Every curve, every clover, every star tells a story. In luxury jewellery, motifs are symbols of meaning, luck, and emotion, quietly communicating things we sometimes can't say out loud.
A motif is essentially a repeated symbolic pattern or design that becomes a house's signature.
Van Cleef & Arpels has its four-leaf clover.
Cartier owns the heart and the knot.
Bulgari speaks in serpents.
These are deliberate symbols that resonate across cultures and generations, passed down like heirlooms, whispered about in vintage jewellery circles, and collected with the kind of devotion usually reserved for art.
French singer Françoise Hardy wore two Alhambra sautoirs at once in 1973, layering them with a casual confidence that changed how women thought about wearing fine jewellery.
Princess Grace of Monaco famously collected Van Cleef Alhambra necklaces, often wearing three strands at once with different gemstone combinations, turquoise with onyx with mother-of-pearl, creating her own visual language of luck and luxury.
But it's not just about which symbol you choose. The number of times that motif repeats along a necklace or circles your wrist? That carries meaning too.
And once you understand the language, once you know that five means protection, that seven is spiritual awakening, you'll never look at jewellery the same way again.
The Symbolism Behind Common Jewellery Motifs
The Clover / Alhambra
The clover represents luck, harmony, and nature's perfect balance.
Jacques Arpels used to pick four-leaf clovers in his backyard in Germigny-l'Évêque and give them to his employees as tokens of good fortune. The man believed in luck, really believed in it," To be lucky, you have to believe in luck," he'd say.
In 1968, he transformed that simple, generous gesture into the first Alhambra long necklace: twenty clover-shaped motifs in creased yellow gold, trimmed with gold beads. The design married the four-leaf clover with the Moorish quatrefoil of the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain, creating something that felt both ancient and utterly modern.
It debuted as a sautoir reflecting the "haute hippie" aesthetic of the era, promising a fresh dose of joie de vivre that revitalized the brand during a decade of massive social upheaval.
The Heart
The heart speaks the universal language of love, passion, and unity. Cartier's Love bracelet was born at 3 a.m. in 1969, when a 20-something designer named Aldo Cipullo couldn't sleep after a relationship ended.
Cipullo was driven by his own heartbreak to create something that signified commitment, a piece that needed to be fastened with the help of another person. The design was inspired by the medieval chastity belt, a symbol of loyalty reimagined as devotion. When it launched, Cartier gifted pieces to famous couples: Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Ali MacGraw and Steve McQueen.
The message was clear: this wasn't jewellery you took off. Legend has it that some New York City hospitals even kept Love bracelet screwdrivers on hand in case patients needed them removed in emergencies.
That's how seriously people took it.
The Eye / Evil Eye
The eye offers protection and energy balance. From ancient amulets worn by pharaohs to Chanel's modern Camélia Protection Collection, the watchful eye has always been about warding off negativity.
It's apotropaic magic made wearable, the kind of thing you want on your body when you're walking into important meetings or difficult conversations.
Stars and Moons
These represent destiny, guidance, and cosmic energy. Dior's Rose des Vents collection captures this beautifully, each star a compass point, each piece a reminder that we're all navigating by celestial light. There's something deeply romantic about wearing the night sky against your skin, about carrying tiny symbols of infinite space in finite gold.
The Serpent
The serpent embodies power, rebirth, and transformation. Bulgari's Serpenti is perhaps the most iconic expression of this, a coiling creature that's been a symbol of wisdom and renewal since ancient Greece. The serpent sheds its skin and emerges new. It's the perfect metaphor for reinvention, for women who refuse to stay static.
The Butterfly
The butterfly symbolizes metamorphosis and freedom. Think of Graff's delicate butterfly pieces, each one a reminder that beauty emerges from change, that transformation isn't just natural, it's necessary. You don't wear a butterfly to stay the same. You wear it to celebrate becoming.
The Knot / Infinity Symbol
The infinity symbol speaks to eternal bonds. Cartier's Trinity collection, three bands intertwined in pink, yellow, and white gold, is the perfect example of how a simple knot can represent promises that last forever. It's been worn by everyone from Cocteau to contemporary it-girls, each finding their own meaning in those interlocking circles.
The Science Behind Motifs: Geometry & Energy
There's actual science behind why certain jewellery makes you stop mid-scroll. Why some pieces feel like they were made specifically for you, like they've been waiting in some cosmic vault with your name on them.
Shapes influence how we feel. It's hardwired into our neurology. Circular motifs evoke harmony and completeness, they're soothing, whole, unbroken. Our brains recognize circles as safe, enclosed, protected.
Triangular or pointed shapes, on the other hand, convey energy and direction, they move the eye, create dynamism, point toward something. There's tension in a triangle. There's rest in a circle.
Then there's the Golden Ratio, that magical 1.618 number that appears everywhere in nature.
Nautilus shells.
Galaxy spirals.
The proportions of your face.
The curve of a breaking wave.
Renaissance painters used it. So do fine jewellery houses. Van Cleef & Arpels designs their motifs with these proportions in mind, whether they call it that or not.
This ties into sacred geometry, the idea that certain shapes and patterns found in nature represent universal harmony. A four-leaf clover isn't just lucky per se, it's geometrically satisfying, with perfect symmetry radiating from its center. A star with its points creates natural flow and energy. When jewellery incorporates these forms, it's tapping into patterns that humans have found meaningful for millennia.
