Gilver and Sold

(I toyed with a “nothing gold can stay, Ponyboy” title, but this one is short and sweet.)

Okay, it took me a minute, but I'm finally getting to the post I mentioned, about metallics.

Today at work, I wore one of my favored color combinations – navy and taupe have been appealing to me much lately, but today it was navy and grey.  I played sleek wardrobe against more bohemian jewelry, and feel like it worked well.

The jewelry in question is emblematic of the way life gets funny on you.  A few years ago, as my vintage jewelry obsession was kicking into high(er) gear, a concurrent enthusiasm was DIY jewelry – DIY is made of vintage, but may involve taking broken or mismatched components and making something new.  As with clothes, with jewelry – there is nothing new, truly, under the sun.  The DIY piece getting me thinking today is a filigree pendant which I would say was once part of one larger brooch, or may have been the decorative toppings of a duette, shoe clip, dress clip – or, perhaps, even another pendant.  Whatever it had been, it was clearly quite old, but no less lovely in its detail.

Unfortunately, the state of the computer (still running in Safe Mode) means I can’t upload a photo – it might be worth coming back later to edit one in, but I have low confidence in the likelihood of this …

The reconstitution job in this case was thoughtful and good quality (I’ve seen many levels of vintage jewelry DIY – and even indulged in it, but only to a small degree).  The piece now is is close to a cross; two pieces of filigree connected by jump rings well matched to the metal (they are almost certainly vintage themselves – it’s impossible to synthesize the wear and patina on metal, of true age).  Details like that are key to a great looking end result, and the chain the pendant came on, and the bale that it hangs from, are also clearly not new ones.  In the top of the pendant is a very small ruby or garnet, somewhat dark, bezel set deep within the filigree and open-backed.  It may be a very very early synthetic; it almost certainly is not glass.  It was sold as genuine, if I recall (not that I much care) and certainly the pearl drops at the bottom of the whole piece are both very lovely, barely-pink freshwater baroques.  Tinier drops at each arm of the “cross” are moonstones.

So you can imagine, though it’s not a large piece, it’s what I consider to be part of my frowsier line of costuming – bohemian, eccentric-author, what have you.

The metal may once have been gold plated, but almost certainly not vermeil - its color now is something shy of bronze.  It has little glint, but doesn’t have the cheap look of pot metal thinly plated, then worn away.  The color, actually, is one of those things which happens to be “hot” (this year):  I’d call it gilver.

I'm not the only one, of course - this is one of this year's "Things."  Metallic textiles which are neither strongly gold nor silver (nor copper, or even bronze for that matter), which have a more matte or pearl reflectivity than polished metal, have been popular for about the past three years.  Women like accessories in these finishes/colors because they ‘go’ with more.  You can wear gold or silver with them, and not clash.  They are seasonless.  They’re less bright than older, more chrome-shiny metallics.

The textiles have played into actual metal as well, and “gilver” jewelry has made the scene.  Faux-aged metal and glass are everywhere in housewares stores and departments, evoking not only this color, but this vintage look – which, of course, is hilariously faddish and will fade soon I am sure.

My DIY necklace, of course, is not faux-aged, and has the real patina so many of these shoes and giwgaws and baubles and scarves asspire to.  It’s gilver because it was made to be one thing, and has faded to another over decades.

There is another necklace, too, I usually wear with this one.  It is a very long chain with no beads, drops, nor pendant, she wore when I was tiny, doubled at the very least, if not even tripled.  It dates at least to 1970, and probably the late 60s at the earliest, but may go back further; by the time I was six, the thing was out of fashion, had lost some of its own gold tone, and found itself in the life of a toy – and not even for my dress-up games.  This chain was used most in creating impressions in my red Crayola modeling clay, as I recall it.  I might wrap it seventy or so times up my little-kid arm, but I’m sure I never wore it out of the house like it was “real” jewelry.  It was cast off.  It was the wrong color.  It was done.

And so, a year or so ago, when I was going through toyboxes and things which have become obsolete with the growing-up of my nieces and so on, finding this long, long chain cracked me up for a minute.  I remembered it instantly, and pulled it out.  A nice weight, actually.  Hmm, and that length is seriously popular right now.  I must have eight or more “flapper length” necklaces right now.  Hmm … and that color …

I put it next to the DIY pendant necklace, and the color is perfect.  Better, indeed, than the DIY piece.

So this long, long chain usually squires out together with the DIY pendant, hanging far longer, and knotted just below its new mate, the pair making a nicely frowsy and yet fashionable show together.  Nobody knows the super-hip chain I’m rocking with my schmanzy designer top and impeccably fluid, long skirt may be home to infinitessimal residue of 1970s-era strangely-red modeling clay.  Nobody knows, indeed, I didn’t just waste fifty bucks on it at some impossibly rarefied vintage shop.  They know it’s frowsy, they let me get away with that, and they say not a word – except, perhaps, the occasional compliment.

So there’s the “sold” part of the title for this post.  I‘ve sold the look.  And that, with style (with fashion) is what counts.


POST ADDENDA:
For “frowsy” in this post, read the middle-aged authoress version of “hippie chick” …
My kingdom for a good Ponyboy closing sentiment …