BJEWELED

Dogeared Travel Charms

After a recent business trip, I realized that I have a new pet peeve- those women who think they can actually make it through security with an armful of bracelets, multi-necklaces or door knocker earrings. C’mon girls, we all love to stack, pile and layer but do you really think you are getting past the scanner (or burly uniformed guard) like that?  A woman in front of me–who was scantily dressed, wearing a midriff bearing top and shorts, who looked more  like she was going to the beach rather than squished into an overbooked plane– was wearing 27 bracelets.  How do I know? When she was asked to remove them she counted them out before she put them in the dish for small personal items. Slowly.  Extremely Slowly. Examining each one as she slid them every so gingerly off of her wrist.  There was another woman who was wearing gladiator style cuffs that somehow got past the guards but not past the super x-ray machines and the beepers went off.

Hey, I have admitted to being a Jewel-aholic. I am completely understanding of piling on the bling- but there are great little rolls, pouches and fancy cases that aid in your ability to carry your jewelry on so you don’t have to slow down your fellow passengers while you are going through the check points.

I also understand the need for good luck travel charms. I have a necklace with about 19 on them and I wear that with three other necklaces given to me by friends and designers, all meant to bring luck. They all have special meaning for me,and my trips have been safely guided, not by control towers and careful pilots but–and I am absolutely sure of this–the hefty concoction of talisman and amulets I wear around my neck.  I have added to them over the years. But I have also learned, early on to keep them in my bag and put them around my neck on when I got passed security and ONTO THE PLANE.

My advice to all travelers this summer, is to A) try to pack light, and B) place whatever jewelry you must take into a pouch and C) please don’t try to get a 6 oz bottle with 2.4 ounces of lotion left in it…through. You are not fooling anyone. They have special measuring eyeballs that will catch you out and make you dispose of your favorite cream. For all of you boot and sock wearers in summer, I have two words for you…Flip flops. Be considerate of the passengers behind you. We’d like to get to our gates at least before we have that other little annoyance of finding out our flights have a four-hour delay.

For those who are superstitious, but unlike me, don’t need to be weighed down  with a pound of talisman on a ball chain, I recommend Dogeared Travel Charms which are stylish, protective and lightweight. Plus as their packaging says: “they have a saint that’s got your back.” They come three  for luck on leather cord or chain in sterling silver or dipped gold.

My Mother

I will never get used to Mother’s Day.  It’s been eighteen years since my mom died suddenly at fifty-five from a brain aneurysm and I still want to throw something at the TV when commercials urge me to buy that special piece of jewelry or show me the joy a mother feels when she opens the perfect Hallmark card. Emails fill up my inbox, informing me every day for two weeks prior, what flowers ‘my mother’ would like to receive and when to order them to be delivered to her on time.  I hit the delete button quickly just like I do when I get, what seems to be hundreds of press releases on “elegant, new, fresh Mother’s day ideas” or “must have gifts.”

I apologize to all the publicists out there and the companies they represent. I read your material at all other times throughout the year.

It’s comes with the territory when writing for a jewelry magazine to be assigned this seasonal story and each year I stare at the blank computer screen, struggling to come up with the copy. One day, I hope to get it done without breaking down and into tears while trying to describe something so simple as a charm, locket or an engraveable keepsake. There are truly beautifully designed pieces, created by jewelers; stores do an incredible job of advertising and there are plenty of moms that I know, worthy and deserving of a special day and gift to celebrate and recognize their love and guidance. Mine was one of them.

My mom preferred hand-picked daisies to perfectly arranged bouquets of flowers, a box of Mallomars to Godiva chocolates, my attempts at poetic verse and my brother’s unintelligible drawings to store-bought cards.

She’d send my grandmother a ticket to come up from Florida so that she could have her own mother as well as children around her. Yesterday I went to Union Square market in New York City and bought bunches of lilacs like my mom and I used to do a few hours before my grandmother would arrive. For a few moments, when I was re-cutting the stems, my apartment smelled like home.

I can remember, like it was yesterday, when the three of us would pretend to be the Supremes with deodorant cans as microphones, when my mother showed me how to find rainbows in puddles on the ground and when she talked me out of wearing my glittering sequined spangled nightgown (bought to dress up in at home) to nursery school.

