Just bead it

Fickle fashion did it again. Oversized beads – as big as a bullfrog’s eyes – tumbling down my friend’s neck.  Was it only yesterday when everything we wore was huge and loose?  Tent and trapeze dresses, elephant pants, a-go-go watches (or what my mother used to call "clock on your wrist").

 I remember my artistic friend Chiqui Recio, who made changeable "psychedelic" straps for our go-go watches using leftover fabric from her mother’s atelier.  They were wide and vulgar but trendy.  We wore them because they were, well, the fad.  They were hot and every girl had to have them whether she was part of the in-crowd (even that word has been fossilized) or the TH crowd (trying hard).

 Beads are back in a big way which means it is goodbye to those sweet and dainty versions that were once evocative of summer romances.  They have been described as having multiple personalities á la Coco Chanel with the mystical power of Scheherazade (the clever storyteller from the Arabian Nights) and the prehistoric flair of Wilma Flintstone.

Leafing through the pages of a jewelry magazine, there were so many necklaces and bracelets made out of beads that invoked the spirit of that stylish cartoon character from Bedrock.  Chunky strands of dalmatian jasper, yellow calcite, blue green lace agate, moonstones, orange cornelian, an accessory trend frivolously termed "Wilma Flintstone goes Park Avenue."

Luckily for us we don’t have to travel that far.  Beads are easily found in tiangges (hawkers’ markets), bazaars and shopping malls often raising eyebrows at how affordable and easily available they are.  They are a refreshing change from all the delicate, expensive jewelry and can be worn any time of the day, anywhere.

Why the popularity of stones and rocks?

They are sensual, organic, smooth and silky and cool to the skin.  The powerful allure of beads dates back to thousands of years before Cleopatra wore her dramatic beaded collars.  Their earthy appeal transcends time, fashion and technology.

Women have not lost their attraction to these old rocks because there is a primeval attachment to rare things that come from the earth.  The more high-tech our lives have become, the more there seems to be a craving for a deep spiritual connection to the earth – proof of "power beads" and healing stones and those copper bracelets, alleged to endow the wearers with good vibes and qualities such as tranquility, prosperity, health and the third eye.

Beads are conductors of spirit.  It pulls in energy that you need.  It protects you from things (think agimat or talisman).  When you wear these beads, they ground you to the earth and connect you with the spirits.  Whether they are smooth-tumbled, in rough-hewn chunks, nugget-chiseled or donut-shaped, they are mined 8,000 feet below the earth’s surface or excavated from sunken ships and that alone can literally blow the mind.  Beads have been highly valued throughout history.  They were used as money, as adornment, as ransom payments or even as bridal dowry.

In one of the documentary films about the ethnic tribes of Nepal, I couldn’t get my eyes off the huge and polished turquoise beads that were worn by both men and women, in several strands and in different layers.  The ethnic tribes wear these beads as part of their daily attire – they work, play, worship and perhaps even make love with them.  Women therefore have long and stretched ear lobes bearing wide holes from prolonged wear.  The smooth and red-onion-like skin of the women, toughened by the constant exposure to the sun, wind and climate changes, complements the bright, naked blue color of the stone.  The natural black grain that runs in jagged lines along each stone enhances it further.

Aside from history, there is one’s personal history when as a child growing up in the 1950s’, we would play "dress up" and go through mother’s jewelry box wearing oversized shoes and trinkets.  Just as color brightened the flower power generation, vivid hues are re-emerging in the current trend after years of low-key minimalism and neutral palettes.

Beads have also become sound business.  Two of my friends, Betty  Lopez Sarmiento and Tootsie Moreno Vicente, started bead-weaving as a hobby and have turned it into a lucrative and sustainable trade.  Whenever we get together, they inevitably talk shop and I get pinned and lost in the middle, alongside malachite, chrysoprase, and all sorts of stones and minerals that have been unearth from the rich earth.  And what do I get for sitting it out patiently?  Free samples of their latest rocks and stones woven in many charming ways.

Betty, unfortunately, is now based in Geneva, Switzerland, where she makes an interesting side business out of her beautiful beads.  But she’d be happy to make some that she can take home to Manila when she’s home for the holidays (sarmiento@un.org);  Tootsie is always on a jet plane visiting family and friends but can also be persuaded to make one of her Chinese knotted one-of-a-kind bead creations (tootsie_v@yahoo.com).

There’s no doubt that the wheel of fashion will turn again.  But judging from all the feminine fuss over beads, Wilma Flintstone has every right to strut her wares.  Her fashion sense has gone past pre-historic to meteoric.

That’s what I call a yaba-daba-doo-ba piece of history on your neck.