Skyler White; Facing Survival In Style

August 19, 2021

At her core, Skyler White, wife of Walter White in the ever-popular AMC television series, Breaking Bad, is driven by a strong moral sense. A practical woman, Skyler adapts to her uncommunicative husband's sordid decisions, and the realities she's left to contend with, as the landscape of their once 'normal' American family shifts beneath her. 

As any woman who's been cheated on may have experienced, Skyler has to guess at what's really going on with her man, with their finances, and with his continued absences.  In my experience, drug addicts may not be cheating with another person, but the drug itself becomes the entity with whom their affair is enacted.  In Walter's case, though he isn't consuming drugs, his affair is with his newfound identity as a skillful chemist, producing the purest methamphetamine in the world, and the game of staying alive and free among drug cartels, and street gangs, not to mention the DEA agent who's literally sitting next to him. All this while he's contending with a stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis and treatment, hence his reason to begin producing a cache to leave his family upon his death.

Skyler, the woman left behind so to speak, unwittingly witnesses her relationship with Walt as it begins to disintegrate.  When point blank questions go  unanswered, when she catches Walt in lie after lie, only to finally discover what's really been happening, where vast sums of money are coming from and then what to do with it all to hold her family together, she becomes a player herself, laundering the literal piles of drug money to keep her family's finances above the law. 

Just before her discovery however, in retaliation against Walt, and to feel cherished by a man, she begins an affair with her boss, Ted Beneke, for whom she'd worked as a book-keeper.  Refusing to cover up Ted's cooked accounting books, she eventually quits and buys a car wash; a perfect cover to launder Walt's dirty monies with a clean alibi. A season or two later, when the criminal division of the IRS charges Ted with felony tax fraud and slaps a $100K fine on him, in addition to the $617K he owns, he ignores it, refusing to accept that he may also be facing a 5 year prison sentence. Skyler slips some of the drug money aside to help him pay that bill, though she creates a fictitious inheritance so that he doesn't know the money came from her.  This she does because if he's audited, she, as his former book-keeper will likely also be audited, an event she'll do everything in her power to avoid.  However instead of using the money to pay the IRS, Ted buys a Mercedes, and opens his business again, completely ignoring the IRS' threats.  She arranges to have a couple of strong-arms visit Ted to compel him to write the check to the IRS. During this visit, in fear for his life, Ted runs and trips on a rug, paralyzing himself for life. Skyler feels entirely responsible for his demise, and a this point, her life begins to spiral into a very dark place.

In the meantime, it's Skyler's brother-in-law, Hank, the head of the DEA who's been hot after a methamphetamine mastermind fictitiously named  'Heisenberg'. It takes many months for him to put two and two together that that mastermind is his own brother-in-law Walt!  Mexican drug cartel, street thugs and numerous other players threaten Walt and Skyler's family, though Walt continues to tell Skyler that she and the family are safe. He and his young partner Jesse are forced to kill or be killed by a handful of people, both in self-defense, and to protect themselves from competition that will also cause their deaths. At one point Walt disappears for days, and throughout this epic, reeling 5 seasons, he comes home with the evidence of severe beatings on his face and body.  Skyler reaches the point when it all becomes too much for her to cope with.  Her own life, and her children's are at risk, and the safe, comfortable life she's known begins to teeter.  Terrified, she goes numb and suffers a near nervous breakdown because she's no longer in control, and has nowhere to turn. This image shows her after she's walked into the swimming pool, just to escape the conversation at a family dinner.

Throughout the 5 season series, this complex character carries a simple style. Her clothes are never flashy, but humble housewife clothes, professional office-wear, and a few tighter fitting and lower necked blouses when she's feeling frisky.  All befitting a practical woman who's sexuality is understated.  She wears primarily simple beaded necklaces, sometimes with a small silver drop pendant, a leather watch band, and small earrings that don't make a statement. 

Suddenly, beginning the 3rd season, we see her wearing two of the same bracelet, stacked on one wrist.

These bracelets, called Flinging Arrows, step in and take the spotlight, and like so many landscapes we've seen in the great Westerns, they become characters in the story, accentuating the sensuous and empowered feelings that Skyler begins exhibiting when she stumbles into the enriching money game Walt has created. They convey with their blast of silver and undulating movements as the two pieces play off of one another, what this strong, no-nonsense, and very human woman is feeling.  Every time this duo of wrist embellishments appear, we're riveted to them, as they fill the screen with their unique personalities.  In some scenes they're so central, you may be mesmerized to the point that nothing else exists!

Stay tuned for upcoming blogs on Skyler White's memorable character, and the four bracelets she wears from season 3 through 5!

Skyler's bracelets are creations of Sergio Gutierrez', Liquid Metal Jewelry.
They're made in the USA, and ObjectsOfBeauty.com stocks them in all sizes!
Shop here, at our one and only Skyler White's Liquid Metal Collection

Share this blog for 15% Off and save on any or all four of Skyler White Bracelets by using the code 'Skylers15' at checkout.  

Below are all 4 Skyler White Bracelets,
The first image shows how they are worn in Seasons 3, 4 and 5 of Breaking Bad.

Also depicted are the three bracelets individually.
They are Flinging Arrows, Lauren's Answer and Trishna.
    

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