She was my style guru from the time I could tell ballet pink from a bright Bubblegum hue, much in the way Diana Vreeland was to many a fashion editor and Audrey Hepburn was to women all over the United States. My mother had them beat.  A mix of Elizabeth Taylor and Audrey herself, she was a runway and bridal fit model, studying to be an actress before she met and married my father– and after they divorced–she was a VP for a well-known clothing company. She knew colors and fabrics, she had taste, style and dressed in all the latest fashions as long as I can remember.  In the sixties and early seventies she traveling to London with my dad for business, she maxi-d, midi-d and shimmied in short mini dresses from Mary Quant and those found on Carnaby Street. In the seventies, at only 35, liberated from a less than perfect marriage but still with the responsibility of raising three unruly kids, she gave up her little sheath dresses for elephant bells, and traded in her charm bracelet dangling with discs of her children for macramé beaded styles and Zuni turquoise cuffs.  I remember, propping myself up on her vanity, while she took more things off than she put on, allowing me to play dress up next to her with the pieces she rejected, while she applied blush and a little eye liner to make me feel more grown up.    But I also never forgot this lesson later in life: ‘that the woman is supposed to wear the jewelry and clothes, not the other way around.” In the eighties, she did what every New York woman did and counted on basic black; she didn’t stray far from the pack and fell in love with Donna Karan’s ease of dressing, adding a piece or two of Robert Lee Morris sculptural jewelry and found herself wearing more of vintage pieces of cut steel, onyx and filigree.  My grandmother asked why  ‘her two girls’ felt the need to look like two Sicilian women in mourning.”
“We both did a medley of ‘thinner! easier to get out of the house.. to accessorize…and…what other color would we possibly wear?”  While my mom’s wardrobe was dark, her heart was light.

As style savvy as she was, she was also down-to-earth-and got the most pleasure from the simple things in life–the first hint of summer when she could go to the beach and feel her toes in the hot sand; on Mother’s Day, she opted for a ‘great slice of Pizza, a Coney Island hot dog or good Chinese.”

When she got remarried to my stepfather, she wore a simple antique wedding band: she liked her jewelry discrete and her displays of affection and love to be measured by how tight you could hug. I’m not sure I ever held on long enough.

There were things that were passed down, some in the genes, like the fact that I was blessed, not with her perfect nose but with her humongous feet, her propensity for worry the fine art of manipulation by guilt. I hope I also inherited some of her style, her big gush-y heart and her ability to appreciate family and always remember their favorite things.

My friends often think that ruby is my coveted gemstone because of its fiery connections to romance and passion but my mother knew. Ever since she scrunched under the table where I was hiding out (before you could fast forward) from the Wicked Witch when I was four. “Wait until you see what happens next,” she coaxed me out and into the safety of her arms on the couch–and there they were–the ruby slippers on Dorothy’s feet–the ones that transported her back to where she belonged.

My mom and I watched two movies every year–The Wizard of Oz for me, and in the beginning, It’s  A Wonderful Life for her (now another of my favorites.)

Today, when I smell the lilacs, go out for the perfect slice of pizza, think of both my mom and my grandmother (who passed away last year, just shy of her 97th birthday), I will celebrate Mother’s Day, quietly, with a mix of longing, loss, love, sentimentality, humor and warmth…thinking always of her beauty, understanding and acceptance of me and recalling how we always clicked our heels together three times– and whenever I think of her, living on inside of me, I will feel… home.

Sammie at 3 accessorized in power bracelets

Today I was posting a photo of my niece and her best friend when they were around five years old on FB, in honor of their fifteenth birthday.  I can’t fathom, for the life of me, how they got so much older, while I miraculously stayed the same age… That aside– the process of posting their pics took me back to memories of–parties and presents past. I couldn’t help thinking about how we start out wanting to be just like all our friends and then wind up wanting autonomy– how we learn throughout the years about what does and what doesn’t fit our personal styles.

In the beginning, there were princess parties with my niece Sammie wanting to be the southern beauty Belle with a bib necklace, Jasmine with the exotic jewels and Cinderella, who went from rags to riches, and basically piled on everything (a look my niece came to adore).  There were Alice in Wonderland tea parties with over the top pieces: large floral cocktail rings, and animal motifs necklaces and earrings.

