Putting the CULT into cultural jewellery

We can all think of jewellery from cultures other than our own; there is Zulu beadwork which indicates social status, the protective metal rings worn around the necks of the Karen hill tribes in Thailand and Indian gold which is worn to convey the wealth of a family.

      

Zulu beadwork                                        Karen long-neck girl                                      Indian wedding jewellery

Whilst some jewellery retains its importance within certain cultures, it is becoming increasingly obvious that other societies are retaining their culture in order to attract tourist money rather than as a natural continuation of their beliefs.

Whilst this may be the case, there are numerous jewellers who work with communities and tribes with the aim of reviving and maintaining their traditions and skills. Pippa Small is one such jeweller who was initially trained as an anthropologist. She has worked with numerous big names including Nicole Farhi and Gucci to produce ranges of her distinctive signature rough cut gems and yellow gold.

On a more ethical note, Pippa Small has teamed up with social groups which are renowned for their traditional jewellery making skills with the intention of establishing trade which will benefit them and spark an interest in their repressed traditions.

In recent years Pippa Small has worked with Turquoise Mountain, a scheme based in Afghanistan with the aim of regenerating traditional artisanal skills to supply jobs and to improve the lifestyle of those who have been affected by Afghanistan’s recent history.  Among other things, jewellery was a big business in Afghan culture prior to the Taliban taking power. With lapis lazuli commonly found and metals being easily available within the country, Afghanistan has a long history of goldsmithing and jewellery production.

When the Taliban came to power in 1996 the Afghan way of living was changed with certain traditions, including jewellery, purged from society. When the Taliban left in 2001 the country had been decimated by war and restarting the jewellery trade trailed far behind repairing and rebuilding infrastructure.

Pippa Small worked with traditional jewellery artists, through Turquoise Mountain, using locally sourced materials and traditional techniques in order to bring a range of jewellery to the West and bring awareness of the issues being faced and the amazing craftsmen that reside in Afghanistan.

Pippa Small & Turquoise Mountain Lapis Lazuli earrings

And this model is being followed by other jewellers and designers in other countries with other artisan craftspeople. Leblas’ designer Arabel Lebrusan is Spanish born and retains her roots by working with filigree artisans in Spain to achieve her designs and to re-establish an age-old tradition with great success.

Fair Trade organisations like Made work with small, disadvantaged communities in East Africa with the intention of producing numerous ranges of craft-based jewellery which is then sold through multiple retailers such as ASOS and John Lewis. Amongst many other designers, Pippa Small has also designed a collection for Made.

There is, however, a flip-side to the current trend for cultural jewellery. Over the summer, Opulent Ethics were lucky enough to visit Thailand and meet with some of the Karen Long-Neck hill tribes who migrated from Burma into Northern Thailand due to political unrest. The women of the tribes are best known for wearing metal rings around their necks. We learnt that girls as young as 7 years of age are forced to wear the rings which are worn permanently. The rings were originally intended to protect the women from tiger attacks as they lived in jungles where this was common.

Karen long-neck elder

In modern times though, we all know that wild tigers are rarer than ever before and as areas become more developed the likelihood of tiger attacks has diminished. Also, with increased access to medical treatment it must be well known that the rings may be causing damage to the girls and women who have to wear them. Whilst Opulent Ethics was with the Karen tribes people we enquired as to why they are still worn and sadly, we were told that the tourist money brought in makes it worthwhile.

The people who form the rings and other jewellery worn by these tribes’ people are obviously talented silversmiths so can their talents not be put to other use nowadays? Could the right marketing and/or collaborations be just the ticket needed to ensure that the cult does get put back into cultural jewellery without damaging those societies it comes from?

That’s all for now….       

The price of going ethical

Whenever you tell anyone that you are an ethical jeweller the question most people ask is “how much more money does it cost?” It appears that the world view of ethical and environmental products is that they cost more money. So is this true for ethical jewellery or can we produce our jewellery for a price relative to non-ethical jewellery?

The city view Fair Trade and ethical products in a purely financial way and this should be the way that we also aim to work. Products should be sourced responsibly but in a cost effective way. Mass production is cheaper than bespoke one-off products so it is important to find where and how mass production techniques can be undertaken at a reasonable price and within the a way that fits our ethos.

That is not to say that ethical jewellery cannot be bespoke but the mark-up price will have to be significant to cover other extra costs.

