Ancient skills
Crafting horse hair
For as long as we’ve co-existed with horses we’ve made use of horse hair: spinning rope and fishing line, plastering walls, making violin bows, crinoline for stiffening garments, mattress stuffing, upholstery fabric, sieves, brushes, wigs, and fly whisks.
And horse hair makes extraordinary jewellery …
All the pretty horse hair
Horse hair is an extraordinary natural material, with each colour, texture and individual hair contributing to the finished piece. I use traditional techniques including braiding, weaving and rope twisting, alongside contemporary methods of inlaying horse hair into precious metal, to create jewellery that celebrates both the horse and the craft.
Ancient skills
BRAIDED BY HAND
The braided horse hair used in many of my designs draws on the intricate techniques of Japanese silk braiding. Individual strands are worked by hand to create beautifully regular cords, allowing the natural colours of the horse hair to become part of the design.
There is a long tradition of creating jewellery from hair. The Victorians made intricate “lovers’ jewellery” from human hair; today I use the same idea of a deeply personal material, reimagined as contemporary fine jewellery using the tail hair of a much-loved horse.
A rare craft
Woven by hand
Horse hair can also be woven by hand into incredibly fine, flat ribbons. For my woven jewellery, multiple hairs are strung onto a small, purpose-made loom and carefully worked together to create cloth-like bands that can be inlaid into precious metal.
I also draw inspiration from the remarkable crin tradition of Rari in Chile, where horse hair is woven entirely by hand, using individual strands rather than a loom. This very different technique lends itself to more sculptural horse-hair work.
The beauty of natural horse hair
Colour & pattern
No two horses — or their tails — are quite alike. Natural horse hair comes in an extraordinary range of textures, colours and tones, and combining contrasting shades creates intricate patterns within the weave.
Taking inspiration from British tailoring, I weave tweeds, stripes and tiny repeating motifs, as well as patterns inspired by Argentinian belt designs. Fine threads of gold or silver can be woven through the horse hair to introduce flashes of light, creating my Brocade designs, while coloured kimono silk is used to create my Racing Silks designs.