By the time she was six, we’d pile basket full of trendy, inexpensive, costume jewelry up at Claire’s. She’d hold up dangly earrings to her ears, pile power bead bracelets up her arm to her elbow and layer necklaces down her (THEN)  tiny chest.  She started emulated Amanda Byne in What a Girl Wants instead of Ariel in Little Mermaid .

Two years later I was called in to host her  ‘jewelry birthday party’ and teach a group of eight year old girls how to create bracelets  out of stretchy wire and all different kinds of colorful beads, charms and silver initials.  Around this time, my niece started trying to separate her own style from her pack .”My favorite color is green now, but I like it mixed up with a bit of purple and blue, and I don’t want it too girly or matchy-matchy.  I want it more bohemian,” she explained.

“Where did you learn these words?” I asked.  “From you, of course,” she said.

When she got her ears pierced, she wants hoops and studs and frogs and moons and a variety of other motifs–all cute and age appropriate–and then, last year, soon after she had turned 14, she had told me that she had pierced two more holes in her cartilage. What did your mom say I asked. “She freaked. But dad calmed her down.”  Luckily my brother was used to situations like this, since  I came home at approximately the same age with two more holes in my left and one more in my right ear, pierced with a sewing needle and ice by some guy named Vinny.

Throughout the years she’s gone through the feminine right of passage: she  has tried on the styles of her favorite pop stars and celebrities and traded friendship bracelets (that have come back into style) with her BFFs.  She still doesn’t like anything “matchy, matchy,” or too overwhelming, preferring pieces that add to and compliment her look. She’s into  mixing up tough and tender, has gotten the hang of  goth girl goes feminine and  rock and roll goes retro. Since she is still in high school, she will continue (for a while longer) to have a similar style as her friends, although many of the times she has her own take on what works best for her.

Recently she told me “Big funky rings,  dangly earrings or multi studs for her multi holes, macrame and leather bracelets and long necklaces. ”

Although, she sounds and looks all grown up, (something I am getting a real charge from my younger brother as a dad, having to navigate )–she  will always be the sparkly  princess,  the little girl in a tiara, dumping my  jewelry box over on my bed and draping herself in layers of necklaces, piles of bracelets, with strands of  Mardi Gras beads worn as royal sashes–the more glitz and twinkle the better– And  I wish  her the happiest of birthdays this year! I know that however she celebrates (she has not divulged this info just yet), that she will look beautiful in whatever she wears  and always, in her ongoing development of her personal style.

For all of you who have daughters, nieces, friends and other family members…a few companies to try out for great gifts for teens: Dogeared who has every trend imaginable, Kacey K for well priced 14K gold, Katie Diamond for great pendants and stud earrings in real gemstones and  vermeil and Kamofie’s new line of friendship bracelets on various colored leather.

Sammie at 7 in her retro phase

Sammie at 14 in layered pendants

Sammie at 14 in drop turquoise and silver earrings.

Dogeared Bracelets

Kacey K double finger Love ring

Sofia Kaman for Kamofie's double floral circle friendship bracelet

Anne Sportun graduated moonstone & 14K gold necklaces

When I started this blog, we were shifting from fall to spring 2010 and I knew I would be wearing tanks and sleeveless tops. My first post dealt with, how, in the winter, your triceps inexplicably lose their tone and you don’t know what’s jingling your arms or your bangles. Back then, my chisel and sculpt instructor gave me tips and helped me to get back into shape, so that I could dare to bare some skin and pile on my favorite stack of bracelets.

In addition to firming up my arms, he has helped me work on my abs, gluts and “pecs” too, although I’m not quite sure they will ever be in the same place or condition they once were. Read: perky and uplifted. I do the best I can.

And, although, I gave up my belly chain long ago and do not have any piercings except in my ear lobes (which gravity also seemed to have taken down) I have come across an area I never gave much thought to. No, not my ankles. Somehow they have remained untouched by time and still, look tight and taut and thin–though unfortunately no one looks down while talking to me.

What people do tend to look at is the face, which is why I went to my dermatologist for a little rash that appeared under my eye. After advising me it could be cured with a dab of Aquaphor, he asked gently and ever so helpfully “Would you like a little Botox in your neck.”

“Excuse me?” I asked. He pulled some skin from this one area I had not been worried about. Crinkly eyes and wrinkly forehead–maybe–but my once long, swan-like neck had– without me noticing–turned to chicken skin.

