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One afternoon last summer in Catbird’s New York Soho shop, two twenty-somethings peered in the direction of a third, whose wrist lay palm-down on a table. At a flash of white-blue light, and one of them squealed, “It looks so good. My turn next.”
The friends were there to “get zapped”, their new fine-gauge gold chain bracelets secured with a welded jump-ring rather than a traditional clasp, meaning they couldn’t be removed (unless snipped off). These welded bracelets — also known as forever, eternal or seamless bracelets — have come to epitomise a new category of experiential jewellery, a friendship bracelet for the TikTok age.
“It’s so lovely to go and do it with a friend, a sibling or your mum. It’s a bonding experience,” says Marisa Hordern, founder and creative director of Missoma. The London-based modern jewellery brand offers welding services at its Covent Garden store. Its 14k solid gold chain bracelets start at £95.
People get permanent bracelets for different reasons. One I spoke to received hers as a bridesmaid’s gift. Another went to get welded after the birth of her second child — charms of both her children’s birthstones twinkle from her chain. Another decided to do it for the ease of having a bracelet that’s always on. None of them said they’d ever wished they could remove the jewellery. After all, “it’s not like anyone’s ever said, ‘Oh, look at this clasp, it’s so beautiful’”, says Catbird founder Rony Vardi.
Vardi remembers watching jewellers playing around with welded chains in the workshop and thinking her customers might enjoy the bracelets. When Catbird launched welding in 2017, “it was kind of sleepy”, she says. “Then all of a sudden there were lines out the door.” Since then, Catbird jewellers have zapped more than 160,000 Forever Bracelets (it trademarked the term), with about 17,000 to date in 2024. “Buying jewellery is a pretty intimate experience, and this elevates it.”
For some, a permanent bracelet taps into the nostalgic appeal of summer-camp friendship bracelets or BFF heart necklaces. At Monica Vinader, which began offering permanent bracelets in October 2023, the most popular type of appointment booking is “Welding for Two”, indicating the popularity of customers “using this as an updated friendship bracelet”, a brand spokesperson wrote in an email.
Customers come in groups “to celebrate these life milestones”, says Connie Nam, founder of London-based modern jewellery brand Astrid & Miyu. She launched permanent bracelets in 2019, but the service really took off post-pandemic, when a TikTok video of a couple getting bracelets went viral. Then the Beckhams came in for family bracelets.
The hands-on process of welded bracelets, along with the promise of permanence, has led some to draw parallels with body piercings and tattoos. This makes Vardi laugh. “It’s not like a tattoo — you can always just snip it off with any scissors,” she says. “And it’s not like a piercing, because there’s no fear or medical stuff.”
A more apt comparison is another bracelet intended for constant wear: the Cartier Love bracelet. The unisex bangle comes with its own tiny screwdriver to secure it on the wearer’s wrist. Some 55 years after its introduction, it remains a coveted piece, especially popular as a gift to mothers who have just given birth.
I’ve never wanted one — too transactional. I’d prefer Cartier’s Juste un Clou or Elsa Peretti’s Bone Cuff for Tiffany. Women who wear one of the latter on each wrist make me think of Wonder Woman, or a chicer alter ego.
Then I think of all the bangles and bracelets gathering dust in my wardrobe, because I never remember to put one on or can’t do up the clasps. A remark Vardi made about the easy elegance of a permanent bracelet comes into my mind: “It’s nice to forget about it. And then the sun touches it and you have this gentle glimmer.”
In Astrid & Miyu’s Carnaby Street store, a jeweller shows me some chain options. I choose the Piccadilly, a paper clip design, and she measures a length of it around my wrist, before snipping to fit. She opens a tiny ring to connect the links and slips a matchbook-sized leather mat between the chain and my skin, then holds the ring steady with two pairs of pliers. It’s over in two flashes of the laser welder.
Leaving the store, I swivel my wrist to admire the subtle gleam. Does it feel permanent? Not exactly — this is a bracelet, not a marriage. But it is an adornment I could enjoy keeping around for a while. A thing of beauty is a joy forever, or until I choose to take it off.
