❋ NEW ❋
❋ AS SEEN ON TIK TOK❋
❋ NEW ❋ ❋ AS SEEN ON TIK TOK❋
35-inch hand-knotted necklace, sterling silver findings, faceted AA labradorite beads
For those who find beauty even in bleakness.
The stone: Labradorite is a variety of the mineral feldspar. It’s renowned for its extraordinary optical phenomenon: labradorescence.
This optical effect is produced by interference. As light encounters the microscopic layers of the stone's structure, it creates flashes of colour. Blue, green, gold, occasionally violet and orange seem to emerge from inside the stone. These spectral colours are a direct result of the material’s essential structure.
The finest labradorite comes from Labrador, Canada, where it was first described to European scientists in 1770. The Inuit peoples of the region had known of it for much longer. Some traditions believed that the aurora borealis was trapped inside.
This talisman utilises AAA-quality faceted beads.
The design: At 35 inches, the Winter Talisman is long enough to wear over thick jumpers or layered over light silks and linens in the summer. A long line of shimmering stones, it will see you through the seasons — special occasions and ordinary days alike.
The talisman: Winter asks us to find what sustains us when the light is low and the natural world has turned its back. Labradorite creates colour from its own essential self. That’s not an empty metaphor — it’s what the stone does. Let this talisman serve as a reminder that colour and beauty persist, however harsh the conditions.
Materials:
AA-quality faceted labradorite beads
Sterling silver findings
Hand-knotted in London
Length: 35 inches
Price: £125
925 sterling silver, star-set 1.25mm black sapphire, optional engraving
A quiet reminder of what really matters.
The piece: A solid 925 sterling silver band, star-set with a single 1.25mm black sapphire. Star setting is a technique in which fine cuts radiate from the stone, pushing the metal inward to hold it flush with the surface. Most famous in antique and vintage jewellery, here it produces a subtle and evocative effect.
Worn face-up: a small point of dark light on the hand, visible to the world. Worn face-down: a private reminder, known only to you.
The stone: Black sapphire is corundum, the same mineral as ruby and blue sapphire. It’s rated 9 on the Mohs scale, a supremely durable stone suitable for wear as a ring.
The talisman: The evening star is the first visible after sunset: Venus, in most latitudes. The brightest object in the sky as the light fails, marking the transition between day and nigh. This ring represents the moment when the day's account is closed. Wear it as a daily reminder to close your accounts well.
Optional engraving: The inside of the band can be engraved with text of your choice, or with venit nox — Latin for night comes, a documented memento mori phrase. Specify at checkout.
Materials:
925 sterling silver band
1.25mm star-set black sapphire
Fully resizable (additional £20)
Optional interior engraving (additional £50)
Handmade in London to order
Lead time: 1 week
Price: £150
Sterling silver pendant, set with 3mm labradorite cabochon, engraved in English or Old Irish
Learn to move with time, not against it.
The source: Aithbe damsa bés mora — ebb tide to me as of the sea.
This is the opening line of the Lament of the Old Woman of Beare, one of the oldest surviving poems in the Irish language. It’s told from the perspective of the Calleach Bhéara — the Hag of Beare. She’s a figure from Irish mythology associated with age, sovereignty, and winter. In the poem she reflects on her faded youth and the ocean’s tide as it recedes — a metaphor, of course, for her her own life.
The poem survives in a ninth-century manuscript. The Old Irish text used for this pendant is taken from Gerard Murphy's Early Irish Lyrics (Oxford University Press, 1956). The English translation is taken from Kuno Meyer's 1911 translation.
Despite the poem’s title, the Calleach Bhéara doesn’t despair. She has lived life so fully that the ebb tide is no tragedy — and her dignity remains as the ocean recedes.
The stone: Labradorite is a variety of feldspar. It’s optical phenomenon — labradorescence — comes from the interference of light as it interacts with thin layers within the stone's structure. This is a stone whose most important quality — those shfiting, spectral colours — is inherent in how it’s made.
The talisman: This talisman was made for transitions. It’s a reminder that ebb and flow are two parts of the same process. And working with time, rather than fighting against it, can bring beauty and fulfilment.
Engraving options: Available engraved in English (ebb tide to me as to the sea) or Old Irish (aithbe damsa bés mora). Specify at checkout.
Materials:
Sterling silver pendant
3mm labradorite cabochon
Engraved in English or Old Irish — specify at checkout
Handmade in London to order
Lead time: 2 weeks
Price: £99
20-inch hand-knotted necklace, sterling silver findings, graduated faceted iolite rondelles
For finding beauty in the in-between.
