Mood Rings For Grown-Ups — Meet Olivia Kane’s Magical Jewelry Collection
I was around 12 years old when My Girl hit movie theaters, and I still remember when my best friend Sara and I went to see the flick at the movie theater. We met up with some of our guy friends at the movie theater and, every time the film took an emotional turn, we leaned in closer to the boy sitting next to us and squeezed his arm (we’d wisely manipulated the seating so that we’d wind up next to our crush of the moment). It was flirting at its most transparent, but we were young and thought we were so slick (as, I’m sure, did the fellas who “comforted” us during our time of need!). Not that our tears were feigned. I still remember that “Weeping Willow” poem Vada wrote for Thomas J, and how I practically needed my own tub of tissues when she read it in class. Our ploy to go watch a tearjerker with our crushes so that they could act like our knights in shining armor backfired when we wound up leaving the movie theater with swollen eyes, snotty noses, and red faces from all that crying. My Girl was, in the end, a coming-of-age film that we found incredibly relatable since, all tragic events aside, the main character was a plucky girl who was a bit of a tomboy and who was trying to figure out her place in a very confusing and often disappointing world.
In my 20s, when I discovered I was allergic to bees, I quickly remembered My Girl and made a (probably) distasteful joke about how, if I don’t carry an EpiPen around, I could end up meeting Thomas J’s fate. Grim humor, I know, but it does show the impact that film had on my life.
Apparently, many others were equally touched by the film — including jewelry designer Olivia Kane Fleming. The New Zealand native, who currently resides in New York City, launched her eponymous jewelry line, Olivia Kane, in 2015, guided by the idea of crafting fine jewelry mood rings as an homage to My Girl‘s Vada. If you remember the movie, Vada always wore a mood ring, which was black throughout most of the movie, reflecting her unhappiness, but changed to a blue hue toward the end of the film, when she’d found a sense of inner peace. Olivia Kane’s rings, then, also feature the color-morphing qualities of Vada’s signature mood ring, but they’re sleeker and daintier, crafted using 14k yellow gold, sterling silver, 14k rose gold, and stunning gemstones like Ethiopian opal, Baltic amber, Brazilian strawberry quartz, and Madagascar tourmaline.
Mood rings aren’t the sole component of the Olivia Kane brand, of course, but they do function as its backbone, capturing the sense of wonder and enchantment that marks every piece within the line, as well as the designer’s fascination with the mystical and metaphysical. Mood rings design range from simple prong-set, oval-shaped stones atop thin bands to funkier, more gypsy-flavored designs like the Opal Double Mood Ring ($245 at OliviaKane.co), shown first above, an open-ended piece with a color-changing clear quartz mood stone measuring 6mm x 8mm on one side and a raw 2-carat opal on the other side. A similar piece, the Amber Double Mood Ring ($225 at OliviaKane.co), shown last above, features a 6mm x 8mm clear quartz mood stone on one side and a prong-set, 9mm raw amber stone on the other side, with each stone meant to hug the of the finger.
Those looking for a more classic style, meanwhile, can check out the Rhombus Mood Ring ($179 at OliviaKane.co) pictured third above, which features a clear quartz mood stone inset at the very center of a kite-like, rhombus-shaped surface, which can be fashioned out of sterling silver, 14k yellow gold or 14k rose gold. Another great selection: the Arch Mood Ring ($185 at OliviaKane.co), which features the prong-set mood stone atop a horse-shaped arch, seemingly floating atop this curved surface.
Because each quartz stone contains thermochromic liquid crystals, they will change color as your body temperature fluctuates. Since your emotions can often lead to changes in your body temperature (for instance, falling in love can, actually, create a warm bodily sensation due to your heart racing or your adrenaline pumping), these quartz stones reflect some of these changes. Sure, they can’t gauge exactly what’s in your heart or your psyche, but it’s always fun to see any hue transformations and assess whether they’re accurate or not. And, thanks to Olivia Kane’s fine craftsmanship, you can look polished and totally grown up, while enjoying that same sense of wonderment you felt as a kid when you slipped on a mood ring extracted from a plastic egg inside a vending machine.
