Ok, so I was chatting to a friend the other day and she was thinking of buying an Italian Charm Bracelet as she is bored of her normal charm bracelet, so I thought I would do a little post about Italian Charm Bracelets to vent my own opinions on them.

For those of you who don’t know, Italian charms are square blocks, normally in a base metal or silver (not sure I’ve ever seen a gold Italian charm, but they might exist, who knows? comment me) with an image on it.  I’m not sure that’s the best description to follow, so I’ll try and get a decent pic along side this post to show you what I mean.  Anyway, the point is that the charm just depicts something on the top of it, like a heart or football team, or word or whatever.  Obviously this is totally different from normal charms which mostly actually are minute models of things, so a teddy charm would actually be a charm in the shape of a teddy bear.  The other main difference between Italian charms and conventional charms is that because of their square shape they kinda click onto each other and that is how the bracelet is formed.  Most of them have a bare skeleton bracelet ready for the little square charms to click into them.

Ok so now, hopefully, you know what an Italian charm is, and what an Italian charm bracelet looks like.  Well I don’t think they are real charm bracelets.  I mean with real charm bracelets the whole point is that you get a charm which is a cute little bear, or a man shooting  a bow and arrow or whatever it is that you want, and its like a tiny little statue that hangs loosely from your bracelet, and they all jangle together.  Charms that are like little squares with drawings on them that clip into the bracelet are far less exciting and, in my opinion, much more like a normal bracelet.  Sure you can choose a whole pile of charms to suit your mood, hobbies etc and I suppose thats why they call them charm bracelets, but to me a real charm bracelet has things which dangle from it.

Another massive diasadvantage of the Italian brother of the charm bracelet is that all the charms have to be the same size.  Sometimes its nice to have a little bracelet which is a bit understated, and other times I want big long beads hanging off my wrist.  Having a bracelet which is so un-adaptable simply won’t do.

Lastly, and I guess most importantly, how do they look?  Well you can get some really amazing Italian charms from Nomination and a few other companies, but they aren’t cheap!  But the overall effect is not one of charm braceletness!  I mean most people probably wouldn’t notice them because everything is fixed in place and doesn’t make any noise or reflect light or catch the eye, or all the cool things which make normal charm bracelets so fab!  Italians are known for their good looks and sophistication, well I think they’ve missed a trick when making charm bracelets because the only people I know who wear them are young kids, and they’re nowhere near as fun, cool, versatile or goodlooking as normal charm bracelets.

Of course I told my friend that I’m sure it would look great! xx