Having spent my youth travelling and living in South East Asia I fell in love with their culture and one of the things that I found interesting was the fact that unique jewellery was an essential accessory and was a way that women could express their own individual personality.
In the Asian culture women will wear semi-precious jewels on a daily basis and they are not only brought out of special occasions and these would be added in the morning as casually as women in the west will put on a watch. Generally precious jewellery in the west is considered a luxury and is only brought out for special occasions and is usually bought as gifts.
I am talking about unique jewellery that has been made from precious metals and gemstones and not the mass produced fashion pieces that you will see in all the big stores. In the west we will find women and young girls adorned in these cheap imitation pieces were as in the East you will very rarely find a woman wearing a piece that has not been crafted from gold and precious stones. The gold that is used in the designing of unusual jewellery in the east is 22K and is much purer and darker in colour than the 9K and 18K gold that is used in the west.
In the east you will see babies that have had their ears pierced and you will not see any woman out in the street without her earrings and these can be anything from small gold hoops to large dangling earrings set with precious stones. This is very different in the west where it is almost frowned on for a young girl to have her ears pierced before the age of 16. Then these girls will put any kind of earrings in their ears crafted from many materials and in many styles.
In Asia women will purchase their own pieces of precious jewellery where in the West many women wait to have these precious pieces bought for them. Eastern women will wear their beautiful pieces of unique jewellery daily, going shopping, around the house, visiting family and friends and believe that these pieces are to be shown to the world. Western women will keep these pieces locked up away from the world and only bring them out for special occasions and events. I have always wondered why this is.
You will see western women wearing pieces of cheap mass produced jewellery when they have stunning precious designs that are locked in a box at home. They will go out and pay £500 for a handbag or a pair of shoes because they want to make a style and fashion statement but they have a cheap imitation necklace hanging around there necks. This is a concept that eastern women find very hard to understand.
In the east women’s unique jewellery pieces will grow in value so that they are also an investment as well as stunning adornments. These pieces will be passed down through the generations, mother to daughter and many will have sentimental value. In the west pieces are purchased on a whim and because they are in fashion that season so as soon as they are out of fashion they are discarded and thrown away. This is also something that women in the east cannot understand as they see it as a waste of money and cannot understand why they would spend their money in the first place on pieces of unique jewellery that they will not want to keep.
There is a saying that says the east is east and the west is west so maybe this is just one of the many things that these two diverse cultures do not have in common.
When travelling around the world I have seen many unique handmade necklace designs and many of these have been in the East. Here you will find many piece of unusual jewellery crafted from semi-precious bead and pendants and precious metals. In the West the women’s preferences are for fashion designs that will change with the seasons and these pieces can are available from Jade Jewellery UK
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