Jewellery’s safest trend: the padlock
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The padlock – a mechanical motif with emotional baggage – has become a fixture in watch and jewellery design. As the emblem of love’s unbreakable bond, dainty and decorative locks appeared everywhere on sentimental jewellery of the?early 19th century. A century later, the lock was reimagined in modernist mode, an?expression of the machine age of the 1920s and ’30s. Later still, it became a punk attribute, denoting freedom from social conventions. Now, the padlock has come full circle with a new generation of lock-themed designs that recapture its?associations with romance and commitment – but also, in our age?of?information overload, a?cri?de?coeur for secrecy.
At Chloé, Chemena Kamali revived the French house’s 2005-era Paddington bag featuring an?oversized gilt and leather-wrapped lock for AW25, alongside antique-looking locket necklaces and bag charms. At Simone Rocha, hardware store-style padlocks were embellished with?pearls and reconfigured as?earrings or adornments of bicycle chain belts – a nod to the illicit romance of the bike sheds. ?
The catwalk revival makes the 90th birthday of Van Cleef & Arpels’ padlock-shaped Cadenas watch feel even more timely. The concept – supposedly the suggestion of the Duchess of Windsor and developed by then-artistic director Renée Puissant – was based on the need for 1930s?women, bored by a cocktail party, to?be able to sneak a glance at the time in surreptitiously elegant style. Masquerading as a bracelet, the Cadenas features a?snaking gold chain with a tiny dial set into an angled plane, into which fit the curved arms of a padlock. There have been?many iterations through the decades, from a leather-strap model to a fully pavé-set diamond version. The Cadenas receives ultra-precious treatment for its 2025 anniversary, the watch case and padlock snow-set in diamonds with a rim?of princess-cut sapphires.?
Where there is luggage, so there are locks. In 1886, Louis Vuitton developed a?secure single-lock system powered by a tambour mechanism. It was later refined and patented by his son Georges, so convinced of its security that he challenged Harry Houdini to escape from a Vuitton box locked with the tumbler. The challenge was never taken up but the motif endured: Vuitton translated the tumbler lock into the contemporary Tambour watch. The latest iteration comes in brown ceramic with pink-gold details.
The lock is embedded too in Hermès’s story, mostly thanks to the padlock that dangled from the first Kelly bag, created in the 1930s. The Kelly and its familiar twist-locking mechanism is the focal point of the Kelly jewellery collection, and available in gold or silver. Padlocks also have history at Tiffany &?Co, originating with a specially commissioned padlock brooch with a key, made in 1883 as a gift of love from husband to wife. It inspired the heart-shaped Return?To Tiffany padlock and the hugely successful Tiffany Lock motif, sleek and?linear, with its invisible click-clasp mechanism. The latest Lock series, comprising a bangle, pendant, earrings and?ring, is even more minimal: slender, scaled down and set with pink sapphires.
And the lock continues to inspire: Jenna Blake’s heart-shaped padlock charms come in carved hardstones such as chalcedony and malachite; Kil?NYC’s Selene Padlock pendants reinvent Victorian sentimentalism. Italian brand Eéra’s first collection was inspired by a snap hook found in a Tokyo vintage shop, and New?Yorker Marla Aaron has an?interest in the?common carabiner that has morphed into a collection of lock jewels shaped as hearts, lightning bolts?and question marks, adorned with gems or enamel.?
“There is something visceral about the weight and functionality of?our locks,” says Aaron. “I began wearing them myself in the early?2000s, and people have always loved them.” As a summer accessory, the lock is still your safest bet.?
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