The perfect Valentine!

Valentine - words as jewelry. 

Jewelry is relatively new to Valentine whose background is in costume design - she started making jewelry in 2005 and trained at Central St Martin. Born in London and growing up in France, Valentine uses her command of both languages in her word-based jewelry.  She works from her home studio, a cubbyhole of a studio actually, warm and cosy with just enough space for the tools of her trade.

Her style is pared down, playful and poetic. No room for frills or chichi as she goes straight to the essential but humour always plays its part along with surprise and a taste for the whimsical.

Valentine creates unique jewelery that she calls "tags", inspired by military dog tags. Those can be worn as necklaces held on a delicate silver or gold bead chain, or used as key tags.

Each tag is hand-made by Valentine, making it unique and individual, one letter applied at a time to make up words with slightly irregular spacing.

Made mostly in sterling silver, there is a small collection in 22 carat gold, "the most beautiful gold" and Valentine can make any model in gold on demand.  The tags come in two sizes, "slim tags" and "fat tags" that can happily be worn by men.

Just for you.
She also has a wonderful bespoke service where she designs tags in response to a questionnaire.  The resulting tag will surprise and intrigue as it captures Valentine's interpretation of your answers. The questionnaire is thorough and insightful and I am still working on some of my answers! Valentine's jewelry comes from words and the metal tag communicate a message that comforts, amuses, startles or shocks.

Playing with French and English words, she contrasts clashing ideas, tells little stories that can remain very private or invite conversations.

Worn close to the body, they draw you in as lean in to read the words. Or they can act as a private talisman, a motto for your life, a direction to follow.

 

 The beauty of the tags is that they provoke a reaction and literally speak to us. One will inevitably touch you or remind you of someone. The question is: who do you spoil first for Valentine's day, you or your friend?

http://www.valentinetags.com/information.php