Since holidays at the seaside came into being, memories of the beach have been marked by sand-castles, rock pools and searching for seashells.
Seashells constitute treasures to be taken back home to remind us of our summer holidays throughout the rest of the year. You just have to put your hand in your pocket to feel a shell rolling under your fingers to be reminded of family picnics, games on the beach and never-ending summer days.

Who hasn’t looked for “THE” seashell, the finest, or the rarest, the shell that you bring back with pride, that you show and cherish and of which you are so proud. We don’t begin our quest for seashells by chance; a grandfather, a friend, a big brother or a mother has initiated us. Seashell-hunting is a gently knitted relation full of complicity, moments shared and “wasted” time, offered to us, in a society where productivity counts for so much. It is a certain definition of luxury.

There are legendary seashells, the ones for which we say “Ah yes! There used to be some like that, but they’ve all disappeared, we can’t find them any more” or “I found one once when I was a child”.

These phrases so full of nostalgia, murmured with a vague look in our eye, often refer to the Spotted Cowry, the Dentalium or even the Great Top Shell, rare seashells on French coasts, little trophies deposited on the shore by the ebb and flow of the tide, just like treasure.

We have created our “Grain de Café & Compagnie” bracelets – “Spotted Cowry and Company” in French - after numerous trips abroad during which we saw to what point seashells are exalted in finery. It seemed important to us that the little seashells of our home shores, so different and so precious, should at long last be given their place in the world of jewellery.

By wearing them every day, we have given them their mark of nobility, whilst keeping links with the poetry of childhood and holidays at the same time.