How and with what to wear beads > Choose and wear correctly

Beads — a cult attribute, which con­sists of beads strung on a wire, chain, fish­ing line or cord. It is worn around the neck, waist or hips.

Such jew­el­ry is made in dif­fer­ent shapes and col­ors, with pre­cious stones, crys­tals, coins, flow­ers and var­i­ous tal­is­mans. In ancient times, it was first worn by men — the rulers of states, priests, war­riors. Only a few cen­turies ago this prod­uct became fem­i­nine.

This arti­cle will dis­cuss how to choose the right beads, how to wear them and what clothes to com­bine with.

Why did people wear beads before?

African women have worn dec­o­ra­tive jew­el­ry around their waists and hips for thou­sands of years. On the neck, beads began to be worn with dress­es in Europe, Asia and Amer­i­ca. They were called not only dec­o­ra­tion, but a sym­bol of fem­i­nin­i­ty, fer­til­i­ty, pros­per­i­ty, sen­su­al­i­ty. And it was also believed that they per­form sev­er­al impor­tant func­tions, show­ing:

• weight fluc­tu­a­tions and health prob­lems. Waist, hip and neck orna­ments were used to detect changes in weight. They accu­rate­ly showed whether a per­son gained or lost weight. If a per­son has gained weight, his stom­ach is swollen, or the lymph nodes in his neck have enlarged, the beads will either be high­er or will fit snug­ly. If he has lost weight, they will begin to clasp the cir­cum­fer­ence freely or fall below;
• matu­ri­ty. In those coun­tries of the world where wear­ing beads is a tra­di­tion, they are often asso­ci­at­ed with grow­ing up. When chil­dren were giv­en names, they were tra­di­tion­al­ly adorned with a few beads around their waist and neck. Moth­ers put whole beads on their daugh­ters after the first men­stru­a­tion. An increase in the num­ber of beads sym­bol­ized the onset of a new life stage. The jew­el­ry worn by a teenage girl will be dif­fer­ent from what she will wear after the wed­ding and the birth of her first child;
• fer­til­i­ty. Many women use hip beads to enhance their sen­su­al­i­ty. They are worn before sex to get preg­nant. Dur­ing the fer­tile sea­son, African trib­al women wear long and large beads with fea­tures such as jin­gling coins and bells to attract poten­tial suit­ors who are near­by. Some peo­ples wear waist and neck beads under their clothes. There are spe­cial charm beads for expec­tant moth­ers;
• lega­cy and pride. Wear­ing beads is a pop­u­lar way to pay respect to your ances­tors, to empha­size the cus­toms and tra­di­tions of your peo­ple;
• work­out. This acces­so­ry helps to improve your pos­ture. The beads behave dif­fer­ent­ly when a per­son is stand­ing, breath­ing, sit­ting. They remind you to breathe prop­er­ly, sit straight, straight­en your back, tight­en your abs, straight­en your shoul­ders;
• mag­i­cal prop­er­ties. In many coun­tries of the world, women add tal­is­mans and amulets to beads. It is cus­tom­ary to apply aro­ma oils of aphro­disi­acs to them in order to seduce men or pro­tect them­selves from the evil eye and neg­a­tive ener­gy.

What to choose women’s beads and what to wear them with?

The most impor­tant thing when choos­ing such an acces­so­ry is indi­vid­ual pref­er­ences. It is made in many styles, col­ors and mate­ri­als.

Each col­or has a spe­cif­ic mean­ing:

• blue: har­mo­ny, insight, truth;
• brown: sta­bil­i­ty, calm;
• green: hope, abun­dance, heal­ing, pros­per­i­ty;
• pur­ple: pow­er, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, wis­dom;
• red: self-con­fi­dence, love, pas­sion, courage;
• white: truth, puri­ty, light;
• yel­low: clar­i­ty, joy, aware­ness, ener­gy.

The col­or of the ele­ments of the beads is select­ed tak­ing into account the type of appear­ance. Brunettes with fair skin to face black, red, white jew­el­ry. Prod­ucts of del­i­cate shades are rec­om­mend­ed for women with dark skin. For brown-haired women and ladies with a warm shade of hair — amber and gold­en col­ors.

Full ladies with large breasts should avoid wear­ing mas­sive jew­el­ry. A thin neck can be dec­o­rat­ed with a dec­o­ra­tive bead­ed col­lar.

