I tipped my jewellery drawer out onto the bed and counted about two thousand dollars of things I never wear.
So I ran a thirty day experiment with one bracelet that cost thirty-nine. Six things it managed that the whole drawer never has.
Nancy Brooks · Customer · Melbourne, VIC · 5 min read
It started because the drawer would not shut. That is all. I was not having a moment about my life, I was trying to close a drawer in the spare room, and it kept catching on something.
So I pulled the whole thing out and tipped it onto the bed. Bangles, three watches, a pendant from a significant birthday, earrings in pairs and earrings not in pairs, and a good deal of it still in the little pouches it came in. I sat down and added up what I could remember paying. I stopped adding at about two thousand dollars, partly because I had lost track and partly because I did not want the real number.
Here is the part that bothered me. I could not tell you the last time I wore any of it. Not one piece. And on my wrist while I was counting was a leather bracelet with three birds on it that had cost me thirty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents, and had not been off since autumn.
So I did something slightly ridiculous. I put the whole lot back in the drawer, shut it, and gave myself thirty days wearing only the one thing. Six things came out of that month.
By the second morning I had stopped noticing it was on
This is the first reason things end up in a drawer and nobody ever says it out loud. Most jewellery announces itself. It slides down your forearm when you type, it knocks on the desk, it needs shifting when you push your sleeves up. You spend the day slightly aware of it, and then one morning you just do not put it on, and that is the beginning of the drawer. This weighs close to nothing. By day two I had stopped registering it entirely, which at my age is the highest compliment I have got to give.
"So light I forget it is on. I have slept in it more than once without meaning to."
There was nothing to decide in the morning
I had not understood until that month how much of the drawer problem is simply deciding. You stand there at ten past eight trying to work out whether the silver one works with what you have on, and it is easier to wear nothing. Brown leather and aged silver turns out to be the most forgiving pairing there is. It does not fight my gold rings, it does not argue with a watch, and it sits just as well against a linen shirt in February as a cardigan in July. Thirty days, everything in my wardrobe, and I did not once have to think about it.
"I stack it with my watch most days. Suits my silver and my gold, which nothing else of mine does."
It made no noise and left no mark
Two of the bangles in that drawer are in there for a reason I had forgotten until I went through them. One clinks against the table every time you eat, so you notice it at every meal and eventually you stop wearing it out. The other left a grey-green ring on my wrist by the end of any warm day. This is a double strand of soft leather rather than a chain, so it is silent, it does not catch on a jumper sleeve, and thirty days in a Melbourne autumn produced no mark of any kind. It also stays warm against your skin instead of going cold every time you take your hands out of your pockets.
"No noise, no catching, no green wrist. I have worn it every day since October."
I could put it on by myself in about a second
There are two bracelets in that drawer I genuinely like and never wear, because I cannot do them up on my own and I am not going to go and find my husband every morning. That is the entire reason they are in there. This one has a proper lobster clasp on a short extender chain. It fastens in a second, one-handed, and the chain gives you three or four links of adjustment, which matters if you have small wrists like mine and are tired of things sitting loose.
"Fastens in seconds and actually fits my small wrist, which almost nothing does."
Somebody asked about it roughly once a week
Nothing in that drawer has ever been asked about. Not the pendant, not the good watch, not any of it, because pretty things are only pretty and there is nothing to say. This is a small picture of three birds sitting together on a branch, and every woman who has looked at it has immediately decided for herself who the three of them are. My sister saw us and our mother. My neighbour saw her three boys. Nobody has ever needed it explained to them. Over the thirty days it came up five or six times, which two thousand dollars of jewellery upstairs has never once managed.
"My daughter took one look and said 'that's us three'. She was right and I had not said a word."
The thirty days ended and I did not open the drawer
That is really the whole result. The month finished, I was free to go back to any of it, and I did not want to. What I have instead is a small dish on the dresser that it goes into on the rare evenings it comes off, and a drawer in the spare room that is going to the charity shop in pieces, a bag at a time, once I stop feeling guilty about it. I am not going to pretend a thirty-nine dollar bracelet fixed anything. But it did show me that the problem was never that I did not own enough jewellery.
"I have a drawer full of nicer things and this is the only one I actually put on."
One honest note before the price
This is not fine jewellery and I would not want you to expect it to be. It is leather and a silver-toned charm, not sterling, and it is not a thing you hand down to anybody. Keep it out of the shower and out of the pool, the way you would with any leather, and it will be fine. If what you want is another good piece for the drawer, this is not it. If what you want is the one you actually put on, it is.
What is in the drawer, against what is on my wrist
I went through the whole lot on the bed that afternoon and worked out why each thing had stopped being worn. The reasons were the same five reasons, over and over.
- Lovely, and it means nothing to anybody
- Heavy enough that you feel it all day
- Metal that clinks and marks your wrist
- Clasps you cannot do up on your own
- Only goes with certain things, so it goes with nothing
- Three birds that everyone reads their own way
- Light enough to forget by the second day
- Soft double leather, silent and no marks
- A lobster clasp you fasten one-handed
- Brown and silver, so nothing in the wardrobe argues
About the price
I have become a bore about one small sum since that month, so forgive me. The pendant in the drawer cost about two hundred and eighty dollars and has been worn, I think, four times. That is seventy dollars an outing. This one was $39.99, down from $79.99, and I have worn it somewhere near two hundred days. You can do that arithmetic yourself.
Cute Home say the sale pricing comes from selling direct with no middleman taking a cut. That is their explanation and I have no way of checking it. Mine is simpler and it is the only figure I trust now: what did I pay, and how many mornings did I choose it.
If you have a drawer like mine, you do not need another good piece to put in it. You need the one that goes on in the morning and simply stays. This is the one I would put on your wrist myself.
— Nancy
VINTAGE BIRD ROPE BRACELET
- Three-bird charm in a vintage silver tone
- Soft double leather cord, light and silent on the wrist
- Light enough that you forget you have it on
- Lobster clasp with extender chain, fits any wrist
- Brown and silver, so it goes with everything you own
- Free Australia-wide delivery with tracking
- 30-day money back guarantee · Afterpay available
About the writer. Nancy Brooks lives in Melbourne, VIC. She writes occasionally about the small things she has actually kept using. She is not affiliated with Cute Home beyond being a customer.
This page is an advertisement for Cute Home. Nancy's letter is shared with her permission. Cute Home · An Australian start-up from Melbourne · Free Australia-wide delivery · 30-day money back guarantee.