Ever thought that the one thing missing from your jewellery collection was a necklace that makes you look as if you've had your throat slashed, or a cocktail ring the rough shape and size of a bloodied bullet wound? Me neither. But London-based jewellery designer Kali Arulpragasam – the elder sister of singer Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam, aka MIA – thinks otherwise.
Gold throat-slash necklaces and ruby-encrusted bullet-wound rings are just some of the highlights of the autumn-winter collection of her jewellery line, Super Fertile. There is also an earring that makes your lobe look as if it has been ripped open, dripping blood; and a long series of fine gold necklaces and wound-shaped jewelled lozenges for that sexy "I've-just-been-killed-by-a-machine-gun" look.
Arulpragasam has had the whole collection – called Murder – modelled by men, women and a small boy, made up to look like torture victims: bruised faces, gashed chests, a rivulet of blood running down the boy's forehead. "Violence and beauty," Arulpragasam says, "have been thoughtfully crafted in incredible detail . . . to resemble bullet wounds, cuts, machine-gun fire to the body, slashes, butchering and hacking of the throat, head and ears to portray the inhumanity around the world."
But would you want to be seen dead wearing any of it?