Why the Number of Motifs Matters
The number of motifs isn't random. It carries spiritual and emotional weight that's been recognized across cultures for thousands of years.
3 Motifs
Three represents divine perfection, most evident in the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
But you don't have to be religious to understand threes.
Three is completeness.
Mind, body, soul.
Past, present, future.
Beginning, middle, end.
Father, mother, child.
In hermeneutic tradition, three has been associated with the spiritual and masculine, the active principle of creation.
When you choose a three-motif piece, you're choosing balance. It's the number for people in transition, people who understand that life is about integrating all your parts, who you were, who you are, who you're becoming.
Three is also narratively powerful. Every good story works in threes. Three acts. Three wishes. Three attempts before success. We're programmed to find threes satisfying. A three-motif piece feels complete.
4 Motifs
Four is practical, orderly, patient.
It's earthy and even-tempered, representing structure, stability, and manifestation. In biblical numerology, four signifies totality, there are four directions, four seasons. Four represents the four elements, earth, air, fire, water, and four emotional states: physical, emotional, sensation, and spiritual.
The four-leaf clover is the perfect embodiment of this grounded energy. Jacques Arpels loved them not just because they were rare, but because they represented balance, four perfectly symmetrical leaves radiating from a single center.
It's the number for women who value stability, who understand that real luxury is about longevity.
5 Motifs
Five is deeply, gorgeously human.
Five fingers on each hand.
Five points on a star.
Five senses connecting us to the world.
Five is associated with human perfection, a person with arms and legs outstretched forms a pentagon, with the head symbolizing dominance over the four limbs, spirit governing the four elements. In numerology, five is about exploring the universe through your senses, curious, full of imagination, all about change.
Five also carries spiritual significance across cultures and religions. In Christianity, five represents the five wounds of Christ. In Islam, the five pillars. In Chinese philosophy, the five elements.
7 Motifs
Seven symbolizes spiritual perfection and fullness, appearing in the seven days of creation that make up a week, and throughout the Book of Revelation. It's the sum of the spiritual three and the material four: 3 + 4 = 7.
Seven is the philosopher, the sage, the wisdom seeker, joining the spiritual to the physical. Seven was fundamental to the Rosicrucians, central to the cult of Mithra, which believed the soul rose to paradise through seven planetary spheres. The Christian seven layers of purgatory. The seven chakras in yogic tradition. The seven wonders of the world.
Interestingly, seven is less common in jewellery than three, four, or five. Production runs favor even numbers and multiples of five.
The Collector's Numbers: 10, 16, 20
Van Cleef & Arpels offers Alhambra necklaces in 10, 16, and 20 motifs.
The 10-motif necklace represents completion, it's wholeness multiplied, perfection squared. It's substantial enough to make a statement but wearable enough for daily life. The 20-motif sautoir is the original 1968 design, the one that started the entire phenomenon.
Twenty is devotion, to beauty, to craft, to the idea that sometimes more really is more. It's the piece that Princess Grace wore, that Françoise Hardy layered, that defined an entire era's approach to luxury.
The 16-motif falls in between, long enough to feel bohemian, short enough to layer. Smart collectors buy the 10 for everyday, the 20 for evenings, and if they're truly devoted, the 16 for that perfect middle ground.
Emotional Connection & Personal Meaning
The smartest collectors understand that you don't choose jewellery by what looks beautiful in the case. You choose it by what feels true against your skin.
Maybe you're drawn to a five-motif bracelet because you have five people in your life you'd burn the world down for.
Maybe you choose three motifs because you're standing at a crossroads, leaving one chapter, inhabiting another, about to begin a third. The symbolism makes the piece truly yours.
Or perhaps seven speaks to you because you're on a spiritual journey. You meditate. You question everything. You seek meaning in places other people scroll past.
Aldo Cipullo once said, "Design has to be part of function. That's the secret of success. When you have function and design, married together, you always have a successful item." When meaning and beauty merge, that's when objects transcend.
At Love Luxury, this is exactly the kind of intentional collecting we live for. Finding authenticated pieces where the motif count aligns with your story, where the number of symbols mirrors something meaningful in your life.
Finding the Meaning in the Small Things
Jewellery motifs are reflections of the wearer's soul. Whether it's a single clover or seven stars, every design carries intention, meaning, and timeless allure.
A four-motif bracelet becomes an anchor, connecting you to earth, air, fire, water, to everything solid and real. Five becomes armor, a circle of protection you carry everywhere. Seven becomes a key to something beyond the material, a reminder that you're seeking, always seeking.
The most exquisite jewellery you'll ever own isn't the rarest piece or the most expensive. It's the piece that was made for you, not because a designer intended it for you specifically, but because when you found it, the number of motifs, the weight of it in your hand, the way it caught light and held meaning, all of it felt like coming home.
That's the real language of fine jewellery. And once you learn to speak it, once you understand that numbers whisper secrets and symbols carry souls, you'll never settle for anything less than pieces that tell your truth.
Because in the end, true luxury isn't about what you wear. It's about why you wear it.
Check out our collection of jewellery at Love Luxury.
