“Cape Cod bracelets are all over my TikTok For Your Page,” Marie Claire’s senior fashion and beauty news editor, Hayley LeSavage, told me during a recent team meeting. These were words I never imagined I’d hear amid blaring taxi horns in my midtown Manhattan office, 250 miles from the Massachusetts peninsula where I grew up.
I was given my first Cape Cod bracelet when I was three years old. It was a thin silver band with a gold screwball clasp. It was a gift from my grandmother, who raised my mother on the Cape and lived there year-round. The bracelet remained on my wrist throughout my sun-drenched childhood. When I grew out of it and it no longer fit, my mother remade it into a small, child-sized bracelet into a key chain that I still wear today.
I never got my Cape Cod screwball bracelet again. It felt like a youthful treasure I didn’t want to damage, and the coastal associations didn’t really fit with my Manhattan-based adult vibe. Until this summer, I assumed people outside of New England wouldn’t know what it was, and I was content for the bracelet to exist in my hometown bubble. Until that bubble popped.
This is a classic silver and gold Cape Cod screwball bracelet.
(Image courtesy of Emma Childs)
Massachusetts-born author Victoria Aveyard summed it up in a June TikTok that has garnered just under 2 million views: [the Cape Cod bracelet] return, [but] It has escaped inhibitions. It is not just in the consciousness of New England girls.”
Tapping into TikTok, I saw Rex Nicoleta, creator of the coastal grandmother trend, take his 350,000 followers on a shopping trip to Nantucket to buy a silver-and-gold screwball bracelet. Then I discovered videos of women who’d never set foot on the East Coast buying dummies of the popular style on Amazon for $35. TikTok had officially taken the trend to its core.
@lexnicoleta ♬ original sound – lexnicoleta
But like many of the pieces the platform dwells on, the context surrounding this coastal masterpiece was missing. Most notably, as many commenters and other users pointed out, authentic Cape Cod Screwball bracelets can only be purchased at a small, family-run boutique called Eden Hand Arts in Dennis, Massachusetts (right in the middle of the upper arm of the Cape, for those who use their arms like maps).
The origins of this bracelet are quite a wholesome story. In the 1960s, John Carey, then-owner of Eden, was troubled by the fact that his wife and business partner, Eve, was constantly losing her jewelry. As a solution, he designed his now-trademark screwball bracelet with a 14-karat gold clasp that would never come off unless the wearer twisted it repeatedly. The design is registered by Eden, and you can tell a Cape Cod bracelet is authentic by the distinctive apple-shaped tag hanging from the hoop. All bracelets made and sold by other boutiques and brands are imitations or “fakes.”
Victoria Aveyard
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♬ Original Sound – Victoria Aveyard
TikTok’s discovery of the Cape Cod screwball bracelet isn’t its first time going mainstream. It skyrocketed in popularity in the late ’90s when Cape Cod-born actress Amy Jo Johnson wore one on the show Felicity. (In a quintessential Cape Cod twist, my dad grew up across the street from Johnson and remembers playing with her in her front yard.) It hit another peak in 2010, when Dennis-born Chris Lambton, a contestant on Season 6 of The Bachelorette, gifted that season’s star, Ali Fedotowsky, a silver-and-gold screwball bracelet. (Lambton didn’t win Fedotowsky’s heart, but he did come in second.)
But the thing about Eden Hand Arts is that they’re essentially the opposite of going viral: instead, they’re notoriously, almost absurdly exclusive, and shy away from the spotlight.
Eden only accepts cash or check (bracelets start at $250, depending on size and style), and there’s little information about it online. It’s nearly impossible to contact (Eden didn’t return my two voicemails and three emails). After the Bachelorette craze, John and Eve’s daughter and the store’s current owner, Rachel Carey Harper, told the Boston Herald, “We have more work than we can handle. It makes our lives a lot more complicated.” Now, you have to reserve a ticket online in advance to visit, but even then, there’s no guarantee you’ll get any jewelry, since all the jewelry is handmade in small batches and custom-made for each wrist.
