one. There is no cheap one you settle for and an expensive one you covet. You are not choosing quality, you are only choosing colour, and choosing a colour is not a decision your conscience puts up much of a fight about.

So the black one came next, for the funeral of a friend in September, because the tan looked wrong with navy and black. Then the white one, because I had a cream jumper and I had, apparently, stopped resisting entirely. I told myself the fifth would be the last one. I will come back to the fifth.

5 Nobody Has Ever Guessed What They Cost

Four separate people have asked me where I got them. Two of them guessed a jeweller's. One guessed a gallery shop in Ludlow. Not one of them guessed the real figure, and I have watched three faces do the same small double-take when I told them.

The leather has gone softer and slightly darker with wearing, the way good leather does. The metal has not dulled or marked my wrist. I have washed up in them, gardened in them and been caught in Shropshire rain in them. The white one still looks like the white one.

6 The Real Reason There Are Five

The fifth one, the turquoise, was not for me. My sister turned 66 in September and she is impossible to buy for, and I knew before it arrived that she would like it because she has liked everything I have worn since July.

She opened it, put it on at the table with one hand, and asked me where the rest of them were. She has since ordered two. So there are five in my dish and two in hers, and if you are wondering whether that means seven bracelets between two women in their sixties who do not buy jewellery, then yes. That is exactly what it means.

This Collection, 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.

About The Price

I will be straightforward about the price, because it was the thing that made me suspicious to begin with. Every bracelet in the range is £22.99, down from £31.99.

The boutique says the sale price is about clearing this season's stock 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 this for a single bracelet that was in the charity bag by Christmas, and I have now bought five of these and regret precisely none of them.

If you are the sort of woman who owns four pieces of jewellery and has not bought anything for herself in a decade, I would start with one. Pick the colour you already wear most. I am not going to pretend I know what happens after that, because you have read what happened to me.

Diane