Thanks to One Day, signet rings are back in vogue – but don’t even think about buying one
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Fling open the safe. Have a rootle around in your cufflink box. It’s safe to get out your signet ring, thanks to Dexter Mayhew, the floppy-haired star of new Netflix series, One Day.
Have you seen One Day? I often find it irritating when a new series lands and people keep badgering you about whether you’ve watched it. “Have you watched One Day?” or “Have you watched The Traitors?” “Have you seen the new series of True Detective?” No! No, I haven’t managed to sit through multiple hours of television, what with the business of having to get up and wash and eat and work and generally go about daily life.
That said, have you seen One Day yet? It’s beautiful and moving and well worth forgoing showering and heading into the office.
It has also sparked a renewed interest in signet rings, because Dexter Mayhew, played perfectly by Leo Woodall (the cheeky nephew from The White Lotus. Haven’t you seen The White Lotus?), is an upper middle-class Wykehamist who sports a signet ring. Although if I was going to level one, teeny tiny criticism at the year’s biggest TV hit so far, I would humbly suggest they’ve got Dexter’s ring wrong. As a cross friend remarked this week, it looks like a silver ring-pull from the top of a Coca Cola can. “They could have at least borrowed the real thing from someone,” she grumbled. It should be gold, is what she’s getting at, with his family crest engraved either in the gold or in a stone – a lapis lazuli or carnelian, perhaps.
“We thought that a silver ring communicated his status a little more quietly than gold,” commented One Day’s costume designer Emma Rees. “And [we] imagined that his mother had a hand in choosing it with him. Engraved with his initials, he wears it to consistently guide him through troubled times; a link to his mum.” Hmm. Lovely idea and I hate to be a boring old stickler for these things but he should have inherited it. My friend Emma, a gem obsessive who runs a vintage jewellery brand called Baroque Rocks, also points out that he shouldn’t have his initials on it, because that implies it’s new and had it made for him, again instead of it being passed down. Look for inspiration instead to the current Marquess of Bristol, who inherited a signet ring for every day of the week – a bit like those socks or underpants that people give as jokey presents (‘Monday’, ‘Tuesday’ etc), just much grander.
Dexter wears one because the series is largely set in the 1990s. Had it been set now, his little finger would probably be signet ring-free. It’s a generational thing. The King has worn his signet ring forever; Prince William never has. For the majority of my generation, even the really thumping poshos, signet rings are old-fashioned, something their parents wore and they therefore don’t. And not only because they accidentally lost theirs in a regional nightclub while at university.
“They’re appropriate for monarchs or popes, and even then only for sealing-wax purposes,” one Sloane declared while I worked at Tatler. I excuse those of a certain age, let’s say upwards of 50, but under that and it seems too much of a signifier. Too deliberate. Too showy-offy. To me, it suggests a velvet-slipper-wearing crasher who has extremely strong opinions about claret and has to compensate for an insecurity by wearing his family crest on his hand. I can’t be absolutely certain of this, but I imagine the Venn diagram of those who feel strongly about their signet ring and those who talk about their family tartan would be quite overlapping.
If I was going to be even more of snob, and I’m not, of course, I’m just pointing this out, but if I was going to be pompous just for a tick, I’d also mention that the Middleton family had a crest designed in 2011 just before Kate’s wedding to Prince William, and now Carole, Pippa and James all wear them. A signet ring is a status symbol, isn’t it, supposedly discreet but still winking away on a hand to denote elevation above the plebs.
What a load of nonsense, some of you might be thinking as you eat your toast and marmalade and twirl your crest around your little finger. Indeed, some people did say that this week when I carried out one of my scientific polls and quizzed them online about this controversial topic. Are signet rings acceptable these days, I wondered, and plenty of respondents keenly defended theirs. Men and women.
They’re traditional, said some, a comforting link with one’s family. “In my case, it’s a way to take my grandfather with me through life and it reminds me of him every time I use my hands for anything,” said one woman. To hell with judgmental types, in that case. Wear it and ignore them. “I wear one,” said a 50-something, “but my 26-year-old son says they’re very naff in his peer group.” Others insisted that men who wear them remain dubious, untrustworthy sorts. Another said they’re forbidden if you buy them, but not if you inherit. “A bit like the tiara conundrum.” Which may or may not be a conundrum you’ve come across.
Sarah Bond, founder of jewellery brand Saretta, said she’s seeing increasing numbers of men asking for wedding bands that fit under their signet rings, and also more outlandish designs, made from white gold, moving away from ‘classic’ 18-carat yellow. Alternatively, you may have been looking out for one at John Lewis, where prices start from a very cost-of-living-friendly £32. Searches on the website have apparently quadrupled in the past year, while searches on Etsy have shot up by almost a third in the past three months.
So they’re back in vogue, irrespective of the doubters like me, and now rampantly encouraged by a hit new TV show. Oh, haven’t you seen it yet? You must.
