WHAT’S IN A NAME?

‘Her Ladyship Jewellery’ was the name of an online shop I ran in a previous life. So called as it relates to my last name, and because the pieces I sold were made only with precious metals and semi-precious to precious stones. I also stuck to a limited palette of pinks, greens, blacks and whites. Because, in all honesty, that’s what I liked, so that’s what you got. And to be fair, you got a lot: bright freshwater pearls, candy-coloured sapphires and minty aquamarines, and sparkling spinel, to name just a few. All of them paired so beautifully with lustrous polished sterling silver (my favourite metal to wear and to work with); it was easy to find ways to mix the colours and create new pieces. Making things other people loved wearing as much as I enjoyed making was a bit trickier, however.

I kept the shop going for about a year or so before I decided to close it. In the time between then and now, I hadn’t really stopped making jewellery; it was more like I’d paused it until I felt the time was right to start back up again.

The time I spent trying to figure out a name for my new brand, and my revamped jewellery shop, was probably longer than I would care to admit, even though I will freely admit to my overthinkery. When I settled on this name, ‘Bridge’, I did so because the meaning has both the personal significance and general meaning that I want to convey.

How the word holds personal significance to me is simply that it features heavily in the names of places that my family and I have lived in, or are especially fond of.

Everyday usage of the word ‘bridge’ relates to connections; both physical and metaphorical. Just like a bridge connects us from one place to another, jewellery can connect one person to another. Our favourite pieces of jewellery were probably given to or inherited from someone close to us, and they serve as a physical reminder of the bonds we share.

What piece – or pieces – of jewellery do you have that mean the most to you? Have you bought or given someone a piece that became their favourite?