In Praise of the Cocktail Ring
It's true: I'm a maximalist.
Perhaps it's because I grew up watching Endora from Bewitched, with her red hair, lavish outfits, cateye makeup, and giant rings (often with magical powers). Or perhaps it's watching the flapper detective Miss Phryne Fisher (of the Australian Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries) raise her champagne and toast yet another case solved, diamonds and rubies competing with the bubbles for sparkle.
Most likely, I love big, bold, beautiful pieces because I believe the time for living is now, every moment. Grey, rainy day? Find your light in a halo of warm jewels, a center stone the size of a marble. Spending Saturday night in? Gaze into the fire and watch as a ballerina ring of diamonds takes symbolic flight, reflecting around the room.
Too often, we deny ourselves the pleasure of wearing something grand to look at because, we claim, we "don't know where we'll wear it." Or we see something glamorous as emblematic of a life we're past. "I dig in the garden all day," one friend says. "My lifestyle's changed."
But a lifestyle is, always, something made to accomodate a life. And some lives need cocktail rings.
The cocktail ring is the ultimate expression of glamorous, tasteful maximalism. Originating in the 1920s, it was a must-have piece for flappers like Miss Fisher. Worn on the right-hand index finger, so as not to be mistaken for a wedding ring, the cocktail ring symbolized female independence in the face of Prohibition. Wave your right hand at the bartender, and your bauble flashed your order for another gin fizz. More significantly, the cocktail ring was an early incarnation of "girl, get your money": women had entered the workforce in unprecedented ways; and, of course, who didn't feel like a celebration after a decade of depravation in the forms of the Great Depression and the flu epidemic?
Sometimes, I think we've grown afraid of celebration. The 2020s haven't been easy times: pandemic, of course, politics, and a focus on social media that makes us suspicious of appearances. As we near the holiday season, though, I have hope for celebration: for candlelit dinners and cocktails by the fire, for holiday parties to which one might "wear that one thing," for dressing up and getting together and making some magic of our own.
I'll do some of that, of course. But I encourage us all to wear our cocktail rings on the couch in our own living room, to enjoy it over our spaghetti on a Monday. There is no one day that needs to be a special day, no one "right time." The time you have is now. Your independence is your own. "A woman should dress first and foremost for her own pleasure," says Miss Fisher. Get yourself the big ring--not because you have a certain "lifestyle" but because you love it.
And love is always worth celebrating.
