The Friendship bracelets have grown-up panache

Tag : fancy bracelets


They're an artifact of summer camps and sleepovers -- bands ofbrightly colored and knotted threads that encircle wrists orankles, softened by sunlight and ocean swims, durable as bestfriends and childhood.

Now friendship bracelets have grown-up panache too.

Jewelry designer Scosha Woolridge is weaving natural-colored linenwith diamonds and rubies and anchoring the ends with 18-karat goldbuttons. This fall, J.Crew is featuring striped friendshipbracelets -- inspired by 30s-era club ties -- in its men'scollection, each hand-made in London with hand-dyed linen andsecured with an elegant metal buckle.

Of course, this is friendship bought and paid for: The J. Crewbracelet will be $150 (LINK) and Wooldridge's pieces start at $270 (LINK) . But in the true spirit of friendship, Woolridge showed us how tomake a bracelet.

With a few skeins of embroidery floss and a pretty button or coin,you can knot your own stylish band -- for less than $5. Preppy andnautical or bling-studded and chic, these are hardly the braceletsyou wore in fourth grade. But they're still woven with the samehappy nostalgia.

Woolridge, an Australian who lives in New York, started making thebracelets while traveling in Brazil, where she gave them tonewfound friends. Her bracelets aren't much different from the onesyou made as a kid, though she adds a button or a buckle, so thatyou can actually take them off. The original conceit was that youtied the ends together and wore the bracelet until it -- or yourfriendship -- disintegrated.

"I like to call them travel bracelets, because they feel closelyconnected to the beauty of traveling," she says. "We travel everyday of our lives."

The first step: Take a long double length of embroidery floss, loopit (the loop forms the buttonhole) and tape the loop down on a workarea. Then tie six more double lengths to the loop (this makes anice thick bracelet) and start knotting.

In about two hours (about the duration of a movie or a series ofcampfire stories), your bracelet will be done. Stop when it's thecircumference of your wrist or ankle. Tie a few extra knots to evenup the bottom, and anchor a button with the loose strings.

You can get fancy and add extra buttons or coins (try a vintageleather or Scandinavian metal button, an antique ring or charm, anold earring, even a Chinese coin with a hole in the middle).