The stone: Iolite has one of the most remarkable optical properties in the world: eye-visible pleochorism. This allows the gemstone to change colour in real time, shifting between deep violet-blue, pale grey and near colourless as light enters and leaves the stone in different directions. Viking navigators are said to have used thin slices of iolite as a polarising filter, helping them locate the sun on overcast days.
These are AAA-quality graduated faceted rondelles. The colour in each bead shifts as it moves, as the light changes, and as the day turns to evening.
The talisman: Twilight is the liminal hour, when the day hasn't quite ended and the night hasn't quite begun. Likewise, Iolite is constantly shifting colour. A stone that can’t be pinned down, a time of day we experience only briefly.
Wear this in the in-between. It’s a talisman for the moments that belong neither to what came before nor what comes next.
Materials:
AAA-quality graduated faceted iolite rondelles
Sterling silver findings
Hand-knotted in London
Length: 20 inches
Price: £185
The Inspiration
In medieval and Renaissance Europe, people wore reminders of their own mortality: memento mori, Latin for “remember you must die”.
This jewellery was a physical reminder of how fleeting mortal life truly is. And they asked their wearers to remember that their time on Earth was finite.
Compared to times past, our culture now keeps death at a distance. It can be easy to forget that our days our numbered.
Evensong, the new collection from Cunningfolk, draws on this ancient tradition.
Not, however, has a reminder to live in fear of judgement. Instead, this collection is an invitation to live with intention. To devote our finite time to the people we love, the ideals we believe in and the things that bring us joy, fulfilment and wonder.
Evening is coming. What do you want to have made of your day?
The Sources
The first spark came from the Scottish artist Ian Hamilton Finlay. In a Scottish gallery, Cunningfolk founder Lucinda encountered his work Evening Will Come, They Will Sew the Blue Sail. Its words lingered: Even-ing will come. They will sew the blue sail. There is something haunting in this image. The blue-purple of twilight, the last light on the water, the suggestion of a shroud being sewn. Evening is both beautiful and inevitable.
Next came Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, a novel about the quiet devastation of a life spent in service to an ideal. What happens when we look back and realise that we gave our lives to something that, at the end of the long day, doesn’t matter to us?
With these works in mind, and her own mid-life questions simmering in the background, Lucinda created a collection of modern memento mori: jewellery that makes room for mortality without surrendering to melancholy. She searched art, literature, history and gemmology for symbols, words and stones that could embody these. Her research led her to Julian of Norwich, the mythology surrounding the Cailleach, the shifting blue-violet depths of iolite and the eerie flashes of labradorite.
The result is Evensong: a collection as beautiful as a purple-blue evening, as bittersweet as an ending, and as full of possibility as the moments that remain. Beauty and decay, loss and renewal, the end of one thing and the beginning of another. This is a collection that fully embraces the duality of autumn and winter.
A collection for the turning of the year, and for anyone contemplating what comes next.
The Pieces
Five pieces comprise the Evensong collection. Each offers its own way to consider time, change and how you want to spend your life.
The Twilight Talisman & The Winter Talisman
Two hand-knotted gemstone necklaces, strung on genuine silk and finished with hallmarked sterling silver.
The Twilight Talisman features iolite, a stone renowned for its pleochroism: the ability to reveal different colours from different angles. From blue to purple to grey, it captures the colours of a fading sky in stone.
The Winter Talisman is strung with labradorite, whose deep grey surface conceals flashes of ghostly blue. Thanks to this gemstone’s unique physical structure, light catches and vanishes, appearing almost as if from within the stone itself.
Two stones, two gemmologically-proven optical effects, and a reminder that change has a beauty of its own.
The Ebb Tide Pendant
The Ebb Tide Pendant features the opening lines of The Lament of the Old Woman of Beare, an ancient Irish poem spoken in the voice of a woman confronting the loss of her youth.
This ancient poem is often associated with mythological Cailleach, an embodiment of winter. The speaker mourns the passing of beauty, power and time, but is not a victim of it. This is no simple lament. It is a meditation on what age takes from us and what it leaves behind.
Available in the original Irish and in English translation, the pendant offers a reminder that time comes for us all.
The Evening Star Ring
The collection concludes with the Evening Star Ring, a quiet, deeply personal reminder to bring beauty to every day. A 1.25 mm faceted black sapphire is star-set in 925 sterling silver. This understated and intimate piece can be worn with its setting facing upwards as a visible memento mori, or turned downwards as a private reminder.
Fully resizable and available for personal engraving, it’s a gentle cue to make the most of your finite life.