Yofair Bar Necklace

A plate carries a name. A bar carries everything else. It is a strip of steel about the width of a matchstick hung the long way, and what goes on it is usually the thing a nameplate cannot hold: a date written out, a set of coordinates, a line short enough to be read in one look. Because the engraving is cut into the face rather than cut out of it, the bar keeps its shape whatever is written on it, and a long inscription simply comes out in smaller type.

This is the piece couples buy two of. The three finishes on this page (black, steel and gold plate) are meant to be mixed rather than matched, and the black one is the one men on this catalogue actually wear. The chain hangs it flat against the collarbone, so the engraved face stays outward; the back of the bar is plain, which is where a second date sometimes goes. Set beside the cursive plates on the necklace shelf, a bar is the quieter present, and it is the one to choose when the wearer has to put a shirt collar over it every morning.