The Sunday Times - UK (2022-02-13

The Sunday Times February 13, 2022 V2 3

NEWS

Bold in gold: the ‘knuckle-duster’ rings that help women pack a punch

from the broadcaster Fearne

Cotton to the food writer

Jasmine Hemsley. Moore

describes it as “no-nonsense”

jewellery and “big rocks for

powerful people” and an

embodiment of her fightback

against the man who tried to

terrorise her.

The trend for giant

statement cocktail rings has

attracted celebrity followers

including the singers Adele,

Dua Lipa, Rihanna and

Rebecca Lucy Taylor, aka Self

Esteem, and the model Bella

Hadid. Experts say it is a

resurgence of a fashion that

dates to Elizabeth I, who

wore huge rings on several

fingers as a symbol of her

power and wealth.

Vivienne Becker, a

kind of wear on you as

armour. I actually started

sleeping with them on

because I felt more powerful

wearing these huge rocks on

my fingers.”

“In Sri Lanka, I met local

mining families and visited

eco and fairtrade mines. One

of the mines I found was run

by a woman named Beatrice

in her seventies or eighties

and one of the only female-

run mines in Sri Lanka. All of

Beatrice’s miners are

shareholders of the

gemstones they pull from the

ground.”

Moore has named one of

her collections after Beatrice.

Her business is named

after her late grandmother,

Jean Mossman, a journalist.

“She was very glamorous, but

also really badass. I think as

women we were often taught

it’s one or the other. I have

always been feminine but also

a feminist. I make glamorous

knuckle-dusters.”

Louise Sinclair, an

independent British jeweller

who designs large cocktail

rings in bold colours, said:

“The symbolism of the

cocktail ring for me stems

from the fact that during the

American prohibition, when

it was illegal to sell alcohol,

women who rebelled against

the system would wear an

eye-catching ring on their

right hand, indicating to the

server that they wanted a

cocktail.”

@Louise_Eccles

As a 25-year-old aspiring

jewellery designer, Hannah

Mossman Moore became the

target of a wealthy and

determined stalker. At the

time, she was designing

dainty rings dotted with 1mm

sapphires but her work began

to evolve into massive,

angular rocks that made her

feel empowered during four

years of harassment.

Now 29, she sells huge

brightly coloured cocktail

rings — which she describes

as “knuckle-dusters” — under

her brand Jean London, from

£300 each. The rings, with

protruding prongs and thick

bands, have adorned fans

Louise Eccles

and Jessica Diamond

1900 1940 1980 2020

Divorce Reform

Act, 1969

Couples divorcing in England and Wales

160,000 couples

120,

80,

40,

0

Source: ONS

103,

2020

165,

1993

Second

World War

ourselves with some kind of

magical object, a precious

object that you keep close to

you.”

Moore, a philosophy

graduate from London, was

working for the jeweller

Alighieri when she met a man

at a fashion networking event

who offered to help her with

industry contacts.

Afterwards she refused his

advances he began a

campaign of harassment and

stalking.

She sought refuge in her

jewellery, moving to Sri

Lanka to learn more about

sourcing gemstones.

Moore said: “My designs

shifted to sort of big knuckle-

dusters and powerful

jewellery which you could

jewellery historian, said:

“The cocktail ring has always

been an emblem of power

and authority.

“Around the year 2000,

they enjoyed a resurgence

and were called ‘right

hand rings’ for

women who

didn’t want to

wait to be

given a

diamond

engagement ring

and wanted to

say: ‘I can do

this for myself

and actually I can

do it bigger and

better’ ... Jewellery has done

incredibly well during the

pandemic. I think it takes us

back to an impulse to protect

Hannah

Mossman Moore

says her rings

make customers

feel more

powerful

DAVID MOSSMAN

Katy Perry and

Russell Brand

married with

much fanfare but

their union didn’t

last. Don’t push

the boat out, a

study warns

When the comedian Russell Brand

married the singer Katy Perry in India,

their extravagant nuptials included a

parade of camels and elephants and a gift

of a Bengal tiger for the bride. Just over a

year later they were divorced.

It has long been an old wives’ tale that

the flashier the wedding, the shorter the

marriage. Now research suggests the old

wives have been right all along.

Expensive weddings are twice as likely

to end in divorce within three years,

according to a study by the Marriage

Foundation.

One in ten weddings that cost more

than £20,000 since the year 2000 ended

in divorce in the first three years, the

research found. The average divorce rate

within three years was one in 20.

Dr Sandra Wheatley, a psychologist,

said the trend for couples to fund their

own weddings was likely to mean greater

financial pressure at the start of a

marriage for anyone whose expensive

celebrations pushed them into debt.

“We have to bear in mind that this is a

lot of money to be spending on anything,

and it’s spent and it’s gone. It’s not like

you’re putting a deposit on a house, buy-

ing a car, starting a business. You might as

well have just lit a match underneath it.

“People who simply get carried away

and end up getting themselves into a mas-

sive financial burden — that in itself is

going to be a reason for a real situation in

a relationship that has to be dealt with.”

Since 2017 the median cost of a British

wedding has typically been under

£10,000, according to the research, a

third of the £30,000 figure often quoted

by the wedding industry. Covid restric-

tions mean it has been almost impossible

for most of the past couple of years to get

married with a guest list of more than 30.

The study surveyed 2,000 over-30s

who had been married, asking how much

they spent on their wedding in today’s

money and how many guests came.

Dr Wheatley said that character might

Emily Dugan

Social Affairs Correspondent

1984 until her death in

January 2020 at the age of 45.

