The Wuthering Heights Bracelet

I’m sure you’ve noticed that there’s a new ‘Wuthering Heights’ film coming out next week (a still from it is featured at the head of this post)? Its adverts are as ubiquitous on billboards as they are online, and the stars of the film are busy doing the publicity rounds as we speak. The official UK release date is next week on Friday 13th, so I can’t give any opinion on the film as yet. The trailer is certainly eye catching, but will this stylish remake do justice to Emily Brontë’s great work or draw a new generation of fans to the Brontë sisters?

As yet, that remains to be seen – but one thing we have seen is a rather unusual bracelet worn by the film’s star Margot Robbie to the premiere at Leicester Square on Thursday. It was an expertly crafted replica of the bracelet Charlotte Brontë wore after the death of her younger sisters – and featuring a garnet atop intertwined strands of the hair of Emily and Anne Brontë. 

At first, some people assumed it was the actual bracelet, and that it had been loaned to Margot by the Brontë Parsonage Museum. The museum staff are passionate about the Brontës and their collection, however, so that was never going to be the case.

In fact, the replica bracelet was made somewhere very appropriate – Wyedean Weaving based in Haworth itself. “When she [Robbie] saw it, I was told she was thrilled at how close we got to the original,” said Wyedean’s MD Robin Wright. Even so, many Brontë fans have expressed reservations about the use of the replica – it was, after all, mourning jewellery and not a fashion statement. In the days before photographs became widespread, hair was often taken from deceased loved ones and turned into bracelets, necklaces and rings. It was a way to remember ones who had been loved and lost, a physical connection that would endure and that one could look at and remember. The supplier of the replica bracelet was sourced for Robbie by Rebecca Yorke, director of the museum and of the Brontë Society.

We will have to wait a little longer to see what director Emerald Fennell has produced with her fresh take on what is, to me and many others, the greatest novel of all time. If names are anything to go by then we should be in safe hands, as Fennell is a name with strong Brontë connections. Jane and John Fennell were aunt and uncle to Maria Branwell – after setting up a school at Woodhouse Grove in Yorkshire they invited their Cornish niece to work in it. When Maria arrived there she fell in love with the school’s classics examiner and they were married less than six months later. That man was Patrick Brontë, and from their marriage, facilitated by the Fennells, the Brontë siblings came.

Interest in the film is certainly high, and so interest in the great genius Emily Brontë is high too. I’m pleased to say that I’m being interviewed about both by Vanity Fair magazine tomorrow – so more on that next week. Until then, have a happy Brontë filled week and I hope to see you again next Sunday for another new Brontë blog post.