Nameplate necklaces
everyone wears one.
Isn't that the Carrie necklace from Sex and the City?
Yeah.
She wore one too,
but she wasn't the first.
It's not just a celebrity thing.
Chances are you own one or you've seen someone else wearing one.
They're fashionable now, but for decades
they've been a statement of girlhood
and coming of age for women of colour and ethnic minorities.
The first nameplate that I got was as a 10-year-old.
And I basically had to write my mom a letter explaining
why I was responsible enough
to have a pretty expensive piece of jewellery and I had the grades to back it up.
Unless you have a common name
Mary, Jennifer, Katie...
It's hard to find a bracelet or a keychain with your name on it.
Personalised nameplate jewellery became a way of making those names legitimate
and visible.
When I looked around in the 70s and 80s in Brooklyn,
there weren't that many representations of black girlhood in popular culture.
For me and for the girls that I knew,
there was something about wanting to assert one's sense of self
that was intentional.
At the same time in New York, hip hop was being born.
It was more than music, it was graffiti and break dancing,
it was a style and an attitude.
And jewellery was part of that.
Much like graffiti tagging, the nameplate became a way of saying,
'I exist in this world.
I want you to know my name.'
And like everything in fashion, nameplates were influenced
by what had come be before.
These guys were wearing initial nameplates and initial pinkie rings.
There's a correlation with artists like Big Daddy Kane,
Slick Rick...
Their major influences from style was pimps
Those medallions and personal jewellery moved into the stripped-down styling
of the nameplate necklace.
And Brooklyn's Fulton Street soon became their mecca.
And then it just becomes an epidemic where it becomes a staple
in the ghetto communities.
Everyone has to have one.
We are one of the few stores that opened in the early 90s here
and we were the centre mecca of nameplates.
Your nameplate is done.
When Yo! MTV raps aired in 1988
it brought the fashion of New York's boroughs to a wider audience.
Nameplates included.
Yo! MTV Raps really helped kind of express that
you know, fuel that representation.
I mean, of course, anything that then becomes a kind of national situation,
right?
But that was nothing until Sex and the City came along.
It was a pear-shaped diamond with a gold band.
You wear gold jewellery?
Yeah, like ghetto gold for fun
but this is my engagement ring.
The show's costume designer spotted the jewellery
and the Carrie necklace was born.
That name necklace was something that black kids, Puerto Rican kids, borough kids,
had been wearing forever.
That was just a staple.
I have a one o'clock reservation - Bradshaw.
Soon the necklace became synonymous with the show.
She kind of becomes an universal signifier for a style
that many communities of people
have contributed aesthetic innovations to...
There is an ongoing legacy of appropriating the labour, the energy,
the time, the creative production,
of our society's most subjugated people.
From here it's a short step to commercialising
what is often a deeply personal item.
Supermarkets like Walmart started selling them,
often only with those common white American names.
Nameplates often relate to some type of immigration experience,
an experience of origin, some kind of identity whether that's holding on
to a perceived original identity or synthesising a new one.
Like having to change your name.
Names reflect identity.
Latin names like Camila, Valeria or Maritza
have continued to use Spanish spellings and pronunciations
which can be seen as a sign of heritage and pride.
Would you mind telling me what your father's last name was?
The last name of my forefathers was taken from them
when they were brought to America and made slaves.
African Americans also began to give their children unique names,
like Ashanti, Latisha, and Monique
to represent their individuality
and in some cases, solidarity with their African ancestry.
What I think it's a brilliant about the nameplate necklace
is that it shows up right in the black and Latino community
at a moment when the community is itself trying to figure out its very contemporary
and modern representation.
Label yourself but you choose that label and then you accessorise it and make it visible
just seems completely appropriate and brilliant.
So what was once perceived as ghetto became fashionable.
The trends that black youth have created have always been absorbed
by mainstream society
and the nameplate necklaces is no different.
So when mainstream society wants to cut loose and be wild,
that's when black culture can be absorbed.
In the present day, people with black, Latino
or ethnic sounding names
are still less likely to be called back for job interviews,
considered for housing,
and they are more likely to be labeled as troublemakers by teachers.
Facing these disadvantages because of your name
and still showing enough pride to wear it around your neck
can feel like a small but revolutionary act.
But some people just like the style.
Culture sharing is inevitable and can be a great thing.
But it helps to know the history behind what you're wearing.
Just think twice about calling it the Carrie necklace.