Since it has become fash­ion­able to wear eth­nic-style clothes again, the trend is red beads made from nat­ur­al mate­ri­als (wood, coral, amber, pearls), which go well with den­im, organ­ic cot­ton, wool and linen.

What stone to wear beads with (photo)?

Each gem has a spe­cif­ic effect:

• amber pro­tects from neg­a­tiv­i­ty;
• emer­ald pro­vides hap­pi­ness, pros­per­i­ty and wealth;
• turquoise pro­tects from evil and mis­for­tune;
• lapis lazuli is respon­si­ble for peace, truth and insight;
• pearls pro­mote puri­ty and trans­paren­cy in rela­tion­ships;
• rose quartz sup­ports feel­ings of love, com­pas­sion, accel­er­ates heal­ing.

How to wear beads around your neck?

It depends on their length:

• 30–33 cm — sev­er­al hor­i­zon­tal rows of bead­ed threads and cre­ate a wide rim that tight­ly wraps around the neck like a col­lar. What to wear with beads of this type depends on the length of the col­lar, shirt, dress, blouse and the depth of the neck­line;
• 35–40 cm — a clas­sic ver­sion in the form of a sin­gle thread that wraps around the neck above the col­lar­bones. Its main fea­ture is ver­sa­til­i­ty. It suits any neck­line and any style of cloth­ing;
• 40–50 cm — the most com­mon length of wom­en’s beads. They sit well and loose­ly on the neck and are com­bined with dif­fer­ent clothes, with the excep­tion of things with a high col­lar. Har­mo­nize with a sum­mer sun­dress and a dress with bare shoul­ders;
• 42–48 cm — a thread with sol­id beads, which is dec­o­rat­ed with a pen­dant. Due to their reg­u­lar oval shape, they are worn as a neck­lace. They are suit­able for women who can­not boast of a long or slen­der neck. They visu­al­ly length­en the neck when worn with dress­es with a boat neck­line or with a deep neck­line;
• 50–60 cm — this is pre­dom­i­nant­ly sol­id black, white, gray or brown beads that go with every­thing they are worn with. Start­ing from an office suit, evening and cock­tail dress and end­ing with a sum­mer sun­dress. The only thing that looks bad with them is clothes with but­tons, embroi­dery, appliqués and oth­er addi­tion­al dec­o­ra­tions;
• 55–70 cm — an acces­so­ry of medi­um length, the ele­ments of which end at chest height. But it is impor­tant that the bot­tom lay­er of the beads does not touch the neck­line of the dress or blouse;
• 71–86 cm Loose enough beads to wear over the head. Pre­vi­ous­ly, such jew­el­ry was only allowed to be worn at offi­cial events. Beads, locat­ed just below the lev­el of the chest, opti­cal­ly length­en the sil­hou­ette;
• 75–120 cm — beads falling below the chest line. They can be worn over casu­al clothes, twist­ed sev­er­al times or tied in a knot. Best of all they are com­bined with long plain out­fits.

How to choose the right beads for a dress

The main selec­tion cri­te­ri­on is the age of the future own­er of the prod­uct. Almost the entire range of jew­el­ry suits teenage girls. For them, there are no restric­tions on the length of the beads. They can safe­ly wear beads not only around the neck, but also on the shoul­der, waist, hips and use them as a bracelet.

Small pearl beads are suit­able for young girls, espe­cial­ly brides. They empha­size their youth, fem­i­nin­i­ty and sophis­ti­ca­tion of the out­fit.

For old­er women, too short and too long beads do not suit. For them, the aver­age length is ide­al. Jew­el­ry with large stones or pen­dants can draw too much atten­tion to the appear­ance, so be care­ful when choos­ing a pen­dant with a stone.

A uni­ver­sal option is to wear beads with small stones both with a dress and with a blouse and shirt, twist them in sev­er­al rows or tie them in a knot.

Now you know how to choose neck jew­el­ry by length, col­or, how to wear beads and what clothes to com­bine with.

Check out the cat­a­log of our Sil­vers online store, choose your favorite jew­el­ry or bijouterie and place an order with deliv­ery in Ukraine. Our prod­ucts are of high qual­i­ty, they look more beau­ti­ful than in the pho­tos, and even with con­stant wear over the years, they retain their orig­i­nal appear­ance.