Experience High Fashion With Hairball Jewelry

Cat lovers will do some pretty strange things to show the world just how much they love their cats. Some walk them on a leash. Some carry pictures of their favorite furry feline friend. And some wear jewelry made from their cats’ hair. Finally, the fur on your outfit can be an accessory you chose on purpose.

Hairball jewelry takes that idea surprisingly seriously, turning loose fur into beads for necklaces, rings and earrings. There is one important detail before you picture something coughed up on the carpet: the material comes from grooming. The hair is collected and shaped by people. Your cat does not need to manufacture the beads.

The People Behind the Feline Fashion Statement

The project attracted attention in 2011 through Kate Benjamin of Moderncat and jewelry designer and silversmith Heidi Abrahamson. A May 11 Phoenix New Times report described Benjamin collecting fur from her cats and rolling it into beads, with Abrahamson turning those beads into jewelry. It linked the project to National Hairball Awareness Day.

That makes this a collaboration between a cat-design enthusiast and a jewelry maker, rather than a pet deciding to get into accessories. The cat supplies the material; the humans supply the part where it becomes something you can wear outside without immediately reaching for a lint roller.

How Brushed-Out Fur Becomes a Bead

Contemporary coverage from If It’s Hip, It’s Here explains that Benjamin rolled the loose fur between her palms until the strands felted together into a compact bead. Abrahamson added the jewelry findings, fitting the fur beads to chains, earrings and ring mounts.

The result combines a soft, unconventional material with the familiar structure of jewelry. A chain or ring setting gives the fur a deliberate place in the design. The joke is the material, but there is still a maker choosing how that material becomes a finished piece.

Another Artist Had a Similar Idea

The category also includes a separate body of work by Flora Davis. In June 2011, WIRED profiled her cat-fur jewelry, made with groomed fur from Gaia, her Ragamuffin cat. Davis’s work is a different project from the Benjamin–Abrahamson collaboration, even though both transform collected fur into wearable pieces.

More Than One Unusual Material

Abrahamson’s broader work extends beyond cat fur. The Museum of Arts and Design’s 2024 artist profile describes architectural jewelry and a collection combining EVA foam with lampwork glass beads, sterling silver and cubic zirconia. The hairball pieces fit into a career that makes room for unexpected materials, rather than defining every piece she creates.

The original coverage discussed custom requests, but those historical details do not establish what either artist is selling today. Anyone seeking a piece should check the maker’s current catalog and commission policy rather than treating an old article as an active shop listing.

Still, it’s an unusually personal way to show your love of cats and unusual jewelry. You were probably going to wear some cat hair anyway. This way, at least it comes with a clasp.