Topic: The Popular Jewelry Trend That Carries Meaning Across Many Cultures
The Popular Jewelry Trend That Carries Meaning Across Many Cultures
When I was younger, I would often snoop through my mom’s jewelry box. It’s a tradition in Pakistani culture to receive gold once you get married, and while most things were kept away in a safe, she kept a few at home that I often admired, one being a gold necklace with her and my dad’s name set in a simple script. I remember being 11 at the time and asking my mom for a necklace with my name on it, and sure enough, she had one stored away for me that was made after I was born.To get more news about Name Necklace, you can visit koalaprint.com official website.
Now, I’m 22 and the necklace still remains on my neck. I know it may seem frivolous to some, but carrying my name—one that I have often purposely butchered for others to pronounce easier—gave me a firm grasp on it. It wasn’t till I saw my four-year-old niece prance around proudly saying her name, and tell me how it upset her when people mispronounced it till I understood how much one’s name plays a significant role in their identity, especially when their identity is one that is often questioned or misunderstood in society.
Nameplate jewelry is the personalized style that is known to be an endearing gift and can be found on some of the most popular jewelry sites today. While the nameplate carries importance in my Pakistani heritage, it carries a similar meaning for many others of different backgrounds from Black to Latin cultures. When I went to research more on the style and how it translates to people all over, I found Documenting the Nameplate, a project and study started by Marcel Rosa-Salas and Isabel Flower in which they take a deep dive into the meaning of nameplate culture, and document stories of people and their connection to their jewelry.
Curious to see what they’ve found in their research, I reached out to the duo to learn more about the place nameplate jewelry holds in today’s culture. Read below to see what they had to say.
Marcel has a Ph.D. in anthropology and Isabel has a BA in studio art and art history. This pedagogical lens has definitely informed our approach to our work (both independently and together). However, what really prompted us to bond over our shared love of nameplates early in our friendship was a curiosity about an everyday material culture that tends to be overlooked within critical discourse and academia. Nameplates are a prime example of an extremely popular and global phenomenon, dear to us both, that (to our knowledge) had never been formally studied, documented, or written about.
History is much more complicated than we tend to think, given the linear and simplistic narratives that we learn in school and that comprise collective understandings of popular culture. In general, it is very difficult to pinpoint a true origin or ownership of any cultural phenomena, and determining these types of “facts” is not a goal of this project.
One of the biggest discoveries of this project is that nameplates have multiple, overlapping origins and contain, to this day, a rich and pluralistic significance within many cultural traditions. However, this does not contradict the need to be specific, to pay attention to the trajectories of material history, and to give credit where due, which also, very importantly, includes compensating people. Fashion industry players should spend more time doing research, not necessarily for the sake of getting to the bottom of “origin” (which is often impossible anyway), but rather to give context and depth to their work in ways that honor all parties involved, highlight undervalued narratives and populations, and promote knowledge sharing.