During our time using ethically sourced materials Opulent Ethics has always paid the same price for recycled silver as for non-recycled silver. We source our recycled silver from Cred who base their price on the daily Cookson pricing of silver.

Fair Trade gold is not the same. On average Fair Trade gold is 10% above the gold spot price whereas ecologically mined Fair Trade gold is 15% above the daily gold spot price. Currently, this means that buyers are paying an extra £4 for their Fair Trade gold per gram.

It must be remembered, though, that this additional money is going to do good. It supports the small-scale mines and communities which mine the materials. Some of the money goes towards improving infrastructure, education and health facilities ensuring that the lives of the people who work and live near the mines are improved.

It is possible that some money may go to middle men. So if you want to reduce costs you should ensure that you obtain your products, where possible, direct from the source or from responsible, reputable suppliers.

David Hargreaves, from Fair Trade Gemstones said during the Great Debate at International Jewellery London (IJL) this summer that the future aim for ethical jewellery is to have 5% of the jewellery market in 15 years producing and using 5 tonnes of fair trade gold per year. This is still a long way off but is definitely a reachable goal.

Small designers may not be able to afford to be 100% ethical yet so it is important to ensure that costs of ethical materials become manageable and in relation to non-ethical materials and the hope is that, over time, costs will be reduced and may even become equal.

It is, therefore, important that small designer makers like Opulent Ethics continue to pledge our support for ethical jewellery by working with the materials we can afford and by promoting ethical jewellery to our contacts and customers. Then, hopefully one day soon the costs of ethical jewellery can become more manageable.

That’s all for now….  

Beauty without the beast

Having come across an old article from the May 2010 edition of Professional Jeweller magazine titled; “Green Jewels for a green cause” Opulent Ethics decided to have a look around at the most beautiful ethical jewellery in recent years.

The professional jeweller article highlighted 8 established jewellers who were using ethically sourced Zambian emeralds in pieces designed specially to raise awareness of the plight of Asian elephants through the environmental charity; World Land Trust.

The emeralds used in these pieces are traceable throughout the supply chain from their origin in Zambia to the beautiful end products. And it is Gemfields who are providing this transparent supply chain.

Shaun Leane                                              Sabine Roemer                                        Sevan Bicakci

 James Currens                                  Theo Fennell

Other amazing pieces of ethical jewellery which we love are:

Choo Yilin Jade Bangles                         Leblas Lace Sphere Filigree Necklace

Pippa Small Haematite Tibetan Ring            Jana Reinhardt Diamond Set Ring

Leblas Sequin Ring

  

 It’s great to see that there are amazing ethical designs out there….



Brilliantly Birmingham brings ethics to the table

Brilliantly Birmingham 2010 advert

Brilliantly Birmingham is an International contemporary jewellery festival which is now in its 11^th year showcasing talent and initiating discussion on topics which affect the jewellery industry. Brilliantly Birmingham originated in 1999 as somewhere that local jewellers and talent could come together with a shared interest. Now, in 2010, Brilliantly Birmingham is offering a mixture of exhibitions, workshops, talks and special events.

The reason that we are writing about Brilliantly Birmingham, apart from to help advertise it, is to draw attention to their decision to bring ethics to the agenda. One of the 4 talks being planned during the event this year is “Jewellery Ethics; Making and buying”.

Bringing together Fifi Bijoux (who produce luxury ethical jewellery), Kate Carter (the life and style editor, specialising in ethical fashion for The Guardian), Sara Preisler (a Birmingham based jeweller), Jack Cunningham (the Head of the School of Jewellery in Birmingham and a narrative jeweller) and a representative from the Fair Trade Foundation, this talk is billed as a conversational session offering thoughts and opinions on ethical jewellery matters.

It is a positive development to see ethics being broached by the largest jewellery-specific fair in the Midlands. The talk does, however, sound a little weak in its purpose. The topic “Making and buying” promises some information on how to turn yourself more ethical but it does not sound like the information provided will be particularly new. We here at Opulent Ethics hope to be proved wrong.

The involvement of the Fair Trade Foundation is exciting as they will be having further involvement with the jewellery industry as ethics become more mainstream. Opulent Ethics look forward to hearing what they bring to the conversation.

