Inspiration of the Ruff&Cut SKULLS Collection

“Here they come, the spiritual troubadour journeymen of the soul—the see-no-evil hear-no-evil speak-no-evil skulls, smiling benign, uncluttered by color, by sex, or by anyone’s magic.

The smiling dead head tells us it’s good to be alive. And that maybe we could use what’s inside ours for some good on that glittering road to gorgeous.”

- Julian Borra, Ruff&Cut linguist & creative contributor

Most of the Ruff&Cut collection is designed by skilled and well-known jewelers such as Me&Ro, Tracy Matthews, Todd Reed, and others.

The Skull Collection is something else entirely—my inspiration, born of two important realizations that kept playing over and over in my mind. Not a particularly new idea, but I thought it would resonate with a certain breed of quite singular people out there.

The first realization: that skulls hold a universal truth in their sameness—a truth that should bind us all, kindred, regardless of background, riches, education, or fate. I, by pure luck of the draw, was born a white Anglo Saxon upper-middle-class American—the top 1% in the world in terms of quality of life and opportunities—while our brothers and sisters in the Third World struggle even for life itself, in some of the poorest and most unlivable places on Earth (the cruelest irony being that their tribulations play out against the astounding beauty of gorgeous white-sand North Atlantic beaches and with vast quantities of natural resources buried deep beneath their very feet). In Africa, all too often, short-lived, brutal lives conspire to reveal that their skulls are just the same as yours and mine, just as the blood that runs through their veins is as red as ours.

The second realization: skulls are the motif of the outsider, the gothic loner, the abrasive individualist, and the immutable iconoclast—a symbol worn by people who have either achieved a level of success that allows them to express themselves by wearing clothes and jewelry slightly out of the norm of what is deemed acceptable by society at large, or by people driven to want every part of them to scream “get me out of here—I’m not like everybody else.”

My concept is simple—that skulls:

1) see no color and represent a universal kinship
2) house the one organ we all have that might help us make the world a better and safer place

Stick those two notions together and they sit well with the glittering conscience concept of Ruff&Cut.

So I began looking at all types of skull jewelry and skull art. Most of the representations I found were sad, cynical, mean, and depressing.

I wanted a skull that smiled—knowing, smart, playful. So we designed one. And I wanted to be able to put some light in their eyes, so we did, with colored gemstones (black spinnel, green garnets, blue sapphires).

The Ruff&Cut skull collection comes in two types—the Enduring Skulls and the Subtle Skulls, in men’s and women’s sizes of bracelets, cufflinks, charms, earrings, and necklaces of various lengths.

Check out the collection online—maybe you have the courage to wear them. . .

Warmest personal regards,
Wade