The Loquet jewelry company in London has made shopping for lockets a playful experience. The starting point is a 14-karat gold and clear sapphire-crystal case, which can be filled with any number of charms, from jeweled fruits to a martini glass.
In search of a sentimental gift for his wife, Dillon Newell, a British businessman, recently brought their two young children to Loquet’s shop in London, where they selected a heart-shape crystal locket and three charms to go inside: a diamond-accented butterfly, a rainbow and a heart. He added a coffee cup charm, to represent their mornings together.
“Letting the kids help made this gift so much more meaningful,” Mr. Newell wrote in an email. “My wife sees a little piece of all of us in it, and that’s more special than anything else I could have given her.”
Loquet’s founder, Sheherazade Goldsmith, said, “there’s something inherently playful about the tiny charms, it reminds you of all the lovely, magical things in our youth.” Established in 2013, the brand has charms in stock as well as a bespoke service that can make almost anything — recent commissions have included a diamond pavé surfboard and a stethoscope (small gold lockets start at $1,200; charms begin at $40).
As much as lockets designs have changed, they still are most often given and worn in love.
That has been the case for Kathryn Phillips, a business owner in Laguna Beach, Calif., who began collecting Ms. Kosann’s lockets when her first grandchild was born 13 years ago.
She now has seven lockets, including one that was a gift from her husband on their 30th anniversary. It is engraved with the words “Best blind date ever” and contains four images, one for each decade and one of their family.
“The lockets have far more significance than just their material value,” Ms. Phillips said.
And that impact is shared. Ms. Kosann herself was moved as she described a locket with her favorite Robert Frost poem inside that her husband gave her about a year ago: “People wear lockets to tell their stories, to curate their life and be reminded of what matters most to them.”
