What I Actually Wore #0082

Serial #: 0082
Date: 12/08/2012
Weather: 16°
Time Allowed: 8 minutes

These are some of my favourite pants to wear in winter because they are made of wool and are so warm. They are so wide-legged too – it’s like wearing a blanket, and they make me think of guacho pants. I usually don’t wear black with colours, but I think this was a happy exception because a) the jumper is knitted in multi-colour stripes, b) there are pompoms on it, and c) it was new. The wool felt vintage fedora and suede shoes add some shots of colour at my extremities. 

I wore the outfit on a day I was running errands in the city, and amusingly some random African-American guy called out to me in the street in great excitement at my colourful stripes, and thought I must be Mexican because of them! I wasn’t aware that Mexicans held a monopoly on stripes, and enjoyed telling my Mexican friend the story – she laughed and agreed that Mexicans are known for their love of colour (and she is no exception).

Items:

Knit: Kookaï
Jumper: Sonia Rykiel
Pants: Ming
Earrings: Portobello Lane
Ring: Dittoday
Watch: Kenneth Cole
Hat: vintage
Shoes: Wittner

Parure Brilliance

‘Parure’ is not a term that one hears often these days anywhere, except perhaps whispered dulcetly in suitably hushed and reverential tones into the ear of some duchess clandestinely visiting exclusive purveyors of very expensive jewellery. Even when the word ‘parure’ was bandied about by the lips of the vulgar masses, it was only in reference to the fantastic adornments bedecking royalty and aristocrats.

In common parlance, a parure is a set of matching jewellery. The word comes from old French pareure, from parer to prepare, or adorn, and was first used in the eighteenth century. The craftsmen under the Sun King, Louis XIV, were credited with the first parure creations; diamonds, often paired with silver, were popular then. Members of court would vie with one another to create the most elaborate and astonishing sets, and to increase their status. Napoleon, for all his fledgling socialism, adored adorning his wives with brilliants (an old-fashioned word for diamonds, and a style of gem-cutting today). At least he shared his wealth with both his wives.

Napoleon’s sister Princess Pauline Borghese wears a parure of engraved gems with the diamonds of the belt and bandeau arranged in Greek key design. (Detail of a portrait by Robert Lefèvre.)Of course, a parure is more than merely a set of matching jewels, and the most fantastic sets were reserved for royalty and the wealthy. A parure was considered an essential part of a society woman’s wardrobe, and would define her status and political power. A set could include an extraordinary quantity of items, such as a necklace, comb, tiara, diadem (more like a crown, and bigger and better than a tiara), bandeau (a narrow band worn around the hair to hold it in position), a pair of bracelets, pins, rings, drop earrings or cluster stud earrings, a brooch, and a belt clasp that might be worn over a fine dress. Only.

Opaline paste jewellery set in silver, including girandole earrings, necklace and buttons, probably French, c. 1760. The ‘opals’ are made by laying a pink foil behind milky blue glass.A French parure of gold, cornelian and seed pearls, comprising a comb, necklace, pair of bracelets, earrings, two pins and two rings. In its completeness it is a rare survival from the years of the First Empire.And even more interestingly, a parure was more than the sum of its parts: some necklaces could be disassembled into smaller items such as bracelets, pendants, and hair ornaments or brooches with clever components and locking systems. A bit like a posh mix ‘n’ match.

… a parure was more than the sum of its parts: some necklaces could be disassembled into smaller items …

The mind boggles at the vision conjured up, and the only jewels I have seen in modern times to rival such a litany are the parures made for brides in the gold souqs of Dubai, which are unutterably jaw-dropping – and probably literally knee-buckling from sheer weightiness.

A fantasy of pearls, turquoise and gold I photographed in the gold souqs of Dubai in 2008.My very humble vintage rhinestone parure consists of 1940s necklace, earrings, tiara and bracelet, and a 1950s ring. All were collected at different times; the necklace and earrings I bought as a set when I was in my teens, from a store called The Jazz Garter (what an evocative name!) in Sydney. They were probably my very first real vintage purchases – as opposed to charity shop garments. Even back then I had brilliant taste. 

