Queen Victoria couldn’t keep her wrists off them, soldiers returning home from war bought them back from their travels for loved ones, and virtually every girl on the brink of junior high school sported a Tiffany & Co. chain link tag bracelet. True, charms are nothing new. And though traditionally an ornament-laden bracelet can take a lifetime to create, here’s one to get your head (and hands!) wrapped around now. Charmed, a collaboration conceived by Liz Swig of LizWorks and Ippolita Rostagno of her namesake line features—you guessed it—charms customized by seven famous female artists of our time including Laurie Simmons, Shirin Neshat, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Rachel Feinstein, Mickalene Thomas, and Wangechi Mutu. For Swig, the hope was to bring these women together in an intimate and wearable dialogue. “The charm has been used by women to connect, share, and save memories from generation to generation,” she says. “This bracelet elevates a piece of jewelry to a piece of art.” Mission accomplished. The divine result—a deeply personal, highly covetable collection of charms which includes everything from Kruger’s confrontational coin splashed with the words “Money can buy you love” and Sherman’s polished and precious golden egg locket to Mutu’s rock crystal and resin printed bauble that reflects her complex perception of life as an immigrant—rest literally on an indisputably Ippolita chain-link bracelet. Here, it’s rendered in 18-karat green gold and ready to show off curiosities that are, as designer Ippolita Rostagno says, “emblems of meaning, evidence of memories, and tokens of love.” When Simmons was approached for the project, she says, “It wasn’t a question of ‘What will I make?’; it was ‘Which charm shall I make?’ ” As it happens, one of the photographer’s memorable childhood pastimes was playing with the dangling charms from her mother’s trinket-heavy bracelet (Simmons admits to taking a portrait of her mother’s hand years ago so she could study every detail in depth). For Thomas, the charm choice was a no-brainer: sapphire jeweled lips are an ode to her own artwork (her paintings often feature sparkling lips and eyes) on a smaller, more whimsical scale. Available now in limited quantity (by the looks of it, these treasures won’t last long)—get the new bijoux that’s a little work of art.  

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