A look at the history of the friendship bracelet and why even adults can enjoy them.
– JINNIE LEE
I haven’t been wearing much jewelry throughout the pandemic. Rings aren’t especially conducive to frequent hand washing, and larger, more dramatic pieces sometimes feel like a bit much while at home. Recently though, I have started making and wearing friendship bracelets, that throwback style from grade school and summer camp.
It initially began as a way to pass the time during lockdown (and a way to get off my phone). I’d quietly spend a few hours beading or knotting embroidery floss while listening to podcasts, my attention fully zeroed in on what my fingers were doing. It was meditative. Afterwards, I’d mail the bracelets to my friends with handwritten notes (another satisfying activity). They came to symbolize how much I missed everyone — and how we could stay connected from afar.
How Did Friendship Bracelets Start?
The exact origin of the friendship bracelet is difficult to pin down. BraceletBook cites that knotted bracelets date back to ancient China, Novica claims its beginnings are in Central America, and Wristband recognizes the Native American tradition of exchanging bracelets. Jewelry designer and historian Erica Weiner has a hunch that the exchange of sentimental jewelry between friends likely stems from 17th-19th century mourning jewelry, which was often made with strands of loved one’s hair. “You’d cut a piece of your hair and have a specialist weave it into elaborate patterns within a ring or bracelet,” says Weiner. “Before photography, making jewelry out of hair was one of the only ways to keep a physical part of someone close to you while you were separated.”
Friendship Bracelet History
Personalized sentimental jewelry has appeared in various forms based on its intended message. “Victorian-era sentimental jewelry used codes to communicate feelings, and flowers also had their own unique messages; floriography is known as the language of flowers,” says Weiner. “A friend in the 1800s would have given a jewel with a forget-me-not flower to another friend as if to say, ‘Don’t forget me.’ Turquoise was also a friendship symbol [during the Victorian era]. Queen Victoria gave turquoise brooches to all of her ladies-in-waiting—her bridesmaids, a.k.a. her besties—at her wedding.”
Making 20th century friendship bracelets, however, doesn’t require much: just colorful embroidery floss, adhesive tape, beads, and a threading needle (if you’re making a beaded bracelet). The beauty of the process lies in the fact that no two pieces will ever look exactly the same. They’re each as unique and special as the person they’re intended for.
Friendship Bracelets Meaning & Symbolism
Melissa Walker, costume designer of the Hulu comedy Pen15, knows a thing or two about friendship bracelets herself. She incorporated a variety of them into the series, which focuses on two best friends navigating 7th grade in the year 2000. “Using friendship bracelets and necklaces in Pen15 was very important to me, since it was such a big part of my own childhood,” says Walker. “I loved how the handmade quality of them added to the two main characters, Anna and Maya, who wear matching embroidery floss chokers on top of their store-bought BFF necklaces.”
As the girls mature emotionally throughout the show, so does their friendship jewelry. “Maya loses her pony-bead bracelet in season two, and we actually swap out the girls’ friendship necklaces in season three,” says Walker, who notes that friendship jewelry tends to get more complex as its makers (generally in their early teens) get older and become more dexterous with crafting. The trend has had such a resurgence, in fact, that Walker has also incorporated beaded daisy chokers into the 2000s-inspired looks for her Pen15 clothing line.
Even though 2000 feels like a lifetime ago, there’s something to be said about the power of nostalgia during these pandemic times. I know that I’m not the only one who feels this way — writer Danielle Campoamor in her piece for the New York Times writes that “nostalgia serves as a kind of emotional pacifier, helping us to become accustomed to a new reality that is jarring, stressful and traumatic.” In my own day-to-day, I find myself exclusively revisiting TV shows and music from my youth. And I’m wearing a lot more baggy vintage tees, slip-on sneakers, and of course, friendship bracelets lately. There’s a comfort to it all. Plus, I miss my friends very much, and I’d like them to know I think of them often. I can express my love by sending them bracelets that cost nearly nothing to make but are woven and beaded with plenty of care and time. So whether you make a friendship bracelet for yourself or for others (or both), the present is as good a time as any for a sentimental nod to the past.
What are you making and sharing with friends and family?
Related Stories
