Welcome to the magical world of Children’s Jewellery History from prehistoric times to the present day!
As I write this, in what seems like another lifetime ago, I spent 7 years of my life at the Royal College Of Art in London (1996 – 2003) researching and writing a PhD in jewellery history – which specialised in charting the development of European Children’s Jewellery throughout history.
Very little was known about the subject then – in fact 20+ years later and the history of children and their jewellery is STILL an unknown subject.
Whilst my research has been interwoven into my life and works throughout the past THREE decades – my subject of children’s jewellery ‘history’ took somewhat of a backseat to the other aspects of my career as I built my successful jewellery and mentoring business.
That was until 2024 when I created an instagram account to talk about my PhD which ‘accidentally’ went viral and grew from 64 to 15k+ followers in just over a year.
This new global audience of scholars, students and history buffs told me it’s time to talk about my subject again and share it with the world!
One of the ‘things’ I am almost 100% certain you will NOT know about the history of children’s jewellery is the fact that there were many materials made into jewellery ‘specifically for’ children – which had significant meaning and / or ‘magical’ powers.
This part of my research fascinates me – in fact I was interested in the idea of amulets and talismans BEFORE I started my PhD 30+ years ago – and one of my current areas of research focuses around this.
I am also intrigued by the fact that literally since the dawn of time, ‘(wo)man’ has placed significance on the materials they chose to adorn themselves with and I will be sharing more about children’s jewellery from prehistoric and ancient times through my content and research.
So journey with me as we learn about the materials, meanings and magic of children’s jewellery throughout the ages!