What is my mother like? Think Joanne McLeod, but with style.

Growing up, I would stumble into the kitchen for a snack, and there she would be, standing beside her Hal Johnson (my stepfather), giving me the eerie impression they had just wrapped filming an episode for a knock-off of Body Break, those 90-second television spots featuring Johnson and McLeod telling viewers to “keep fit and have fun.”

A health fanatic, my mother has been known to purge herself on month-long liquid diets. A nature enthusiast, she gardens and jogs in the nearby park. Outside, our backyard melts into a ravine; inside, our house is spotlessly clean.

Yet my mother couldn’t be further from Joanne McLeod (and not just because my mother is Korean). Like I said: She has style.

You would never have caught my mother in head-to-toe neon nylon, even in the early  90s. Nor will you ever see her with barrel bangs. With hair carefully curled and her signature Red N°5 lips, I always believed she belonged in a different era. No Stepford wife, she still pulls off the look impeccably.

Even though I have my mother down pat, as the years fly by I find the once enjoyable endeavour of gift hunting a horrible ordeal, especially when May approaches and I not only have her birthday to contend with, but Mother’s Day as well.

So, slouched on our leather sofa, I sulk. My gaze drifting lazily over the furniture, I squint my eyes. Not from drowsiness or in thought, but from a pang of reflecting light. As if this beam of light has dislodged the spoke in my brain, the wheels start turning. With one last assuring glance at the tasteful crystal figurines, I dash upstairs to my laptop.

Keeping in mind the whole Stepford wife analogy, and even the approachability of Joanne McLeod, my mother is what you might call a “social butterfly.” So when I discover, via Swarovski Crystal’s website, its Mother’s Day collection, I am instantly enamoured. Always hosting parties and get-togethers, what better gift for my mother than a set of three Swarovski Crystal butterflies?

According to Christina Eliopulos, product marketing manager at Swarovski, butterflies are a recurring motif, symbolizing “love, joy, and new birth.” What makes this collection unique, however, is the idea that “it doesn’t have to be placed behind glass.”

Christina continues: “Many of our products, particularly our home décor lines, are seen as collector items, but they aren’t. With the Mother’s Day Collection, [items] can be appreciated entirely on [their] own … Mothers can also be creative, keeping a butterfly in central areas of their lives, such as their bedroom or office, as a constant reminder of their children’s love.”

That’s exactly what my mother needs, a constant reminder of my love (it may even act as a subliminal form of damage control for any future… mishaps).

I’m still absently browsing Swarovski’s website, imagining all the things I will be able to get away with, when I notice their new fashion jewellery collection, Super Nature. On the page, I stare at a woman I am certain I have never met, yet who seems to know my mother better than I do. “She is a resolutely contemporary woman,” says Natalie Colin, artistic director at Swarovski, “who knows how to combine what is contrary, and to balance her urban world with her passion for nature.” Well, yes.

An “on trend” company, as Christina puts it, “Swarovski keeps a keen eye on the runway. This year there has been a resurgence of everything green, so Super Nature is our own interpretation of it. Not only will it complement the new clothing trends, it will also be at the forefront of accessory trends.”

Yet you won’t see blatant billboards campaigning for this first line in the Beyond Nature trilogy. “We make our clients feel special,” says Christina. “There will be in-store events to launch the lines and beautiful store displays, but we will focus mainly on direct marketing to our fashion consumers.”

It’s as if Swarovski crafted this line specifically for my mother. Joanne McLeod meets Stepford wife and natural meets modern: a match made in heaven.

View the entire collection on the Swarovski website.

Meghan Young can be reached at myoung@womenspost.ca.