Sizing a bracelet for someone else

The most common message we receive begins the same way: I want to give one, and I cannot ask. A signing gift, a thank-you that should not look like a thank-you, something for the person who taught you how the room works. The one thing you cannot do is text them for a wrist measurement. So here is what we do.

First, the ranges. Wrists vary less than people fear. A slighter adult wrist sits between 14.5 and 16 centimetres. An average build is 16 to 17.5. A broader build, or a tall frame, is 17.5 to 19.5. Very few adults fall outside 14 to 21. If you know roughly what the person looks like standing next to you, you already know their size to within a centimetre, and a centimetre is the width of a fit preference.

Second, the clues. A watch is the best one. If you have seen their watch and it sits with a little room, their wrist is close to the strap's fastened length; the strap hole they use is a measurement they have already taken for you. A shirt cuff that is buttoned is a second clue: standard cuffs are cut for the middle of the range. A ring size, if you happen to know it, is not a clue at all. Fingers and wrists do not agree.

Third, and this is the part that matters: order without a size. There is a field for it and it can be left empty. Tell us instead what you know: their build, their height if you can guess it, whether they wear a watch and on which hand, and whether the piece should sit under a cuff or be seen. We string to a Standard fit for that build, and we choose the bead count so that one resize in either direction is possible without changing the composition.

Then the card. Inside the box, under the piece, is a card with the atelier number and a line telling the recipient that one complimentary resize is waiting for them. Most people never use it. The ones who do send the piece back with the number, and it returns in about a week, strung to the centimetre. The gift is not diminished by this. If anything, it is improved: the piece becomes theirs twice.

A last note on which piece. For someone whose wrist you have never looked at, choose a piece from Composure or Guard. They are the ones worn under the cuff, in the balanced bead sizes, and they forgive a centimetre either way. Save the tiger eye for someone whose signing hand you have seen.

And write the card yourself, or let us copy your words by hand. We do not print. A gift like this should arrive as if it had always been intended, and the only thing on the outside of the box should be nothing at all.