The impact of a single statement choker wrapped around a delicate female neck—an essential accessory of old world royalty—has stretched across continents and centuries.
You can feel it most in magazines and movies, like “Sex in the City 2″ where actress Sarah Jessica Parker (pictured right) uses one to add a splash of color to an all-white summer look. However, celebrities are far from the only ones keeping up this timeless trend.
Naomi Tate and her clients around the world, for example, maintain a good grip on this neck decor, which continues to have a wide-reaching international appeal.
“It is an elegant and sexy kind of adornment,” says Tate, a UK-based former ballerina and actress who designs a unique eponymous line of the most exquisite chokers and cuffs made with authentic vintage pieces, starting at $230.
A life-long love of antique jewelry and textiles lead Tate to the forefront of a friend’s mind who, on a whim, asked her to design chokers. When that same friend left for Paris, Tate decided to run solo with the brilliant business idea. She started purchasing 18th and 19th century materials, such as gold and silver laces, beads, jewels, and antique velvets (for a base) from dealers.
“The secret is to find a choker that lights up your face,” says Tate, whose clients have worn her pieces to the ballet, opera, weddings, magazine photo shoots (like Helena Bonham Carter), even to dress up a pair of jeans. Tate clinches her own neck with a choker that’s backed with gold from the 1920s and fronted with Victorian, burnt orange velvet. It has beadwork, from circa 1800, and is topped with purple stone. “I like to think of my designs as wearable art,” she says.
Naomi Tate chokers and cuffs are available on Portobello Road as well as Anthropologie, both located in London. For more information, visit Mogadordesign.co.uk (her design company was formerly named Mogador after a 19th century courtesan who danced her way to fame and fortune).
[Photography courtesy of Naomi Tate]
Published on July 5, 2010
While there are many sites today dedicated to the pursuit of fashion and style, here at MRK Style we approach these subjects through a collector’s lens. Through exploring how people relate to Art, Family, Fashion, Food, Film and Travel—essentially life’s various, everyday obsessions—we reflect on how we all live with the things we love. 
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