~

Jewellery images from Jewelry – From Antiquity to the Present by Clare Phillips (Thames & Hudson, 1996), and additional information courtesy of Wikipedia.

Band Box Perfect

Band Box Perfect :: Loftus // Blanko Noir // No flashJust look at this amazing 40s beaded headpiece that I bought a month or two ago on Etsy. It was very likely a wedding headpiece, worn perhaps with a flowing bias-cut silk gown. Much more unique than a rhinestone tiara, it’s intricately beaded with white and silver seed beads on ecru fabric. Not a bead is missing, as though it was worn once only on a single precious day. It sits perfectly atop my head without threatening to flop too, which I half suspected it would. They just don’t make them like they used to, do they?

She Shall Have Music Wherever She Goes

I seem to have a thing for noisy clothing. I don’t purposefully go out to look for it – somehow it just finds me. There’s the sugary pink scarf with delicate white hammer shells on it that tinkle as I walk; the 1920s wearing-my-hearts-on-my-skirt skirt; the jingling Afghani recycled textile heart necklace; and now there’s this ethnic collar necklace positively dripping with charms. There are baubles, butterflies, birds, barrels, suns, and fish.

It is so eye-catching it prompted a discussion of its origins with work colleagues one day during our lunch break. I did not know, for I had purchased it in a Salvos charity shop – I guessed that it was someone else’s discarded souvenir. Was it Indian? Balinese? Thai? I saw very similar pieces in the Vietnamese markets when I holidayed there years ago.

I am uncertain of the type of metal alloy however – in Vietnam some of the jewellery was 80% silver mixed with brass, and looked quite similar to this. I don’t mind it’s tarnished either – I rather like the air of antiquity it bestows. It’s a double-fake necklace in fact: fake silver, and a fake souvenir, but it’s a genuine great find. 

A Lament for the Modern Hat

On Thursday I took an old hat out for a spin. It was already in the reject bag, but I decided to give it one last chance, as I wanted a light coloured hat to go with my outfit that day.

There is something I have never liked about this hat, which is strange since it seems to have many things going for it: Italian-made from very high quality 100% wool, swathed in soft velvet; it is also a classic cloche – a shape I have always been drawn to, especially when I have worn bobbed hair. This hat even made the pages of Australian Vogue that year. Is it the colour, a strange olive taupe that probably does nothing for my complexion?

But no, if I sharpen my fashion intuition, that almost indefinable sense of dislike clarifies: it is a modern hat and lacks that je ne sais quoi that vintage hats possess. But I can hazard a guess: there is no sense of wit or refinement; no extraordinary attention to detail that is visible in even the stitching of vintage hats, the choice of trim. The touch of the milliner is missing.

… it is a modern hat and lacks that je ne sais quoi that vintage hats possess

Yes milliners certainly exist today, but say what you will, they lack that certain something of yesteryear. Perhaps it is because hats are out of mainstream fashion, and milliners have lost their mastery of their craft. I am aware that the modern couture milliner would be outraged by that statement, but my vintage hats bear witness: many of them were inexpensive hats designed for department stores at hoi polloi pricepoints, not by couture milliners for aristocrats.

Materials, supplies and trims have changed so much too, not only in quality, but in the variety of what is available. And perhaps in part because of this, designers of today’s hats for ordinary people with shoestring (or hatstrap) budgets display no imagination, artistry or personality. When I look at the hats high street shops offer come winter I fall asleep at my keyboard – fedoras, newsboys and sloppy knit caps year after year – they are so, so dull I die of ennui. 

On Thursday night as I donned my hat and coat to depart for home, I asked the girls in my department what they thought of this cloche. And the opinion was unanimous, “It’s okaaaay,” they chorused. “But you have much more interesting hats.”

And with that, the verdict is in – and this hat is out.