Zaire loved perfume so much

the zookeepers

would line up

different bottles in

the enclosure and

she would point

at the one she

fancied using that day.

“We’d make sure

they were spread out so

we knew where she was

pointing. She would always

go for Coco or Chanel No 5.

She had expensive

taste,” Simmonds

recalled.

Staff kept Zaire’s

favourite bottle as a

memento. “She was

such a part of the furniture

here at London Zoo, and

such a loved animal, we kept

her bottle. It’s a nice way to

remember her.

The cats wouldn’t

do that,” Simmonds

said.

The zoo receives

donations from several

sources, including

Hampton School, an

independent boys’

school in London. Zoo staff

also drop off bottles in

the internal post

room, where the

collection

includes Lynx Africa,

Dior Addict,

Blueberry Jardin and

Giorgio Beverly Hills.

Other zoos play similar

games with their

animals. At

Dudley Zoo in the

West Midlands,

perfumes are used

for its Carpathian

lynx, Asiatic lions,

Sumatran tigers, snow

leopards and primates.

Rachel Hickman,

the zoo’s

communications

officer, said: “Keepers

notice chimps keep the

fragranced linen cleaner

and intact for longer

than others, which get

worn out and destroyed

quickly. In the past they also

discovered one perfumed

blanket was being kept folded

up among the bedding,

almost like a child’s

comforter.”

Chris Lawrence, a former

animal handler for the Las

Vegas magicians Siegfried

and Roy, once recalled how

the perfume of Demi Moore

made a white tiger

“extremely excited”.

He told the Hollywood

Reporter: “He scratched me

up pretty good trying to get

away to roughhouse with

her.”

It is not what a

bottle of Chanel No 5

is typically used for,

but perhaps a bottle of

Sauvage would be

perfect.

At London Zoo,

perfume and aftershave

are used to provide

“olfactory sensory

enrichment” games for

its western lowland

gorillas, Asiatic lions

and Sumatran tigers

twice a week.

Perfumes and

aftershaves are

sprayed onto posts

in their enclosures,

or empty brown

sacks which are

given to the animals

to play with, or the

animals are sprayed

directly with them.

Dan Simmonds,

48, the deputy

animal operations

manager who has

worked at the zoo for

20 years, said the

animals responded

differently to the smells,

just as “a man or

woman get up in the

morning and decide

whether to put some

perfume or

aftershave on

today”.

He said: “The big

cats are like

clockwork — they go

out and roll around

like a domestic pet cat

would and do cheek

rubbing. The gorillas

are really moody

animals, so if they’re in

the mood, they’ll go for

the perfume and

enjoy it. If they’re

not in the mood,

they’ll ignore it.”

Gernot, 6, a male

gorilla, “likes the

smells the most”,

according to

Simmons. “He likes

the fun of the perfume, so

we’ll do a combination of

spraying it on the woodwork

and on the sacks but also his

arm. He will come over and

we’ll spray his arms, and then

he’ll rub it and the others will

smell him.

“His half-sister Alika isn’t

interested. That’s one of the

things that make gorillas so

unique, they are all truly

individual and you can’t

really compare them.”

None of the four

inhabitants have expressed a

preference for a specific

spray, unlike Zaire, a gorilla

who lived at the zoo from

Hugo Daniel

Zoo scents a way

to keep gorillas

happy in captivity

play a role in the failure of expensive

weddings too, as those who value flashy

ceremonies might lack the emotional

maturity to be successful.

She said: “People who think they need

to spend that much money to demon-

strate how in love they are might not be as

emotionally mature as people who think

‘I couldn’t give a fig’.

“The opinions of others might matter a

lot to them, which may well mean they do

not have the emotional tools at the point

they get married that a long-term rela-

tionship will doubtlessly require. People

who are much more concerned about

what other people think of them tend to

do a lot more speaking than listening.”

When the American socialite Kim

Kardashian married the basketball player

Kris Humphries in a $10m ceremony that

included a $20,000 cake, it took just 72

days to end in divorce.

The celebrity divorce lawyer Ayesha

Vardag says one factor for wealthier cou-

ples who “care a lot about their status”

may be that they feel unable to cancel a

big society wedding if they have doubts.

“If they find in the run-up to the wed-

ding that they’re starting to have real mis-

givings about it, the smart thing to do

then is probably to put it off, take a breath

and see where you are, and marry when

you’re really ready. When there is this

huge big public event in the offing,

there’s far more embarrassment about

delaying. So people will just go through

with it just to get it done and save face.

“Obviously that is a terrible reason to

have a wedding and quite often we

encounter people who will go go into

it crossing their fingers, then very

rapidly find out it’s not working.”

Having very few guests is also a

warning sign, suggesting that shotgun

trips to Vegas may not be the best route to

bliss. A third (34%) of weddings with ten

guests or fewer ended in divorce in the

first ten years, almost double the overall

rate of 18% in that time.

The median number of guests at a first

wedding rose from 50 in the 1960s to a

peak of 80 in the 1990s, and has been

back at 50 since 2017.

Sir Paul Coleridge, founder of the

Marriage Foundation, said: “The steady

increase in the cost of a wedding, com-

bined with the myth that anything less

than a ‘Hello’ style wedding is unaccepta-

ble, has no doubt fuelled the downward

trend in marriage, especially amongst the

less well off.

“A huge costly wedding, especially one

which places a strain on finances before

the marriage starts, far from enhancing

the marriage experience would seem to

be an especially poor investment.”

Editorial, page 24

Want to stay married?

Have a cheap wedding

An expensive bash with all the trimmings

is twice as likely to end in quick divorce

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