Why I'm attracted to trinket people

I grew up in a home where the window sills were covered in little treasures. A collection of pretty feathers that’d been picked up on walks and arranged like flowers in a little jar, a nicely shaped pebble, a shiny shell.

Even now, when I visit my mum - who is a grandmother to five grandchildren now - I always find myself looking at the window sill in her kitchen to see the latest addition. The sill sits at a three-year-old’s eye level and when my little nieces and nephews visit, it’s the place they go to first as well. Each one of them has played with the little collection of treasures. When they pick something up and hold it, my mum will have a story or a fact to tell them about it.

Wherever I’ve lived, I’ve constructed my own collection of trinkets on shelves, desks, bedside tables. Lots of my things are still in boxes but I made sure I brought a few trinkets here. Pieces of pottery and a collection of shells I’ve picked up from Norfolk over the years.

This interview on

Liv Little

’s The Feels made me think about the role that these familiar objects play. In it, Ellie Domoney talks about her trinkets having a protective quality and being ‘there on the periphery checking in on me.’

“I’ve always been a person who surrounds themselves with trinkets; knick-knacks - tiny boxes - spoons too small, spoons too big, functionless yet oh-so important objects. These objects have followed me around my entire life. I have no idea where a lot of them come from - they’ve always just been there on the periphery checking in on me. Making sure I'm ok. They sat on the dusty shelf in the yellow and green bedroom my brother and I built our forts in as children. They were chucked in a drawer at my uni halls, waiting patiently to be promoted onto a top shelf for all to see. They followed me from house-shares with friends to playing grown ups in flats with exes. The house on the seafront on top of the fish and chip shop. The house with the plastic spiral staircase leading up to my little attic room. On every dusty mantelpiece of my twenties, I’ve placed my trinkets. 

In a world that’s becoming increasingly materialistic, it’s fascinating to me that it’s these small things bring us so much comfort. A unique sense of self in a way that spending a lot of money on something can’t guarantee. Sometimes, it’s because they’re meaningless to other people, that they’re so special - our relationship to that ‘thing’ is completely unique to us and no one else can see or really understand it. It’s private and irreplaceable.

When I think of the people I know who like to surround themselves with trinkets, they have a few similar traits: They keep an eye open for something unexpected wherever they go - whether it’s a treasure in a vintage shop or a pine cone on a country walk. They’re the type of people who send cards or collect little cards from restaurants they’ve been to. They appreciate the craft of a small handmade dish or the imperfections on a painting because they understand the creative process that’s involved. They’re reflective people who like something tangible to attach a memory to.

So, when I visit the homes of friends or family who are trinket people, I try to take the time to ask about what’s on display. Usually, just as with my mum’s window sill, there will be a story behind each little object. And those stories have a way of uncovering something completely unique about how that person views the world.