Jewellery: the efforts of timeless objects to be more modern.

Writes Kellie Murphy

Jewellery would probably be my favourite form of fashion. Jewellery might or not be considered a sector of the fashion industry by some, but I adore jewellery (even though I’m broke and should stop buying earrings). Jewellery has probably been the most enduring form of accessories within fashion from the bronze age to the overwhelming jewellery collection of Marie Antionette like her pendant that was auctioned off for thirty-six million US dollars in 2019. While the jewellery I’ve listed and admire are obviously outside of my budget (sorry for not being an Austrian archduchess) I can still take comfort in Penney’s and Parfois.

A current trend in this fashion sector is sustainability. The jewellery world is making efforts to be more sustainable in their production. Their efforts are admirable in their part to help reduce their impact on the climate and I think it bodes well that they are aware and conscious of consumers' needs for a more ethical fashion industry. The two ways that jewellers and their shops promote sustainability that interest me most is ‘reusing’ jewellery. This involves reworking the metal and reselling vintage jewellery. Let’s pretend that most of us can afford to buy expensive jewellery instead of reality: hitting up Penney’s. And let’s talk about the jewellery sector's promotion of sustainability.

The ‘reusing’ of jewellery is something that I find conflicting. This involves melting down old jewellery to make new pieces, using the precious metals and stones to turn the jewellery into something new! This is called upcycling or reusing. An example of Irish jewellery that upcycles would be Aoife O’Mahony designs, who isn’t taking on any extra work of reusing jewellery right now, which literally doesn’t have any impact on me or my non-existent jewellery collection but I still can’t help but feel disappointed. Aoife O’Mahony takes a fresh approach to upcycling jewellery by taking the stones from the piece and working it into a new one, or just replicating the piece altogether. The efforts of the jewellery industry to minimise their impact on the climate are appreciated as mining for diamonds involves water intensive processes to extract the diamonds from rock. This has a detrimental impact on the environment as this contaminates water, with the dust from it creating suspended solids. The suspended solids are then shipped to slime dams where the contaminated water settles on the bottom while the clean water is pumped back into the mine to repeat the process. In open mining the most visible environmental impact on the earth is the disturbances on the land as kimberlite pipes: funnels of rock are mined to extract the diamonds. Because these pipes are so deep, large amounts of soil, waste rock, sand, and processed kimberlite build up around the diamond mine, turning the area into a wasteland. Other damages to the environment by the jewellery industry's demand for precious stones include deforestation, soil disturbances, air emissions, surface water pollution and groundwater contamination. Other effects include noise, dust and workplace safety. So, as you can see, the reusing of old jewellery helps to avoid all of these detrimental effects, making me feel a bit more reassured when I watch a David Attenborough documentary. Not only does this show a shift in perspective from the jewellery sector of the fashion industry, it also sounds very beautiful. The upcycling of jewellery allows more creativity on the part of the jewellers when they try to take a piece of jewellery and make it into something new while trying to please their customers. It sounds like a challenge but a fun one as you’re given the space to think of ideas and try and combine them with what the owners want while being limited to the piece or the precious stones and the metal they’ll be reworked with. It sounds like an exciting way to wear fashion and minimise your effect on the environment.

Another way the jewellery industry is promoting sustainability is selling vintage jewellery. There has been a rise in the promotion of vintage jewellery over the course of several years with the Covid pandemic having an impact on customers interests, making them be enthused by well-made luxury pieces over lower priced jewellery. Another aspect that appeals to jewellers’ customers is high end or unique vintage pieces which has led to a growth in the global jewellery market. The appeal for vintage jewellery is clear on both the sustainability and sentimentality front. On the one hand a vintage piece of jewellery is often unique and nostalgic. It harks back to a time when the owner was young or long before the buyer's time, a romanticised period and that appeals to jewellery wearers because it is such a nostalgic aspect of fashion. Your vintage ring would be unique and well-made as vintage jewellery was made, not on mass production as modern jewellery is today. The jeweller would only have one, making it one of a kind which can only appeal to the wearer, knowing that you’re wearing something that’s individual to you. This has benefits for the environment as well as being a win for the preservation of old jewellery styles. Because of the reselling of vintage jewellery this would avoid the exploitation of natural resources like gold and silver which is traditionally used to make jewellery as well as the mining of precious stones which has negative effects despite the opportunity for employment that comes with it. But even that has its dark side. As shown above, mining for mineral resources has a detrimental impact on the environment,but by wearing vintage jewellery instead of buying new pieces you’re not feeding the market and instead contributing to the growth of the vintage jewellery market, which creates a more sustainable industry.

I can’t help but think about the losses that this gives us, as well as the gains. Yes, there are benefits to reusing jewellery and buying vintage jewellery that much is clear, but are we losing out on something else through efforts to be more sustainable? The reusing or upcycling of jewellery completely transforms the piece which gives a creative freedom to the jeweller, but I never mentioned the losses that comes with this. By melting down the metal and taking out the stones to be transformed and altered to a new piece of jewellery, the original piece of jewellery is destroyed. This causes the piece to lose its artistic value if it still remains after it has been upcycled. Vintage jewellery has historic value even if it’s an often overlooked part of history, and by reusing old jewellery even if it’s a piece from the eighties we’re still losing a piece from the past. The older the piece the more historic value is lost, like jewellery from the fifties when compared to 2000’s jewellery. The ring from the fifties was made with methods and in a design that is so different from modern jewellery and when they’re upcycled we lose its artistic value and this example of craftsmanship is gone. Jewellery is not a core part of history; it is not discussed as much in academia as wars and revolutions but that does not mean it is less important than them. Jewellery still matters in history. It tells us so much about the period in which it was made, what society valued and what they scorned, how this corner of the fashion industry displayed economic and social backgrounds while also pointing towards the future. This is so clear during the renaissance when the reformers turned to plain, sober clothing which led to the abandonment of jewellery. Which of course was adapted by jewellers who then began to put precious stones in timepieces that have now remained a staple in the design of watches. Is the dismantling of visual history one of our only options to make jewellery more sustainable, can’t we try to do more?