Sign for Eden Hand Arts, a Dennis-based jewelry boutique and home of Cape Cod Bracelets.
(Image courtesy of Emma Childs)
“But that special feeling is part of the fun,” my sister told me in a text message recently.[Going to Eden] “It’s like getting tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.” This entire process of getting your tickets, standing in the usual long line at Dennis Boutique, and hopefully leaving with a classic silver-and-gold screwball bracelet has sentimental value for us locals. A family friend who owns five bracelets estimates he’s visited Eden Hand Arts at least 15 times since he was a teenager. As any Cape Cod local or capable tourist will tell you, it’s a rite of passage.
But amid a new wave of Cape Cod bracelet converts, I found myself needing to make another trip to Eden to replace the childhood version that holds my mom’s house keys.
I transformed my vintage bracelet into a practical keychain.
(Image courtesy of Emma Childs)
In early July, my sister got tickets for my mom and me. “Getting tickets was like trying to steal the Declaration of Independence,” she described the experience. We had to set four alarms, spaced 30 minutes apart, starting at 6:30am. After fueling on lobster rolls, the three of us arrived at Eden at the appointed time. After nervously waiting in line and watching a technical glitch with the tickets nearly deny our family of four entry, we were finally let in.
When I ask for three classic silver-and-gold screwball bracelets, the smiling saleswoman, Emily, doesn’t hesitate. “This year we’ve seen a lot more young women coming into Eden because of Instagram and TikTok,” she acknowledges, but the store maintains its traditional closed-door practices. Unfortunately for content creators, phones and cameras are still not allowed inside. Eden isn’t letting its newfound social media stardom dictate its business.
As my mother twisted the shiny silver band around my wrist, she pulled out a bracelet-turned-keychain and compared my old one to my new one. Emily told me that she had done the same with the Eden bracelet she’d received when she was four, and later gifted it to her niece on her 16th birthday, along with her newly acquired car keys. I left the store feeling a new connection.
My mom, sister and I with our new Cape Cod bracelets.
(Image courtesy of Emma Childs)
Nicoleta, a coastal grandmother’s mother, felt the same way after buying her first bracelet. “I love that it’s created a sisterhood of women on the East Coast who all have their own stories to tell about their bracelets,” she told me over email. “I’ve had people comment on my videos like, ‘I haven’t taken it off in 20 years.'” Native Cape Cod residents, seasonal tourists, and newcomers who discovered the style on TikTok are all connected by the same silver strands and gold screwballs. They’re members of the Cape Cod Bracelet Club.
Though my coastal signature doesn’t exactly mesh with my current Manhattan-inspired wardrobe, I won’t be taking this new bracelet off. It’s a little piece of cape that I can carry with me at all times. When I’m walking the soot-covered sidewalks of New York City or waiting on a crowded subway platform for an uncertain train, one glance at my wrist will transport me temporarily back home, the sun on my shoulders and the ocean breeze on my face.
Shop Similar Cape Cod Bracelets
In good conscience, we cannot offer you any non-Cape Cod branded bracelets, but we can offer you a selection of similar silver, gold and mixed metal bracelets until you can visit Eden in person.
David Yurman Classic Cable Bracelet in Sterling Silver, 18K Yellow Gold, 4mm
Ippolita Classico Thin Sterling Silver Smooth Squiggle Bangle Bracelet
Tiffany Interlocking Circle Chain Bracelet
Madewell Knot Cuff Bracelet
Pandora Moments Two Tone Barrel Clasp Snake Chain Bracelet
Blue Nile Freshwater Cultured Pearl Twisted Cuff Bracelet in Sterling Silver (7mm)
Roxane Aslan Scale Gold and Silver Tone Bracelet Set of 2
Matteo Wave 14k Gold Diamond Bracelet
