I am 68 and the piece I get asked about most is a hammered copper bracelet I first noticed on the woman at our supermarket till
I am 68 and the piece I get asked about most is a hammered copper bracelet I first noticed on the woman at our supermarket till
Six things the Olivia Copper Bracelet gets right that everyday jewellery gets wrong, from a woman who spent a year admiring it over a conveyor belt before she asked.
Pat Holloway · Customer · Leeds · 5 min read
Let me be plain about who is talking. I am Pat, I am 68, I live in Leeds with my husband Brian, and I do the same big shop every Thursday, at the same supermarket, usually at the same till. You watch a person’s hands when they are working, there is no way round it, and for the best part of a year I watched a bracelet. A slim copper band, hammered all over, moving in and out of the light while she scanned my tins.
I assumed it was inherited. It has that look, the sort of piece that comes down from a mother with a story attached. Then one quiet Thursday, while she weighed my apples, I finally asked her about it, plainly. She laughed and said I was not the first, that it goes on in the morning and stays on through a full shift without once being in her way, and that it was not handed down at all. It is called the Olivia Copper Bracelet, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly making the ordinary things a bit lovelier for a few years now. When the boutique later asked if they could put my letter up for others to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
On the arm of my chair, on the cream cardigan that lives there from September. The colour earns its keep in autumn.
Here is what a lifetime of jewellery taught me. It comes in two piles. The precious pile, the pieces that live in the box for best and come out twice a year, if the clasp cooperates. And the everyday pile, the bits and bobs that clatter, pinch, catch on cardigan cuffs, and end their days in a drawer looking exactly what they cost.
Jewellery either sat in the box being precious, or sat on my wrist looking cheap. I had stopped expecting a third option.
The Olivia is the first piece I have owned that is neither, and having worn it every day since it arrived, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The day it came. I ordered it expecting to send it back. I did not.
It looks found, not bought
That is the best way I can put it. The boutique says each one is shaped by hand, and it reads that way. No two dents of the hammering are quite alike, so it has the slightly irregular, settled look of something with a past, the sort of piece people assume has a story attached. I assumed exactly that at the till, and I was exactly wrong. Nobody who has admired mine has guessed anywhere near what it cost, and I have not been correcting them in any hurry.
In the little dish on my dresser. It has a way of looking like it has always been there.
My daughter turned it over looking for a hallmark and asked which relative had left it to me. I bought it three weeks ago.
Barbara W., GrassingtonThe hammering is what catches the eye
The band is not smooth and it is not shiny, and both of those are the point. The whole face is covered in small hammered dents, with a brushed satin finish over the top, so as your hand moves the light does not flash off it, it ripples along it, softly, the way it does on old candlesticks. Shiny copper shouts. This one does not say a word until somebody leans in, and somebody always does. It was the moving light that kept catching my eye over that conveyor belt, week after week.
On the kitchen windowsill in the morning sun. The hammering is what everyone leans in to look at.
Three people at the market asked about it in one morning. It is the hammered finish that catches their eye, every time.
Sylvia M., SettleIt is slim, and it stays out of the way
The band is narrow, about the width of a pencil, and it sits close to the wrist. That sounds like a small thing until you have spent years with bangles that rattle down your arm, clatter on every table and snag on every cardigan cuff. The Olivia slips under a sleeve without a fuss and comes out the other side still sitting where you put it. The woman at the till wears hers through a full shift of lifting and scanning and packing, and I have yet to catch mine on anything, including the good cream cardigan that catches on everything.
On, in the kitchen. Slim enough to forget, which is the highest praise I have.
It is the first bracelet I have owned that does not knock on the table when I write. I forget it is there until somebody mentions it.
Margaret H., LeyburnThe colour belongs to this time of year
Warm copper against rust, mustard, brown and cream is one of those pairings that simply works, and from September onwards that is most of my wardrobe. Gold can look brassy on our colouring and silver can look cold, but copper is warm without shouting, and it flatters a wrist that has seen some weather, which mine has. It has been on with a brown coat, a mustard scarf and the cream cardigan, and it has yet to argue with any of them.
Against my autumn knits it looks lovely, warmer than gold and kinder than silver. I get more compliments on it than on anything I own.
Kathleen B., HawesOpen at the back, so there is no clasp to fight
The band is open at the back, so it eases on sideways in a second and sits snug, and taking it off is just as quick. No squinting at a tiny catch, no holding one end in your teeth, no asking Brian to do the fiddly bit. My fingers gave up on little clasps some time ago, and this bracelet simply does not have one. It is the same reason the woman at the till can put hers on before an early shift without turning the light on.
On in a second, off in a second, no clasp at all. I can manage it with wet hands at the sink, which says everything.
Doreen T., Pateley BridgeOne size, which makes it the easiest present in years
Because the back is open, one size sits right on any wrist, and there is no measuring and nothing to get wrong. Think about what that means in December. No guessing sizes, no fiddly clasp for older fingers, and a colour that suits every woman I know. There is already a second one wrapped and put away for my sister June, and I confess I felt rather smug doing it in September. The box pieces take turns. This one just gets worn, and given.
I bought one for myself and two as gifts. No sizes to guess and both of them are worn constantly, which never happens.
Jean A., ReethThe Olivia, against the bracelets you have been buying
You can find a bracelet for this sort of money anywhere. I know, because I own a boxful of the evidence. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Too precious to wear, or too cheap to love
Fiddly clasps that need a second pair of hands
Rattle down the arm and catch on every cuff
Gold coloured until about the second month
Look exactly what they cost
A slim hammered band of warm copper, satin not shiny
Open at the back, eases on in a second, no clasp
Sits close and quiet, slips under any sleeve
One size that fits any wrist, nothing to get wrong
Looks a great deal dearer than it is
About the price
The Olivia Copper Bracelet is £25.95, down from £43.00.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that this is the run being cleared in the sale to make room for the autumn stock, and once it is gone, it is gone. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that I would have counted £43.00 fair money for a hand shaped piece like this, so coming down to £25.95 made it an easy yes, and after weeks of daily wearing I have not found a single reason to think otherwise.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
In the dish on the bedside table, last thing off at night and first thing on in the morning.
If your jewellery box is full of things you never wear, and your autumn coats are all waiting for something warm at the wrist, this is the one I would ease onto your arm myself, while there is still stock to be had. They do a whole family of copper pieces, but the Olivia is where I would start. Stop dithering and go and look.
Pat
THE OLIVIA COPPER BRACELET
- A slim hammered band of pure copper, as the boutique has it
- Shaped by hand, in the boutique’s own words
- Soft brushed satin finish, warm rather than brassy
- Open at the back, no clasp to fight with
- Sits close and quiet, never catches on a cuff
- One size, no decisions to make
- Free UK delivery
Sale on now. The first autumn stock is already going.