It’s based on a real-life tradition

Everyone is watching Sirens on Netflix, a dark comedy about a woman who concerned about her sister’s unhealthy relationship with her super rich new boss, and there is a crazy hidden meaning behind the gold lockets Kiki gifts her friends.

Michaela ‘Kiki’ Kell is the mega-wealthy wife who runs the Preservation Society, a cult-like group of mainly women who are all committed to saving the local wildlife in the fictional town of Port Haven, specifically birds.

Every person who joins the preservation society gets gifted a locket by Kiki to show that they are part of the prestigious inner circle, and there’s some real-life inspiration behind the necklaces.

The show’s creator Molly Smith Metzler told Variety the lockets are a real thing in Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, the wealthy Massachusetts islands that Sirens is based on.

“It’s something you can only buy in Nantucket, they’re called basket necklaces, and they usually have ivory from Wales in them. But they’re very expensive, they’re handmade, and everyone in Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard is wearing them,” she said.

Credit: Netflix

Metzler used to work at a Yacht Club in Martha’s Vineyard, an island very close to Nantucket, and the Netflix show is inspired by her time working there. Both islands are known for being very affluent.

“It’s a status symbol. You’re not in the club if you don’t have one. Carolyn Duncan made that happen, made all of them happen. It’s a great symbol of having arrived. You have the key, you have the necklace, but it’s a little culty,” she continued.

“It’s a little like wearing a cross, like a religion. You know something that everyone else doesn’t.”

The lockets in the show aren’t actually real ones from Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket, but the show’s costume designer Carolyn Duncan recreated them to look exactly the same.