Jewelry Fashion

I’ve noticed a few jewelry fashion trends.  Of course in rich cities you will find gold bracelets, chains, LV/gucci bags etc but in poorer cities and honestly even the rich guys stick to the picture representations here.

To start with, people like jade.  I’m no jade expert but like any precious stone, you can spend a fortune or just a little in comparison.  Jade comes in all sorts of colors but the green variety is most favored.  You can see from the pictures that you can get real pale green, grayish, light green with a marbling of a dark green etc.  It’s a personal preference on what you find attractive.

It makes since that they would have lots of fat Buddha because that’s the main religion.  They also have a circle with a hole in the middle and that once upon a time was the coin they used for money.

They find elephants very popular (particularly in Southern Yunnan Province).

Peacocks are super important and you can find 2-3 common designs. Also the peacock represents: protection, good luck, health, and of course beauty.

Sometimes you can even find a peanut: successful career, good health, long life, continuous growth, prosperity, multiplication of wealth, good fortune, stability and safety.

The jade circular bracelet is by far what the women who want to look fancy purchase.  You can get it also in crystal or in super cheap plastic. The beaded type with elastic band connecting them together is worn by both sexes but it is definitely more acceptable for guys (men don’t wear the solid kind).  Again these beads can be made from the aforementioned material.

You can also get a necklace length with small beads and wrap it around your wrist 3-4 times… that’s pretty popular and I got one the other day as a gift (dark reddish/brown).

And now for the MOST common thing I have observed. RED ROPE.  Many different ways you can wear it: ring, necklace, bracelet, anklet.  You can have it as super simple as a single strand of red rope that is tied together. Some people put a metal fastener or you can braid a special knot (zoom in the pictures to see it) where the two ends meet and pull one end through the knot and wham the piece is now able to fit on your body better.

Another knot type fastener is used when you don’t want a long piece of rope dangling down off your body part.  This type of knot takes two extra strands and is anchored on both ends so they slide with no dangle to adjust length.

You can get a little fancier than a basic red strand and attach a pendant to it.  Straight in line like pictured, or dangling off like the necklace on my pants leg (another gift…it’s the peanut and you can’t find that in my town).

Another favorite of theirs, in case you don’t want or can’t afford a stone, is to put a small oval or round shaped gold/silver ornament (that usually has some kind of girly swoop/flowery type pattern etched into it) on the rope.

Still more options is to put knot patterns along the length of the rope or you can put that big knotty loop square design on it.  A lot of people will get that big loop square, have something dangle off the end of it (tassel, stone, picture of General Mao) and put it on the rearview mirror of the car.

Here is a picture of just some really cheap accessories you can find in touristy areas.  You can find mirrors, bracelets, hand stitched wallets, hair clips, and typically some kind of animal statues (elephants, bulls, lions, dragons, peacocks, or Buddha [not an animal])

This necklace is mine and was a gift. This is a jade Peanut piece.  It is only about an inch long (length of a starburst candy) and even though  it is still “not great quality to the experts” it was still more expensive than some much bigger stones.

The friend went with a smaller but better quality piece (I like that, also it’s not about the money, I’m just using that as a way to describe it..kind of like buying a diamond…let’s be honest, most people never get Hollywood priced stones).  The color is the light green and it’s pretty consistent throughout, as in not having dark green swirls in it.  Also, its not see through.

Secondly, it came with a one strand (it’s still rope), medium thickness, with the sizing method where you pull one end through a hole and so you will have a long dangling piece down your back.  I was examining the rudimentary triple basic blah knot that was holding the jade on the rope and had a design inspiration thought.

As pictured below, this is the final product.  I was going to stick with the same fastening style but I ended up going with the no dangle style I mentioned earlier.  This rope I was able to just purchase as is and I had them make the dangle knot for me.  What I wanted was to play with the Christian significance of 7.  I would have six knot clusters going up the necklace spaced out and one knot dangling down holding the peanut.  Each cluster of knots would have seven knots.

Well, like I said they had this already made and weren’t wanting to remake it.  This one has the six knot clusters on the necklace but instead of 7 knots, there are 13.  The dangle piece does have only 7 knots.

Oh and the rope between  the knot clusters isn’t just a single straight piece, oh no, it is 3 strands braided together, kind of like a gold rope necklace in America.  I’m very pleased on how it turned out, and just like that I’m looking local.

If I think of any extra trends I will update this, but for now have a blessed day and make it fantastic.