my house: jewellery

Friday, 16 September 2011

Baubles and Bangles.

"Ooh, maybe just 4 more crucifixes
and a truck load of plastic pearls..."

I'm not a jangly lady. Not big on bangles, necklaces or rings. Strange really because there is something about jewellery that intrinsically draws me to it. The fancy-dress box mess around mentality that can be liberating and fun, channeling a Madonna circa 1984s Like A Virgin look where all that is needed is a bit of wild abandon and a blindfold. A chaotic clobbering together of all things shiny. Suddenly the eye is magnetically drawn to the trimmings, not the usual fabric covered torso thing that goes on with clothes alone. But why don't I embrace it with a bit more gusto and actually cover an arm from wrist to elbow? Dress it up a bit. I could afford to (stylistically speaking), it is hardly as if it would send my dressed-down look out of balance, no one is going to think I'm off to meet the Queen. In fact, when I look around at many women, there is a whole lot of adornment going on and none of them look OTT. But it is a habit that I can't shake. Less is more. A jewellery anorexia. My Dad' watch is my ownly embellishment and on dress up occasions I go wild by adding a ... necklace. It's a pattern I'd love to break, alas it would ask an extra few minutes from my slimline morning routine and until my kids start to know which way round the gusset of their pants should go of a morning, Dad' ever faithful old ticker will have to do.
I do have a friend however who blows all of that out the water with one wave of her candy covered arm. She stacks those bangles high and wears it well. Mixed with her mod-punk fusion look, kids at her legs, buggy as her baton, she is a walking embodiment of how to make it work. I have a bit of style envy but I know when to let someone else carry the trophy. I'll just walk in the shadow of her jewelled up glory. She'd never know. I'm jangle free.

Two pictures from a recent
Louis Vuitton campaign.

A new LV campaign featuring
Rover and my Dad' watch.

Friday, 10 June 2011

Shiny Things.

Hepburn. Whip smart. Funny and always embracing the slacks.
(I bet she'd have loved a bauble though.)
Gad, ya looked good kid!

I have always been of the less is more persuasion, make-up, hair 'dos', styling and jewels. It isn't that I'm averse to glamming things up but there are few people who benefit from it as the day or for some, night, wears on. My minimalist approach has certainly had its benefits over the years. There is no way that this old hound would want to learn any new tricks as far as grooming goes in the morning. Kids or no kids, I ain't blow-drying hair or applying foundation before I go out the door. Any extra time I might gain as the years pass, with children doing more for themselves in my quest for an acceptable presentation on their exiting our front door, and you'll find me buried just a bit deeper for a bit longer under my duvet. However, despite my love of all things natural I recognise that nature doesn't always look kindly on the do-and-dash kind of approach with which I like to run my life. We don't all tumble from our linen jumbled beds, shake out our Rapunzel like locks and skip out of the door in a perfectly measured Parisian girl type of way. In actual fact, as the years roll on by, my low maintenance look could become a great BIG maintenance pain in the rump. So maybe I will eventually cut my bird's nest of a hairstyle into something more manageable. Swop the manky old Converse for an elegant flat. Buy a proper bag to carry all my bag lady effects and dump the sweatshirts in favour of a neat and tidy John Smedley. Or more likely I'll just start to hanker over a few bits of delicate bling, an Alexis Carrington for the new age. I like that.