Talismanic jewellery is trending, and it says something about how uncertain we feel

That history runs deep: coral turns up in burial sites dated to between 30,000 and 35,000 years BCE, she says, among the earliest adornments known to archaeology. Ovid and Pliny the Elder both wrote that coral formed when the severed head of Medusa touched the sea, her blood hardening to stone on contact with water—which, in Berger- Rondouin’s words, made it “a female protection device”. It protective qualities were also directed to the young: coral teething rings were given to Italian infants for generations, and in Naples some parents still hang a cornicello—a twisted horn charm that predates Roman Italy, often made in coral—above a child’s cradle to ward off the evil eye. “You put red to protect the ones that are the most fragile,” Berger-Rondouin says.

Provenance can deepen that sense of an object having a deeper meaning. Young points to a jadeite necklace and bangle that had belonged to Empress Wanrong, wife of Puyi, the last emperor of China. Sotheby’s sold it for a sum that far outstripped the monetary value of the jade itself, its worth increased by the weight of that imperial history. An art deco jadeite, black onyx, enamel and diamond pendant necklace by Cartier, up for auction at Sotheby’s High Jewellery auction this month, is expected to raise huge sums. In Chinese collecting culture, Young notes, an object’s past owner is felt to travel with it, for better or worse—a belief that shows how far the idea of jewellery-as- vessel reaches even today.

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Several high jewellery collections this year lean into the idea of protective symbolism. Chanel drew on Gabrielle Chanel’s own superstitions for Signes et Symboles, built around the four emblems she treated as lucky charms; the Lion Puissant necklace centres on the lion, her astrological sign and personal guardian. Van Cleef & Arpels returned to ancient Egypt, a source it has mined since the 1920s, for Fascinating Egypt, a 180-piece collection. Among the jewels most faithful to the talismanic idea is the Déesse Ailée Mystérieuse, a transformable necklace built around the protective wings of Egyptian deities. De Beers, meanwhile, hammered gold into forms that might have been unearthed from a tomb for its Talisman collection. The signature medallion, a hand-hammered gold disc set with rough and polished diamonds in concentric circles, deliberately recalls a warrior’s protective amulet; rough diamonds, the house notes, were themselves once worn as talismans long before they became tokens of love. 

So why are these collections happening now? Young, who spent 15 years in fashion before moving to the auction world, sees a familiar industry rhythm at work alongside any spiritual pull. “Every year, [it seems as if ] the big houses decide on a colour, a motif, a theme for the season,” he says. “That’s how you get everyone doing florals in the same year. It’s a trend map.” He ties this particular map to a shift in what buyers want from an object. “After Covid, everyone became concerned about their health. They believe in energy,” he says. “If it’s a stone that will bring good health, or a charm such as an evil eye that will repel bad energy, they will buy it.”

Perez has a similar take. “We’re coming back to talismanic jewellery because we’re going through hard times,” she says. “When there’s hardship or war in so many countries, you turn to the spiritual.” A piece of jewellery, in this reading, becomes a reminder worn on the body—“something that will give us strength, energy, power, love, or whatever else we’re looking for.”

Sylvain Cordier, Paul Mellon Curator at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and a leading authority on Jean Schlumberger’s work for Tiffany & Co, places the revival in an even longer arc. He views it as a turn away from the “rational, non-superstitious, materialistic” jewellery of the later 20th century, when the value of a stone and the soundness of an investment tended to lead the decision to buy. The pull back towards the protective and the symbolic, he suggests, says something about the trust—or the lack thereof—that people have in the 21st century; a wish, as he puts it, for connection to something beyond the purely material.

It’s unlikely someone buying a scarab motif or evil-eye charm on a necklace in 2026 believes in its guardian properties as much as those who wore the originals; but that won’t necessarily diminish their appeal—people will buy them for both faith and fashion. Of the recent collections, Perez says: “Using talismanic or spiritual symbolism adds to the story ... All of these symbols come and go—but they never really go. The hand is always there, the eye, the serpent. They don’t always reach the big maisons, but they never [completely] disappear from the jewellery scene.” This year, they have reached the maisons again—and whether one wears them for protection, for story or simply for beauty, they carry a history that stretches back as far as adornment itself.

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