Remember Anklets? These Are Better.
If you lived through the 1970s as a young woman, you may have worn a chain anklet, and the big question then was: do you wear it inside or outside of your pantyhose. The latter sounds very odd and looked weird, but it did prevent you from losing it if the clasp unhooked, as mine did. These were chains, and sometimes had a little charm on them, so they pale in comparison to these enameled silver anklets from the 19th Century, part of a recent, not closed exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago called, “Adornment: Jewelry of South Asia’s Nomadic Cultures.” This piece was created and worn, the curators think, by the Jat people of Sindh Province in Pakistan.
As nomadic people, they did not carry a lot of belongings, according to the curators, but ornamental jewelry often had meaning in its designs, including marks of wealth, tribe, spiritual beliefs, and culture. Clearly, as silver, these anklets signaled wealth on one level. Economic change, including the loss of lands and industrialization, meant the jewelry changed too. People of these nomadic cultures now buy bangles made in factories instead of this kind of artisanal jewels.
This show it closed, but the Art Institute is going to have a dress textiles exhibition in March, for more info go here: https://www.artic.edu/