Fads from the Past
The other day I was cleaning out my craft room and I was sorting through some boxes that had been through quite a few moves. These boxes were full of the kind of mysterious, tiny items that you generally don't have the strength to deal with when you're doing an organizing over haul but I told myself that I was going to be brutal and I stuck to it.
I stumbled across my high school jewelery box and it held all sorts of treats and treasures! It had all of my Mary pendants, some charm bracelets, a monogrammed id bracelet, some handmade items (that makes them sound very Etsy and nice but we're talking plastic beads here, folks) and some rings. One of the rings is a topaz ring from when I was little and the other is a blue topaz ring that I got for my high school graduation. I couldn't stand the way class rings looked and I didn't understand why they were so expensive so I asked my parents to just spend that money on a topaz ring for me instead. Turns out that'll buy you a big whoppin' topaz! I have missed this ring but it's gold, which I don't really wear anymore, and it's too small. I am thinking about having it resized though.
In the bottom of the box I found something that made me laugh out loud! My gold panda coin ring! Holy smokes, now there's a trend I forgot about. I think these were popular when I was in middle school....around the same time that Banana Republic t-shirts were all the rage. I have never heard anyone outside of Kentucky mention a panda ring so I wonder if it was just a 90's Kentucky fad. A quick search of the internet reveals that you can still buy these and that they can be $400-$1,000 depending on how they are set and so on.
I'm pretty confident that I purchased mine for less than $20 at the Louisville Super Flea. I am 100% positive that my Banana Republic t-shirts came from there too. If a knock off is available I have no qualms about buying it. (Even though my crystal "Chanel" earrings almost made my ear lobes fall off the one time I wore them.)
I posted about this on Facebook and while most of the responses were from my high school friends and I did get a comment from another KY gal, who lived in another city but graduated the same year, who said she just hocked her panda ring to finance her wedding!
Mid-90s style in Kentucky seemed to involve a lot of gold. Gold ballerina flats, braided gold belts and lots of gold jewelery. I've never been very trendy (or very cool) but for some reason I needed a gold panda ring.
I've been the wearer of another expensive and strange jewelery trend. The hood ornament necklace. I've never been one to turn down jewelery from a man, even if it was fashioned from a stolen hood ornament. It's really the thought that counts, ladies. The same young suitor was going to make me one of those leather necklaces that was shaped like Africa but he couldn't get it to come out to his satisfaction.
What are some jewelery trends that you haven't thought of in a while? Was the panda ring fad confined to Kentucky or did you have one too?
16 comments:
I've never heard of the panda ring thing. I've only owned a few pieces of "real" jewelry and hated when they went by the way side or got too small. I remember o-ring bracelets that you looped all over each other and mismatched loooooong dangle earrings (mismatched is kind of coming back, tho), big bright-colored plastic hoops, ribbon chokers, hemp bracelets & necklaces (those are coming back kind of, too, I think). I think that's all I remember, but it's fun to think of. :)
i've seen those rings somewhere before but i don't remember it being a FAD in hs. are you going to try to hock it? or keep it for memories?
i know i have a whole box of old crappy jewelry that i've never gotten rid of. i did throw a bunch of plastic beaded necklaces in a box i sold for a $1 at a garage sale.
i always imagine saving that stuff for some mythical future girl that would want them.
Hock it? LOL. There are easier ways of making $2.
Cristy I forgot all about ribbon chokers!
Oh, coin jewelry was massive! My grandmother didn't like the pandas and got me a Mexican Dos Pesos instead. :P I wear it on my multi-coin necklace even today. B/c, as you know, the gold-lust is strong with this one.
That was a fad for us in junior high/high school too, but we called them coin rings.
Do you also remember rings made out of spoons handles? Those were pretty fadish in HS.
The only other jewelry fad I can think of is dangle-rings. They were silver or gold rings with a charm that hung off of them. HOT in HS. :)
I also saved a bunch of stuff like Bennetton watches hoping 1 of the girls from this day and age would like them. My 19 yr old sister wants the new stuff with a retro twist. I graduated high school in 92. Good memories, though.
I am from Oklahoma and everyone had a gold panda ring. As much as I wanted one I never got it. I had many of the braided belts but never gold. For us the only gold things was jewelry. Gold clothing accessories or purses was something tacky that only someone like my great aunt could pull off. I don't remember banana republic tshirts being a thing.
I JUST FOUND MINE GOING THROUGH MY OLD HIGHSCHOOL STUFF TOO!!! I'm totally excited and it is on my finger!!!! I had totally forgotten about this ring!! I must've work the heck out of it because the band is all bent and molded to my finger shape, lol!! TOO FUNNY!!! I'm a Kentucky gal too, btw!!
It was a thing in Tennessee too. I wish I could find my high school jewelry box but afraid it's been lost through decades of moving
I found your page doing a search for these rings, the memory just popped into my head and I wondered what had become of mine. They were much-coveted in Memphis too, among adults as well as teen girls, for a while I was obsessed with getting one. Mine was gold with tiny diamonds and a rope design around the coin, that one was most popular, or perhaps it was just the one I liked best. I'm pretty sure it ended up in the hands of my magpie mother. I remember thinking they were so pretty. I looked on eBay just now and there are lots of them for sale for the value of the gold weight, which has increased significantly since then. Seeing them again, don't know why I liked them, they were big, too chunky and a bit tacky by my standards today, not nearly so pretty as my memory of them. Thanks for posting this.
I had one and cherished it loo
I also found your page because I was doing a search for panda coin rings. My friend’s teenage daughter had one on last night. Her mom said “oh, she found that in my jewelry box”. Whoa! It took me back. Graduated in 94. And, yes, they were popular in Florida too.
I'm from Alabama & I had a panda coin ring too. Graduated HS in '92. I must have lost it or sold it 12+ yrs ago when the gold party's were popular.
I also have a Persian cat coin ring. It is probably 30 years old. The band has broken twice & I had it repaired by a jeweler. I still wear it all the time. In fact I wore it today. The girl doing my manicure ask me about it & I starred out telling her about the panda coin ring. She had never heard of them. LoL! Hence what lead me here after Google panda coin rings. LoL!
I had one!! in Southern Indiana, around late 80s-early 90s!
I recently found my panda ring, I found your post by googling Panda rings. I am from Elizabethtown, Kentucky. I graduated in 1993, and I remember they were all the rage back then.
NWTN..Pandas, Pink & Lavender Ice, and YinYang jewelry were all that!
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