Famous author Nora Ephron wrote the bestselling I Feel Bad About My Neck— which I own–and now I’m thinking, time possibly to– re-read?

I graciously turned the doctor down from jabbing my jugular with botulism, but I left his office, concerned about my penchant for multi-layering pendants and chains.

I realized that there was no equivalent to crunches, squats, lunges, curls and dips for toning up a sagging neck.

For now, it’s still akin to Antarctica here in NYC, so I am covered in cowl and high turtlenecks, and wrapped in shawls and scarves, but come spring I have decided to engage in aging gracefully. Maybe, I’ll add a neck cream to my beauty arsenal (if I can find space on the vanity–wait, maybe I can make room- it appears that at least one of these anti-aging serums is definitely not working).

And when the warm weather rolls around, I will continue to wear delicate layered pieces. I believe that the woman (of a certain age) who try to camouflage with bib styles and chokers are just drawing more attention, but that’s just my opinion.

Some of the graduated looks I recommend highly are Anne Sportun’s moonstone and gold styles, Alberian & Aulde’s 3-for luck looks, mixed nonchalantly with Irene Neuwirth’s moonstone bezel set chain. I am a fan of the unstudied appeal of John Apel’s colored sapphire and diamond station looks in mixed metals, and the elegant combination of Penny Preville’s long diamond accented signature station chains with Sethi Couture’s grey polished rough diamond bead necklaces, a white diamond bead chain and antique pendant, made from one drop earring (Tip–should you ever lose half of pair, like I did ; don’t fear, if they are the right style; you can always revamp them into some other sparkly adornment that just might have people talking about your jewelry rather than your neck–(one can only hope)

John Apel's mixed sapphire chains

Bottom to top: Penny Preville, Diamond bead chain, Sethi Couture's grey diamond chain, antique pendant

Moritz Glik

Unlike May West, who was quoted as saying–“I have always felt a gift diamond shines so much better than one you buy for yourself!” –I believe that all jewelry you purchase yourself suggests that you are independent, self-sufficient and, whether set in earrings, a pendant, or even a ring, allows your personality to shine.

When buying your own jewelry, there is no need to leave hints, cutouts of magazines or mastermind covert operations with your favorite retailers to get what you want. You go in, see it, have to own it, and usually with a little ping of the cash register and your signature, you get the unbelievable rush of walking out with a piece of jewelry that bespeaks something about who you are.

Over the summer I blogged about being a jewel-aholic, a name coined for me by close friend and majorly talented designer, Moritz Glik (diamond and sapphire earrings featured here). I have admitted to my addiction and have even tried to control my urges. But there is a special attraction I have for little something that lights up the face, sparkles from a finger…(or two), and glistens around the wrist.

For much of my life, I’ve been either a serial monogamist or in-between boyfriends. I’ve been given jewelry that ranged from silver artisan sculptures of  (what the heck, I still can’t begin to figure it out) to sweet, girley pave hearts of all sizes to hard-edged skull and cross bone delights. These guys were buying for how they envisioned me, rather than who I was.  There were other scenarios: An ex, who re-gifted a ring he kept from college and thought it would be sentimental to give me a band he’d forgotten an old girlfriend gave to him. I’ve dated guys who ‘didn’t get the point of diamonds’ but were head over heels for CZ, thought that faux was fabulous even upon turning my neck an interesting tint of orange. I had earrings that weighed as heavy on my lobes as ill-fated romances on my heart. There were whimsical charms, which were fun in the beginning, but like the rest of these pieces had about the same endurance as the relationships they represented.

And, so I decided to get the goods for myself. I started a while before “the self-purchaser” had become a catch phrase for women who no longer waited for their significant others or loved ones to buy them jewelry but decided they would do it themselves. This demographic, made up of confident woman who know their taste, are aware of what they can and can’t pull off and the pieces that work with their lifestyle, has been increasing in number and I for one, am quite happy to see it and share the high.

For years, women were okay with buying designer fashion, handbags and shoes but were conditioned to feel guilty about purchasing jewelry. Like Mae West, they had believed that it should be a gift from a man.