We are also looking forward to hearing from Fifi Bijoux who has been producing ethical fine jewellery since 2006 and is one of the leading ethical jewellers in the UK. They donate profits to numerous worthy causes in Africa and display their transparent supply chain for all to see.

It is always a positive thing to see ethics being brought to the table at national and international meetings and shows and Opulent Ethics hopes that Brilliantly Birmingham, which runs from November 27^th 2010 until the 9^th January 2011, manages to steer ethics into the limelight within the Birmingham Jewellery Industry and helps keep it there for the future.

That’s all for now….

An oxidising eggsperience

This week Opulent Ethics have done their first bit of oxidising using good old eggs and this got us thinking what other jewellery techniques are there that can be done in a greener way?

The colour left behind when oxidising with eggs rather than liver of sulphur or oxidisation chemicals is gunmetal grey rather than black but we love the finished look. And the technique is so simple you can do it in your kitchen with no need for additional tools. All you need is an airtight, sealable bag, some eggs and the jewellery you wish to oxidise.

There are numerous recipes around with each one stating how to get the perfect outcome but we chose to follow this simple one from “I Dream I Can Fly Away”:

• Finish your jewellery as required. A polished surface will still shine through after oxidisation.
• Boil your eggs for 10 – 15 minutes (the number of eggs is dependant on the size of your piece. We used 2 eggs for a 30mm piece).
• Ensure your piece is dry and place it in the sealable bag. If the metal is wet the oxidisation process will not work as well. Multiple pieces should be placed apart so they do not touch as this affects the oxidisation process also.
• When the eggs have boiled, remove them from the water, dry them and place them straight into the bag.
• Seal the bag with a little air in it.
• Smash the eggs and yolks to release the sulphur.
• Turn the piece of jewellery every 5 minutes for the first 30 minutes to ensure the sulphur reaches all parts of the piece.
• Leave for 2 hours or longer if you wish the oxidisation to be darker. 
• Remove and finish as required.

From this...

To this!

We found that there is only a slight difference in colour between the pieces being left for 2 hours or being left overnight. It is hard to stop the pieces from getting wet in the bag as there is condensation from the hot eggs. In the future Opulent Ethics may try and suspend the piece so that it touches none of the sides of the bag, making it easier for the sulphur to reach all surfaces and to stop any of the condensation from reaching the piece. Also, in future, if we were oxidising multiple pieces at once we would place them in separate bags as the colour change was less in bags with more than one piece.

The other very simple way that anyone can green their jewellery is by changing their pickle. Normal chemical pickle is very corrosive (you may have noticed holes appearing in all your clothes after a day in the workshop) and should not be disposed of down the sink. There are, however, alternatives! Ute Decker has a pickle fact sheet on her website showing the recipe for either citric acid or iodized salt and vinegar pickle. The beauty of both these pickle solutions is that you can make them from easily purchased ingredients, they can be disposed of in a normal way and they are less corrosive to your skin and clothes.

There are further mentions on Ute’s website on how to be more green in your workshop. Other great tips can be found in Art Jewellery Magazine and on The Daily Jewel, a blog by Christine Dhein on all things green in jewellery.

That’s all for now….

What the Green Movement got wrong: will ethical jewellery go the same way?

On Thursday 4^th November 2010 Channel 4 aired a controversial film about what green activists think they may have now got wrong. This was followed by a live debate between those activists from the film and other well respected members of the green society.

Topics which are now considered to be outdated include prejudice against nuclear power, the availability of genetically modified foods and the belief that there was global cooling in action. This later changed to global warming!

The Green Movement started in the 1950’s and 60’s after the cold war when Russia and China were concentrating their efforts on building and using nuclear power. The movement was initially started as protesters came together to stand up against numerous countries' use of nuclear weapons which would have had an unbearable impact on human society as we know it.

Greenpeace started at this time in order to stop nuclear war and nuclear testing and they later developed into the environmental guardians that we know them as today. In the 1970’s Earth Day brought together millions of people who all held the same views. This was a new way of voicing opinion and forcing change.

The show pointed out that belief in climate change is dwindling all the time with figures stating that only 78% of people believe that climate change is an on-going issue which will impact us all now rather than 91% of people 5 years ago.

All participants involved in the show do, however, agree that climate change is happening, will be the most destructive thing the modern world has ever seen and that the speed at which modern society is changing and developing is the biggest factor in this change. It was stated that the planet temperature cannot afford to rise any higher than 1.5 – 2 degrees Celsius and to stop this happening we need to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2060.

