This Is the Initial Ring Cool Moms Are Quietly Obsessed With

I should say upfront that I'm not really a jewellery person. I own maybe four rings, two of which I bought at a market in Tulum in 2019 and one of which has turned my finger green. I have never in my life used the phrase "hand stack" in a sentence. So I'm not sure what it says about me that I spent a full eleven minutes on a Tuesday morning staring at a stranger's hand at Café Lula while she negotiated banana versus banana bread with a two-year-old. She had a single pavé letter on her right hand. I didn't even know what letter it was. I just knew it was the only ring I'd looked at in years and actually wanted.

Then I saw it again at school pick-up. Different woman, different letter. Then again at a dinner on Saturday, a letter C, right ring finger, and by that point I'd lost any dignity I had left so I just asked her. She laughed. She said her sister bought one first for her niece's initial and then she bought one and then two of her friends did. She said it was made by a brand called By Lucia, a jewellery stylist in Melbourne who somehow has women in Brooklyn and the West Village wearing her ring without a single ad in any magazine I've worked for. Which, professionally, is mildly insulting. The whole thing felt less like a brand and more like a recommendation you get in a group chat at midnight. Someone knows someone who found this thing and now everyone quietly has one.

I looked her up. By Lucia started the label because she was tired of the same two options. Either the overly sentimental mum jewellery that says MAMA in block letters and lives in a drawer after Mother's Day, or the fine jewellery that costs four thousand dollars and doesn't mean anything personal at all. She wanted something in between. Something a woman could put on and never explain. I spoke to her on a Thursday afternoon, Melbourne time, and she told me that most of the women who buy it aren't buying it because they're sentimental. They're buying it because they've never found a piece of jewellery that says something about who they are now without announcing it to the room. A letter. Their kid's initial, usually. It's simultaneously a statement piece but feels so understated and effortless. It's incredible and it's no wonder every cool mom I know is flocking to get their hands (literally) on one.