Wellness is taking over the world. The latest figures from the Global Wellness Institute – a not-for-profit organisation that unpacks where we are at with health, wealth and self – values the industry at $3.7tn (£2.6tn) globally.
On one hand, this is not suprising. The tentacular reach of Goop, alongside a litany of yogas, meditation, supplements and books, have firmly rooted wellness into our everyday routines. But one thing that might surprise you is that the complementary/alternative medicine market alone is now worth almost $200bn.
Crystals are, arguably, one of the breakout stars of this whole business. There has also been a 40% increase in Google searches for “crystal healing” in the past four years, a percentage that generally spikes in January (“new year, new you”) and February (a combination of the winter doldrums and Valentine’s Day). Got a problem? There’s probably a crystal for that.
She’s Lost Control is a modish, mystic shop in east London that stockpiles a wide range of crystals, including lemon-coloured citrine, which in certain circles is thought to boost power and attract wealth; City workers allegedly carry it in their suit pockets or sewn into their hems in the hope that it will bring them financial success. Today, in the store – which, owing to its proximity to London’s financial district, attracts bankers – the jar is half empty, which suggests the power of citrine is catching across the office blocks.
Regardless of whether crystals work, interest in them has deepened in so-called spiritual circles and among the business elite, but also in Vogue. Jessica Diner, the magazine’s beauty director, has them on her bedside table; Naomi Campbell carries black tourmaline and a rose quartz in her handbag; before her shows, Victoria Beckham lines the catwalk with black obsidian in an attempt to ward off negative energy. Adele attributed her hiccups at last year’s Grammys to losing her beloved collection. The model Munroe Bergdorf wears crystals in her clothes, following a strict rotation that includes labradorite, fluorite, and selenite – “The ones that really help me in transitional periods and elevate my spirit,” she told Vogue. “The whole witchy vibe is what I’m all about.”
Crystals fall under the umbrella of mysticism, which is itself an ill-defined catch-all for anything that discusses energy in terms that your gas bill doesn’t. In the past year, mysticism has begun to infiltrate the wellness market. Some would include meditation, reiki or yoga; others might mention gong baths or even magic – the latter have both appeared in fashion biannual the Gentlewoman. There’s arguably a special place, too, for astrology and horoscopes, which despite their dodgy rep in the print-classifieds section, feature online in Lena Dunham’s Lenny and Vice’s Broadly sites. Elsewhere, 13th-century Persian Sunni Muslim poet Rumi has become one of the most quoted scholars on Instagram (Cara Delevingne has been a longtime #fan) while others are diving even deeper into the occult, using tarot cards and the like. Crystals remain at the market’s beating heart, though, with people adding them to their water, face cream or interiors. Miranda Kerr’s Kora Organics beauty products are made from water that has been filtered through rose quartz “to give the vibration of self-love”.
In the fashion industry, a mystic aesthetic has been building, piecemeal, over the past 18 months. At Vetements, long-lined coats come embroidered with horoscopes, while hip east-end label Blouse has made hoodies emblazoned with Champagne Mystic and The Vampire’s Wife has released hippy goddess T-shirts designed by Karen Constance. Stars are doing a roaring trade: Marks & Spencer’s biggest-selling dress for winter came covered in stars, as does a whole line of printed pieces from Topshop. Dilara Findikoglu’s entire spring 2018 line came with heavy, occultish overtones, inspired, she said, “by the illusion of the structure of our society”. Dior’s cruise collection has incorporated the Motherpeace symbol, and constellations in its couture, and even Gucci has a mystic cat-print scarf for men. Cottweiller, a cutting-edge streetwear brand, hosted its last show in the Earth’s Treasury Gallery in the London Natural History Museum, a room full of all types of crystals and minerals.
In keeping with the trend is ultraviolet, named the colour of 2018 by Pantone. UV, it says, represents the cosmos, the godly (papal purple), and the princely (um, Prince), and “communicates originality, ingenuity and visionary thinking,” says Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. It’s an in-between colour, open to interpretation. And it was on the catwalk at Marni, Martine Rose and Kenzo. In fairness, we could have seen it coming: mysticism also falls under the concept of “chaos magic”, a loose and comprehensive idea drummed up by K-Hole (the agency responsible for making normcore happen). Greg Fong, one of its founders, told me in 2015 that it “was about the idea that magic could exist if you could hack your own brain and believe in an alternative”.
The appeal of mysticism seems to be that it is in fashion, it looks nice, and translates well on to social media. Crystals certainly carry a certain profundity. The stars, the motherpeace symbols, the rose quartz on Instagram stories, this is quasi-religion for the social media age. There was a time when all this “hippy dippy nonsense” was an alternative. But, as is the case with anything that purports to make our lives better, we democratise it, commodify it and thus it goes mainstream, and is sold online.
I grew up in the West Country, where an interest in the occult was not trendy, but pretty normal. Some of my older friends were Wiccan, and they taught me spells involving red ribbons (which we tied around fingers), burning candles and, indeed, “smudging” (burning bundles of herbs to “clear bad energy”). At She’s Lost Control, I open-mindedly buy an amethyst (good for cleansing), calcite (good for cleaning bad energy) and rose quartz for love.
In the past six months, business has been booming. Until two years ago, Cheryl Eltringham and Jill Urwin worked in fashion as a jewellery designer and a buyer, respectively. Now they sell crystals, handmade jewellery, sage sticks and clothes in a shop that they periodically clear out to run tarot card readings and gong baths. Most of their customers are women, but bankers aside, men are beginning to drift in. “People come in because they’re stressed at work, in love, out of love or in mourning and these things can heal us.” I raise an eyebrow. The problem is, they say, “science doesn’t trust things it can’t measure”.
Naturally, cynicism is high when it comes to crystals. They are natural conductors of energy. Yet the idea that they do any more than that is merely a placebo, says Tim Caulfield, a research director at the Health Law Institute, who has tried crystal healing. “Crystals don’t transmit a healing ‘vibratory frequency’,” he says. “I can say, without hesitation, that from a scientific perspective this is complete nonsense. Yep, some are attractive. But wearing a crystal isn’t going to help align some magical life-force energy.” The human desire for what religion can provide – a sense of comfort, community, purpose and the idea of there being something meaningful beyond the self – is still very much with us. We want rituals. We want to believe that someone or something is in control and that we can have some control over our life. Mysticism provides just that.
Clinical psychologist Cinzia Pezzolesi says that while “little scientific evidence exists to substantiate a crystal’s effectiveness”, and there are no proven medical benefits, “they appeal to people seeking calm in an otherwise chaotic world – for believers, their value may be in fulfilling the spirit, which suits them just fine”.
It turns out I’m late to the mystic party. Several of my most cynical friends use them. One held a crystal throughout her IVF treatment. The treatment proved successful and while she wouldn’t put it down to the crystals, she is sure they have had some positive effect. Another swears by waving clear quartz over your head if you have a headache (it is supposed to declutter). Another writer diagnosed with clinical depression found herself in a shop drawn to lepidolite, a soft-pink or lilac stone, and keeps it on her desk. She sees it as a distraction, something pretty, but that “sometimes you have to pursue all options, even though we have been made to feel cynical”. Whether any of it works is a moot point. As she explains: “When you feel let down, when you don’t want to get on a waiting list for CBT, you think, ‘Hey, why not?’” They are almost a last-resort therapy, reflective of the era in which they have risen.
