Somewhere back in the late 1960s, consumed by a toddler’s desire for self-adornment, I selected a plastic animal from my menagerie and tied it around my neck with a piece of string. I’m not sure the ponderous, inelegant result would have qualified as “jewelry” exactly. But take that playful embellishing impulse, combine it with a true artist’s flair for detail, skill with metalwork and needlecraft, and what you’ve got is fifteen years of whimsical work by Dutch jewelry designer Felieke van der Leest.

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