Pity the poor jewelry columnist. When she is searching for a theme for her monthly jewelry report, December is a no brainer, February is laden with sticky hearts, June is always full of Pride (watch this space next month!) but May? In desperation, she falls back on the tired maxim that “April showers bring May flowers,” and maybe they do—but even if the weather doesn’t bear this out, there is a plethora of floral jewelry out there that would delight anyone who is ready to throw off a coat and slide into a summer frock (or sadly those super-revealing pastel yoga pants that are plaguing Manhattan streets these days) and decorate herself with golden blossoms.
It turns out that this is hardly new. The ancient Egyptians loved flower-theme jewelry—they thought it symbolized fertility. During the Renaissance, motifs featured roses and lilies as talismans of love and devotion. And of course the Victorians, who it seems never said what they were thinking out loud, used flowers as a veritable secret language.
According to the folks over at Smithsonian Gardens, “Nearly all Victorian homes would own at least one of the guide books dedicated to the ‘language of flowers.’ The authors of these guidebooks used visual and verbal analogies, religious and literary sources, folkloric connections, and botanical attributes to derive the various associations for the flowers.” So tulips and roses allegedly conveyed passion, peonies whispered shyness, and a white violet or a daisy denoted innocence. Incorporating these symbols into jewelry meant that, say, a rosy ring with a ruby center gifted to a potential sweetheart was indeed loaded with meaning.
Or maybe not! Maybe, to quote our good friend Gertrude Stein, “a rose is a rose is a rose.” And though we are not convinced that she was talking about jewelry, her meaning is clear—divest these baubles of any preconceived ideas, drip yourself in dangling daisies and Bakelite bouquets, and go out and greet the new season.