After several years of making and selling jewellery, and especially now that the holiday season looms again, I marvel again at how de Beers, Tiffany and other mega retailers have transformed the humble element carbon (ok, an allotrope of) into cut, polished and overmarketed items of adornment that most consumers now disturbingly equate to love, romance and all that shit. Or at least that's what we're being told it means... all the damn time. If you think about it, doesn't it sound ridiculous? Such taglines abound, beseeching the hapless guy to shower his woman with affection by forking out 3x his monthly salary for a tiny bit of sparkle. Single girl, modern and credit-rich? Just pamper yourself with a bit of luxury then, you "deserve it", you're "worth it", so why let a man to go into debt for you when you can achieve that yourself?

Diamonds are not functional. They do not appreciate in value. There are, frankly, loads of substitutes both natural and manmade that give you the same (or similar, as you can't really tell from a distance) dazzle. What diamonds offer is a romanticised fairytale that A&M suits came up with decades ago. And with clever product placement amongst celebrities and royalty, diamond jewellery has become one of those ironically mass consumer, luxury status symbols that I love to hate because everyone wants it for vanity reasons.

But back to gift giving. Eons ago (read: when I had money but no time), I was trying to rationalise this thing about blowing wads of cash on your loved ones. People do it all the time: the more painfully expensive a gift is, the greater the affection is conveyed because it means that the giver would have less to spend on him/herself - a kind of sacrifice perhaps. That is, until I realised that this sort of thinking condenses money into the basic unit of currency for everything else like time, fun and love. And because the trappings of a modern lifestyle leave less of those things for us to give, we tend to offer the only equivalent we have left.

Of course this is not a must, and not everyone does it. But I'm sure you'd agree that there are lots of thing money cannot replace (and jewellery is unfortunately not one of them). So often when we shop for others we do it based on a budget in mind. Money provides a convenient excuse not to think about what we can do for the recipient. Such as using each gifting occasion as a potential way to better their life, inspire them to try something new or different, or even just to cheer them up with the simplest idea possible - because that's how we can show that we really do care. All you need to do is put some thought into it. And if you really have to give jewellery (or any other frivolous accessories - and I'm shooting myself in the foot here but I really don't care any more), do it because you sincerely want to share some art that moved you with the intricacy of its creation, the flawlessness of the design, or because you think the recipient will be enthralled with how the piece expresses their personality. Not because it is THE thing to do. Or am I being idealistic again?

I'm 90% certain I will be spending a considerably large sum on a new toy very soon. It is not going to be sparkly, but I think I will have a lot of fun with it. Merry Christmas to myself ;)