For better or worse, I seem to have spent most of my life at learning institutions where signet rings were rather proudly on display—one of my better friends has told me on multiple occasions that when he marries he will refuse a wedding band in lieu of his gilded family crest (feel free to analyze that, Freudians among you, I surely have). The rings were omnipresent in both the diminutive lady/pinky size and the big honking Daddy-O brass knuckle size. Though none to my knowledge were actual brass, on further reflection I think a utilitarian metal would have made me like them better. A hint of a tarnish . . .? Be still my heart. As it stood, I was bored to tears with the whole thing.
Which is why Margiela’s fine jewelry collection—pendants and earrings and bangles all displaying fractured “non-engagement” diamond rings and “heirloom” blue sapphire–centered settings, with floating, displaced center stones strung together (all on view tonight at Cheim Reid in New York)—is so entirely appealing. It’s like inherited jewelry from a slightly addled great aunt, who never had the time or wherewithal to fix any of her treasures and just sort of strung them all together for you in a safety deposit box. It is—if you’ll forgive the expression—so Margiela: pieces with the refined taste-level and secured rooting of an established eye coupled with the fashion-forward leanings of the avant garde. Plus, among the pieces on offer? An 18K yellow gold signet ring, cleaved straight down the center. It’s like they were reading my mind.