A letter from a reader

At 62, I have a box of good jewellery upstairs, and this little thing is the only piece I actually wear

Six things a plain heart on a leather cord gets right that a lifetime of proper jewellery got wrong, written down by a customer, not a jeweller.

Caroline Richards · Customer · Nottinghamshire · 5 min read

I am not a jeweller and I am not a writer, and I want to say that at the start. I am 62, I live in Nottinghamshire, and the only reason I am writing this down is that three different women have asked me about my wrist in the last fortnight and I have run out of ways to explain it quickly.

It is from Nottingham Boutique, a small boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. It is called the Nia. And I will be honest with you about what it is, because I nearly did not order it.

It is a bit of tan leather-style cord and a small flat heart. That is it. There is no chain, no clasp and no stones, and it costs less than a supermarket shop.

I have a jewellery box upstairs that cost a great deal more than that. My mother's pearls are in it. A gold chain my husband bought me for our twenty-fifth. A watch that stopped in about 2011 that I have never had seen to. All of it is nicer than anything I own, and I could not tell you the last time any of it was on my body.

It was all being saved for best. And somewhere along the way, best stopped coming.

That is the bit nobody warns you about. You put the good things away for occasions, and then the occasions get further apart, and then one day you realise you have spent about fifteen years wearing nothing at all because everything you own is too good for a Tuesday.

The box on my chest of drawers. My mother's pearls are in there. So is a chain that has been in a knot since about 2018.

So when a bit of cord and a tin heart turned up and I put it on and simply never took it off again, it did rather make a point I had been avoiding for years.

Here are the six things it gets right.

1

There is no clasp to fight with

This is the one that sold it, and it is the thing no photograph shows you. There is no clasp on it at all. The little heart pushes through a hole in the cord, like a button through a buttonhole, and two small knots slide to tighten it.

I can put it on myself, one handed, in about four seconds, standing up, without my glasses. If you have ever stood in front of a mirror trying to line up a tiny lobster catch with fingers that are not as quick as they were, and then dropped the whole thing behind the dressing table, you will understand why I am starting here.

Two knots. You pull them, and that is the entire mechanism.

★★★★★

I have not been able to fasten my own bracelets for years and had quietly given up on them. This one I can do myself. That is worth more to me than what it cost.

Jean M., Mansfield

2

It pulls to any wrist, so there is no size to get wrong

Because it is knots rather than links, it is not a size. You slide it to where you want it and it stays. Looser in the afternoon when your hands have swollen up a bit in the heat, snugger under a sleeve, and no bangle spinning round so the nice part ends up underneath.

It also means you can buy one for somebody else without knowing a single measurement, which as far as I can tell is not true of any other bracelet I have ever owned.

Sitting where I put it, which my mother's gold bangle never once managed.

★★★★★

My wrists are on the small side and bracelets normally hang halfway to my knuckles. This one I just pulled in and it has stayed exactly there.

Barbara T., Newark

3

The heart is hammered, not shiny

I was braced for this to arrive looking cheap, because at twenty pounds you rather expect it to. The thing that saves it is that the heart is not polished. It is hammered, so it is covered in tiny dimples, and it is a soft matte old-silver colour rather than a bright chrome one.

That one decision is the difference between something that looks handmade and something that looks like it came off a card in a garage. It catches the light softly instead of flashing, and it does not shout across a room that it is costume jewellery.

Close up you can see every dimple in it. Nothing about it is machine smooth.

★★★★☆

Much nicer in the hand than on the screen. The heart has a proper weight and an old, soft finish. It does not look like the price.

Pauline R., West Bridgford

4

It is not precious, which is exactly why it gets worn

Here is what I had wrong for about fifteen years. I thought the answer was to own nicer jewellery. It was not. The answer was to own something I was not frightened of.

I garden in this. I wash up in it. I have repotted three plants and made countless dinners in it and it is still on my arm as I type. Nothing in that box upstairs has ever been allowed near a sink, and that is precisely why nothing in that box upstairs has been worn since about 2011.

Repotting the geraniums with it on. It has had worse and it will have worse again.

★★★★★

I bought it thinking it would be a summer thing and it has not been off since. It has been in the sea and through the garden and it looks the same.

Lesley H., Beeston

5

It sits next to my wedding ring, which I had not thought about

I have worn the same thin gold band for forty years. It has gone smooth and a bit thin on one side and I could not get it off now if I tried, and it is the only thing I have never once taken off.

I did not give this a moment's thought when I ordered it. But a small heart on a bit of cord, sitting on the same hand as that ring, turns out to say something I had not planned on saying. My daughter noticed it before she noticed anything else I had on. It is called the Symbol of Love, which I thought was laying it on rather thick when I read it on the website. I am less sure about that now.

Forty years on one hand, two months on the other. They go together better than I expected.

★★★★★

I bought it after losing my mum. The little heart sits by my rings and I touch it without thinking about it. It has been a comfort, which I did not expect from something so simple.

Christine A., Southwell

6

It never comes off, so it never gets lost

The last one is the quiet one. Because there is no clasp digging in and the cord is soft, I do not take it off at night. And a thing you never take off is a thing you never put down on a windowsill, or in a hotel bathroom, or in a coat pocket you then send to the charity shop.

Every single thing I have ever lost, I lost while taking it off. This one has been on my wrist since July.

Half past nine at night, cardigan sleeves pushed up, still on.

★★★★☆

I sleep in it. The cord is soft enough that you genuinely forget it is there, and there is no catch to dig into your wrist.

Margaret D., Arnold

The Nia, against the jewellery already sitting in your box

I am not going to pretend this is better than my mother's pearls. It is not. It is only better at the one thing that turns out to matter, which is being worn.

About the price

I want to be straightforward about this, because the price is the whole argument.

The Nia is £19.95 at the moment. It was £40.00.

And that is precisely why it works. Everything in that box upstairs is unworn because it is too valuable to be careless with. This one is not. I can garden in it, wash up in it, sleep in it and think nothing of it, and if I lost it tomorrow I would be sorry for an afternoon and then order another one.

There is no catch that I have found. They are a small boutique selling directly, without a shop on a high street to pay for, which is where the difference goes.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and went and read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some websites, which if I am honest made me trust it rather more. Real women, mixed opinions, mostly very good.

My daughter noticed it before she noticed anything else I was wearing, which after fifteen years of an empty wrist felt like a small win. I have since ordered a second one, and it is going to her at Christmas, which I would ask you to keep to yourself.

Caroline

NIA | Symbol of Love Bracelet

★★★★☆ 4.2 out of 5 from 300+ reviews

£40.00 £19.95

• ✓ A small hammered heart in antique silver-tone, matte rather than shiny
• ✓ Doubled tan leather-style cord, soft and light on the wrist
• ✓ No clasp at all: the heart buttons through the cord
• ✓ Sliding knots, so it adjusts to any wrist
• ✓ One size, with nothing to measure and nothing to get wrong
• ✓ Light enough to forget you have it on
• ✓ Free UK delivery and 30 day returns

See The Nia Bracelet

Autumn sale on now. It is £19.95 while the sale lasts.

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