On the way out · Jewelry · Summer 2026 · Mrs Accessories analysis by Maggi Ferguson

Shells, cowries and the last of the summer jewellery

Oversized spiral pendants, cowrie strands, turquoise. Peaked in July — which is precisely why it is worth buying in August.

Filed here as fading rather than hot, because it is mid-August and this was a July trend. That is not a reason to skip the page — it is a reason to read it, because end-of-season is when this category is worth buying and the reasoning is different from the rest of the site.

Shell jewellery is one of the few accessory types with a genuinely fixed season. Nobody wears a cowrie strand in November, which means the stock has to clear and it discounts hard from late August. It also means the trend cannot really date within a year, because you will next take it out in June and by then nobody remembers which summer it came from.

What is being shown, for when you do: oversized single spiral shells as pendants rather than the small even strands of previous years, deliberately imperfect finishes, weathered rather than polished gold, and colour — lacquered turquoise, coral red, butter yellow — instead of the natural-white palette this category used to be stuck in.

Two buying notes specific to shell. Real shell is brittle and chips at the drill hole; a shell pendant with a metal cap or bezel around the top will outlast one drilled straight through, and the difference is visible in the photographs. And natural shell varies enormously piece to piece, so the item that arrives will not be the item photographed. That is inherent, not a fault, but it is worth expecting rather than being annoyed by.

On wear: shell is porous. Sunscreen and sea water both mark it, which is an irony worth planning around — put it on after the beach, not for it.

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