Gift her out of the blue!

Reminds me of a Phil Collins number too "When I'm feeling blue...". This is a personal favorite. Lovely!

C-hoops with Omega Back

Smile of God Earrings

Some little pure metal pleasure. Sits in the Smile of God collection at Mississippi Earrings.

20 Times Charming

for one *old set o' darling,
you could be 20 times charming!

While this expression is poetic, the phenomenon is slightly mathematical :).

Suppose you buy a pair of gold earrings which weighs 10 grams. How much would it cost you? Let me take two major heads of pricing: metal cost and labor. At Rs.2700/gm of gold and, assuming a conservative Rs.300/gm of labor. The price of your earrings will be nothing less than Rs.30,000/- at least. And add a few gemstones or diamonds and the labor of setting them as per the design, the price will easily fall in the range of Rs.35,000 to Rs.50,000. And depending on the size of the diamonds or gemstones, it could shoot well beyond Rs.50,000 easily. 60k, 70k, 80k or even 1 lakh.

Now, suppose the same design is rendered in silver. Yes, it can be with same fineness, finesse and sophistication. For metal and labor, it would cost just Rs.3600/-. And if you are wise enough to go for some good diamond-like or gemstone-like crystals or beads, within Rs.4000/-, you can get a fabulous pair.

So after having spent Rs.4000/- on a pair of lovely silver earrings, you might have quite some amount on hand. If investment in gold was what you were looking for, go ahead and buy 10gms of gold. It will 99.99% gold, instead of 91.6% which is typically given to you when you buy gold jewelry but which is charged for at the price of 99.99%. All this will fetch you additional metal worth Rs.2000/- at least as against what you would have got if you were to buy gold jewelry of the same weight.

The interesting part is when you sell this gold. Again, jewelers have a habit of cutting design costs and value the metal at exactly 91.6% when gold is a part of jewelry. But when gold is in its pure form, 99.99%, you actually get that value when you go to sell.

If you want great designs and great looks, silver can offer you that. And if you want investment, let it be gold. When you mix the two, that's when you lose money. Unless of course, by adding gold to your looks, you intend to showcase your wealth! 

In fact, if you are fond of earrings, the silver can give you 10-20 pairs within the price of one gold pair. Ideally I should say "10 to 20 times charming", but then 20 times charming is more alluring and tempting. No? :)

Big Earrings - Dunes

What are collectible motif earrings?

You see in the ad, right below the name Mississippi, we write "collectible motif earrings". What do these words really mean?

'Collectible' refers to the lasting qualities of our designs as opposed to 'junkness' of a lot of jewelry available these days. And when I say 'junkness' I mean, you wouldn't necessarily be hurt if you lost your junk jewelry, unless you've paid a hefty sum when buying. 'Junkness' also refers to what we typically call 'artificial jewelry'.

Motif? In the above design, the inspiration is a heart. You can see in the design, traces of the shape of a heart. Likewise, designs draw inspiration from many other shapes/motifs like flowers, leaves, rectangles, sandunes, mango (keri), twisted shapes, etc.

Hope the collectible motif earrings become more understandable now. Here are some of the motif-based collections at Mississippi (missi.in).

Dunes Earrings (inspired by Sandunes)
Keri Earrings (inspired by Mango)
Micronas Earrings (based on micro-paved diamond-laying technology)
Rexy Earrings (Rectangular + Sexy :))
Savior Earrings (inspired by Leaves & Trees)
Smile of God Earrings (inspired by Flowers)
Twistles Earrings (Twisted Shapes)

We are working on some more collections too.

So what motifs do you have in your collection of earrings or jewelry?

Top 4 Cheerings of the Week - Pleasures in Pure Metal

You can check more details by visiting the shop-front on etsy.

You can check more details by visiting the shop-front on etsy.

This shop-front is also on etsy. Check here. This one is in brass.

Again on etsy. Click here. This one comes with in 16k gold-plating.

Consumerism and gifting and selling and marketing

I had a little exchange with friends around Valentine's Day. While here you find two screen-shots I saw some others also with similar updates.

I shudder to think of writing on such a topic. That's why perhaps it took me days to write this. But am writing nonetheless. For, if attempted in all earnestness, it can almost turn into a book. One tour of cultural-philosophical-ontological history :). Besides, I am not necessarily equipped with all the matter. Anyway, here are a few bits. Can't deny that there's a connection which we all feel with such sentiments whenever expressed.

Can things advertised as gifts or celebration of love/Valentine's Day be touted just as "the same old thing being labelled as 'love' and getting sold!"? 

And can Valentine's Day just be called "Happy unimaginative consumerist oriented and entirely manipulative shallow interpretation of romance day"?

The words in inverted commas in both the questions seem to convey that 'marketing' means 'new'. And there seems to be a rather derogatory view of 'selling'. As if it's mere business. It's sheer manipulation.

One point is that the expression of 'love' needn't necessarily be words and acts like hugs and kisses. The expression of 'love' can just as easily be a new act like making coffee for your beloved when you've never done that earlier. Or may be, the expression of 'love' can just as easily be an object, which will bring on his/her face a smile and fulfill some small little desire, if there was any, expressed or unexpressed.

Acts and objects both require energy. On most occasions, both cost. For some acts though, the math of costing is yet not possible, for good or for bad. For objects, if you are making them yourself, you'll spend money, or energy or time for which eventually you'll pay in kind. Or if you are buying or arranging an act, surely you'll spend money.

Romance and love wouldn't be romance and love, if sellers and marketers are expected to set it all up for you. There are some things money can't buy. Just aid. They can at best give you options or create options, choice is still yours and imbuing your choice with meaning depends on the strength of your feeling. If you want to do something really different or unique, why not develop a skill to do it yourself? Or why not think of a plan which makes the day different? Why depend on just marketers/sellers to do it all for you? And if you aren't depending on marketers/sellers, why be so cynical/critical of what they are doing!

From a seller's/marketer's point-of-view, there are numerous people in this country who've lived in conditions that, forget buying an object or indulging in any action, they've perhaps not been able to feel any act of love (romantic or otherwise) towards them. Perhaps days meant for overt celebration like Valentine's Day opens up just those occasions to feel that feeling. And a simple thing like gifting a pair of earrings (for example, since we retail that) becomes a memorable event. There need to be people who offer those simple beautiful things/events too.

There are numerous first timers and numerous things which these numerous people will do for the first time. In their capacities, they might not have the skill to do things on their own. A lot of marketers and sellers, and a lot of marketing and selling are for those people. And I can tell you, there are numerous couples, married and unmarried, among whom gifting a pair of earrings hasn't happened yet :).

Besides, at Mississippi we kept some lovely greeting cards for people gifting their Valentines. Now you would say, what's the great shake in that. There are people who are gifting like this for the first time. For them, it's special. Non-manipulative. Little but nice.

I, for one, haven't yet done many simple things/acts over the years. But gradually, on occasions, am doing those little things in my life and celebrating. Yeah, if you've done all the little things possible to express or convey your love and now want a great grand experience, any marketer will charge. Yes, you can yourself definitely plan little small things in a sequence such that in totality it becomes a grand celebration. But even that costs.

If marketers and sellers aren't doing anything worthwhile, think of what it could be and enter the arena. You might get all the mission and money, and create all the new and imaginative and meaningful stuff/experiences in the world.