This piece was first published in Oh Comely Issue Twenty-Five. You can buy the issue here or subscribe here. 

Most jewellery frames the wearer’s face, but a septum ring interrupts the gaze. Her thick gold ring is the only piece that Saadiqah Rahman wears every day. “I like what I wear to do the talking for me,” she says. “No matter what I wear, no matter what I do, it says enough about me.”

Saadiqah is an unconventional jeweller. Untrained and self-taught, her gold pieces are assertive and industrial and genderless. These are bold and architectural necklaces that hang unselfconsciously around the necks of men and women alike. For Oh Comely’s Storm in a Box, Saadiqah has made a pendant called Storm Shelter—aged brass in the shape of a wishbone. Or perhaps a cave. Or perhaps a Greek chapel.

In her living room-cum-workshop, there was a pin grid on her worktop neatly lined with unfinished Storm Shelters. The brass was still shiny, waiting to be aged and stamped with her maker’s mark. Opposite sat a sewing machine belonging to her mother. A cat meandered in and out, and nosed at the French windows. It was an ordinary suburban family home, except that every family member seemed to be an artisan of some sort.

Saadiqah has an expressive and down-to-earth manner that makes easy work of the odd poetic turn of phrase. She explained that septum rings are a dying tradition in rural Bangladesh. “All the grandmas have it, whereas no one in my mum’s generation has it. My mum grew up in a village, and it’s not one that has electricity. Wearing this old-fashioned ring makes me feel a little bit closer to that.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised that the ring had a history. Ask anyone what jewellery they wear, and you will stumble onto a story as likely as not. I had posed a similar question to friends and colleagues and was astonished by the answers: tales of high school best friends, crises of faith, parents who’d passed away. So much was encompassed by discreet silver rings, delicate bracelets, ornate crosses.

“Jewellery says a lot about you,” Saadiqah agreed. “More than your shoes, more than your watch, more than your haircut, because they are all functional things. Jewellery is something you picked up and decided: I am going to wear this.” What do her own designs say about the wearer? “It forces the wearer to be bold. It is not a passive, agreeable thing.”

This confident style was partly born of necessity: her designs accommodated the limited skills she set out with, and were also inspired by them. Her growing skill set is a mixed blessing. “The more I’m learning, it’s not coming as naturally. Designing is less fluent. I don’t really want to admit that.” Saadiqah is a voracious learner and dabbler. Hidden in plain sight in every room of the house, she said, are things she’s made herself in the process of playing with a new technique: a string bag, a triangle shelf.

Jewellery itself was once just such a detour. In her last year of a degree in 3D design, she became fascinated by her grandmother’s silver toothpick. “She wore it around her neck. It was made of precious metal, but she used it completely as a toothpick. If you asked her what jewellery she wore, she would never mention it. It’s so clever. Because silver is antibacterial, it’s not like a wooden toothpick. And wearing it round your neck... There’s so much happening here!”

Saadiqah interviewed elderly women from rural Bangladesh about significant objects they’d brought with them to Britain. “They said, ‘We didn’t really bring anything.’ There was nothing of sentimental value. If you ever speak to that generation, or even my parents, sentiment is really abstract to them. Coming from a village, everything is about survival.”

Her final degree project was called Curious Ways of the Olden Days, and it explored that generation’s utilitarian values in the form of practical jewellery, like a necklace that uncaps to reveal a brush. It was an approach she had resisted for some time. She explained, “I never wanted to be the person who was like: I’m an ethnic minority, look at my interesting story. I fought that so hard. But the things that are most interesting are the things that are most personal, and those are to do with your identity and your heritage and how you grew up. When you’re put in a position like we are—when you’re asking how much of Bengali culture are you keeping and how much of British culture are you adopting—you have to answer for it. Where do you sit? I had to answer for myself.”

Saadiqah got her nose pierced five years ago, she said, and the septum ring pre-dates her execution of Curious Ways of the Olden Days. The power of jewellery is that its language is tacit and generous. It can be a statement. Best friends forever. In memory of. I do. Or it can be a question. A question that can hang around your neck or slide onto your finger or sit in your nose until you’re ready to answer it.

Saadiqah Rahman / saadiqah.com

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