The art of tribal jewellery

Tribal peoples the world over have made and worn jewellery for centuries. Materials used have tended to be those locally available at the time – in some cases including basic metals, coins and glass beads, but mostly using wood, paint, stones, animal skin, bone, shells, clay, seeds, bird feathers and even flowers.







Ethnic tribal jewellery is often handmade or crafted using primitive tools – resulting in chunky, unrefined necklaces, bracelets and earrings. At ShopCurious, we’ve created our own range of hand painted tribal jewellery inspired by authentic tribal arts and incorporating traditional natural materials.






Some of the pieces are made with original vintage tribal artefacts, or recycled scraps of wood and fabric, with exotic feather embellishment. The hand painting features tribal mask images and ancient ethnic symbols. One very unusual and stylish pendant is made using a real varnished leaf.







There’s a focus on tribal arts in fashion at the moment, but these individually made and unique accessories are completely timeless – in fact they’re mini works of collectable art in their own right. We think they’re curiously quirky and cool too.

Do you?