We all know that as population numbers continue to increase and as human activity consumes more natural resources we need to find new ways to continue living as we do without impacting on the natural world.

There has been a massive uptake in wind and solar power in recent decades but there is no storage for either which still makes them unfit for mass use. There are also problems with where to use these types of energy stations as what works in sunny California will not work in rainy England. This is not to say that these alternative power sources are not viable, just that society needs to choose and use responsibly.

 Wind and solar powered street lamp in Tokyo

GM crops were massively opposed when news of their existence emerged. In all the time since then there has been no evidence of these crops harming the human food chain and yet they have been refused in countries where famine has taken hold. Africa is the only continent where poverty and malnutrition are still on the increase. GM crops could be massively beneficial so we have to ask why were they stopped? Was society too judgemental and why did we not take the human costs of our actions into account?

Yes there were valid reasons at the time as to why society has protested to ban or not use these things; Chernobyl and the Sellafield disasters both impacted massively on societies opinion of how harmful nuclear disasters could be and other factions argued that we shouldn’t be playing god with natural items as is the case of GM foods, but now these reasons are quite patronising, reactionary and outdated.

The Green Movement now needs to be realistic whilst remaining ethical in order to ensure that the world, the environment and humans are all helped equally. And this is also something that individuals need to start taking responsibility for. It is no longer the problem of just those wild activists!

As far as ethical jewellery goes there is no reason why failing beliefs in global environmental issues should affect us. All ethical jewellers know that what they are working towards what is right and just and for this reason alone we should continue working and promoting our products despite the reaction we may get in these bleak times of waning belief.

Ethical jewellery is lucky in the sense that we are not promoting or using or backing any technologies or theories that could be proven incorrect in years to come. Instead we are promoting good, honest, sustainable practices which are attainable and we share goals that can be reached. And this is why here at Opulent Ethics we are still as positive as ever!

To read comments about the show or to view the broadcast click here.

That’s all for now….  

Trade versus aid

In a recent blog post by Marc Choyt this week the following question was raised;

"More jobs versus better jobs: which helps more in the developing world?"

This led us here at Opulent Ethics to think again about that old slogan “Trade not aid” which became popular with the raising awareness of third world issues through the Body Shop, Live Aid and the Fair Trade movement, to name but a few.

Over the years “Trade not aid” has been tested and proven to work successfully for all parties involved. Rather than a quick fix it allows confidence to build and provides a long-term solution to those people in need.

And the Body Shop used its Community Fair Trade (formerly known as Trade not Aid) initiative to help, not only those abroad, but communities within the UK. One of their biggest success stories was the start of a soap factory in a poor suburb of Glasgow which provided 100 jobs to local residents.

Within today’s recession stricken world jobs are a much needed necessity but should developments in labour and human rights laws take a back seat behind creating large numbers of jobs throughout so that our economies can right themselves quicker?

Marc Choyt’s Fair Jewelry Action blog which campaigns for and reports on environmental justice and human rights issues does allow both sides of the argument to be discussed openly with the opposition stating that; 

"I know if I paid below the minimum wage I could hire twice as many people and probably do more good… But I don’t want to go down that track. It also results in a downward wage spiral, which perhaps in essence takes away a job from a higher paid person in one country and transfers it to a lower paid person in another, without necessarily creating more jobs in the wider scheme of things."  

Whilst Opulent Ethics understands the theory behind the statement we find it hard to believe that a mass increase in low paid jobs could have any on-going, long-term positive effect. Surely it would just be a step backwards and may even impact on Fair Trade developments.

There have been many advances made in small communities the world over with the Fair Trade movement and we are now caught up in the sway of this. To put this to one side for a while would not only damage those communities whose lives have been improved but also the developed world’s perception of product worth.  

Yes, we need more jobs to help us work our way out of recession but should now not be seen as the perfect time to make modest improvements to worthwhile causes rather than moving towards re-establishing an environment of child labour and sweat shop produced products which leaves consumers disillusioned and less likely to spend in the long-term?

Opulent Ethics hopes that the need for more jobs rather than better jobs is not the opinion of the masses but just the non-altruistic few.

To see Marc Choyt's article in full please click here.

That’s all for now….

  Fair Trade cotton producers

Fair Trade cocoa producers

Fair Trade fruit producers