I was once one of these women and would plunk down my credit card for Prada handbags and boots, Loro Piana cashmere sweaters and Ann Demeulemeester clothes, (to mention just a few of my fashion favs and vices–much of which took me longer to pay then some of the jewelry I own)  A Milanese ex-boyfriend, with a fear of diamonds (or anything else that “is forever”)  had an eye for well-made outerwear and bought me  leather jackets in all styles and lengths but froze anytime we went near a jewelry store.

After clearing out my closets, and my past from pieces and relationships that did not work for me, I learned that it might be easier to find a right hand ring than the right man. (although I am still hoping for one of those too)

My advice: You don’t need another black dress from Barney’s, four-inch heel Blahnik boots, or this year’s Balenciaga bag. Jewelry offers longevity and if you choose wisely, will flatter your best qualities.

And while it’s nice to have a guy around, you definitely can make yourself feel worthy of a little shimmer and shine!

Some suggestions for a few gems you might want to buy for yourself: Moritz Glik’s sapphire and diamond earrings, Megan Thorne’s three-dimensional lacy earrings, Todd Reed’s rose and polished rough cut diamond rings, John Apel’s rose cut diamond key pendants, Emily Keifer’s bypass rose cut diamond ring, Cathy Waterman’s stained glass pattern earrings and Temple St Clair’s moonstone and 18K gold locket.

Megan Thorne

Todd Reed

Temple St. Clair

Cathy Waterman

Yesterday, I was driving up the Palisades Parkway where the leaves were ablaze with the colors of fall. I’d been working inside quite often since September and I was relieved I hadn’t missed it. I was with my stepfather and we reminisced about how my mother loved taking this ride. She’d call me every year to join her, when she was still alive. We were both in awe of this wonder of nature–the leaves changing to rich olivine, golden ochre and my favorites, paprika and persimmon, berry and crimson reds.

We also were impressed that every few years or so, fashion designers kept trying to work these autumnal hues into their collections. At the time, my mother was a VP for an established ready-to-wear company and I was a fashion stylist and editor for woman’s magazines. There were the inspirations of Perry Ellis, Anne Klein and Ralph Lauren and other well-known houses who would cleverly mix these vibrant hues of the majestic trees. Problem was that if woman tried to combine these colors –we started to look exactly–like a tree.

Even if you’d choose, say, a brown background with a bit of tonal ochre or olivine thrown in a shawl or a sweater, even if you selected a silk scarf in a fabulous print or a tweed with just flecks of these shades, you were not making a fashion statement. No. You wound up looking like the landscape driving to upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Maine or Vermont. Take your pick.
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I remember quite clearly, one Perry Ellis sweater both my mother and I had to own in the ’80s. It was a wool tweed with a peplum waist and small puffed sleeves in the most well thought out tiny flecks of color I’d ever seen. It looks simply gorgeous on the hanger, on the 50% off rack at Bergdorf’s and in our closets for years. Neither one of us were willing to part with it until my mother had a paint job and I moved apartments. And, so we went on to wear basic black and took in autumn’s vivid palette during long car rides, in between conversations and laughs at our fashion faux pas.

What does this have to do with jewelry? I realized yesterday that I have been wearing those same autumnal hues for years in gemstones and I’ve never  looked like the leaf it might be set into or the branch that might wind around it. Jewelry is forgiving that way. The inherent beauty and effects of nature make for a variety of easy to wear and versatile styles in pendants, earrings and rings.

Currently, when rough and raw diamonds are so prevalent as are rose cut sapphires, and a range of quartz colors as well as strong tones such as madeira citrine, hessonite garnet, spinel, rhodolite garnet and a host of geodes and minerals, this is the season to find a tone that suits your complexion or mix and match and have fun playing with all these deep, rustic colors. For the best in these looks, check out Mallary Marks for her brilliant color mixing in faceted and briolette stones, Cathy Waterman for her new use of rough diamonds with her signature delicate and feminine inspired motifs, Todd Reed for his artful mixing and pioneering the way for rough and raw cuts in diamonds, Vibes for her unbridled creativity in her natural and magical collection using rough and rose cut diamonds, Megan Thorne for her new addition of rose cut sapphires in tints that range from greens to burnt oranges and Marie-Helene de Taillac for her simple settings that allow her mesmerizing gemstones to take your breath away, much like the change of seasons, itself.

Todd Reed

Mallary Marks

Vibes