Stylish Hands

Today I was e-mailing back and forth with a client interested in a beautiful ring.  She had seen the ring in person but her boyfriend had not, so we decided to take some photographs of rings on fingers so he could have a more dynamic view of this fantastic jewel.

I don’t know why I always think it will be easy to take a photo on a hand.  The rings look fantastic but posing a hand, like posing a body, is an art my hands have not.  And so I decided to go to that ever, useful search function “Google Images” to see how other people make their hands look attractive.

And while I looked for the perfect pose for my hand I was reminded of one of the other reasons I love rings (The first of course being that they are often fantastically beautiful.)  But the second is how expressive they are, not only singularly but also in great abundance, as women and men pile on the rings in the most beautiful and unique combinations.

The “Google Image” that awed me I have put below.  A woman bedecked in Zuni jewelry.  Her hands showing the years she’s lived.

Looking through these photographs of hands, you could see so much about the women who wore them, how they saw the world, how they saw themselves and the beauty they sought to express. 

Having the good fortune of seeing avid jewelry collectors on a daily basis I have such respect for people who know how to build a collection – and not the collection alone, but how they pair their jewelry each day as they dress themselves, showing the world a little bit of who they are with how they attire themselves.  These women make the jewelry they wear even more fantastic by how they pair it and by filling it with themselves.  A snake ring is beautiful.  A Cartier triple band is beautiful but put the right two together and it is art.  Sometimes how woman pair things make sense.   For instance sometimes I like to wear all my Native American jewelry together but other times the way a woman wears her rings can be idiosyncratic and yet somehow divine as she juxtaposes Victorian rose gold with the sleek modernity of Art Deco. 

And so as a project, my co-worker and I decided to pair some of the rings in the store with our imperfect hand poses to play with this art form we love so much-the styling of the hand.