Type to Make a Fashion Statement

Graphic t-shirts have always showed a presence on the store shelves ... but now type too? New York Jewelry designer Erica Weiner features gold letterpress necklaces ($60 each), created from rescued obsolete iron type that was used on the Vandercook letterpress and then covered in 14K gold. You can purchase whichever letter you'd like, though she does mention that fonts and type spizes vary slightly, as one should expect with moveable iron type that is worn out from normal printing use and was about to be discarded. Along the same lines, the February issue of How Magazine features a typographic scarf from Little Factory, a Hong Kong-based firm. The scarves are laser-cut suede, available in black, white, or gray, and come in uppercase, lowercase, and number scarves ($58 each).


More relevant to my thesis work from this past semester, as part of her Masters Thesis at RISD, Emily Rothschild combined her interest in the role of medication in our lives and jewelry design. She created a redesign of the ordinary medical ID bracelet and "transformed it into something to be valued and worn with pride." From her website (http://www.helloweare.com/): "Medicine, and our relationship with it, has changed drastically in recent years. The medicine cabinet, however, has remained much the same. This project addresses our daily needs of and uses for prescription medication, and how our household rituals can better accommodate these. I am building new tools which reflect current behaviors and needs and which transform the mundane and feared into a more artful daily ritual. This body of work is not meant to amplify or feed into our dependence on pills, but is meant to give a richness to the ritual when it is needed and to call it into question when it is not." Nameplate necklaces and cuff bracelets with blood types and allergies become markers of pride. Current words include Epinephrine, Penicillin, Bee Sting, Nut Allergy, and Type O. She has also designed brass pill organizer brooches and rings.