Recently I had a birthday and my sweetheart gave me a pair of vintage rhinestone earrings from the 1950’s as one of my gifts. Mind you these are the type of earrings I’d never buy for myself. I don’t generally wear large, shiny objects of this proportion on myself. He thought they’d look good on me, plus Chris, the manager at David Owens Vintage, and David, the owner, thought they would too. When I thought about that I realized I have to wear them. I mean any woman who knows three men she likes and appreciates, who all agree she’d look good in something has to give it a try!! So I did. I haven’t worn them outside yet. I did finally decide on which dress to wear with them. I wore them for Easter at home for dinner. I hadn’t gotten the dress right yet. I had on a black skirt and a nice top but I felt like I looked like I was wearing a work outfit. After dinner I thought perhaps I should try on a dress my mother gave me that I haven’t worn yet since it is so fancy. I don’t generally go anywhere that would require such a fancy dress. These earrings need a fancy dress or a very simple elegant black dress, which I don’t have right now.

Meanwhile this dress was in the for-trade bag but the first store I took it to didn’t want to trade for it. Maybe it was because it is not in the height of fashion or a trendy look. It looks very much like a dance dress with its flouncy sheer fabric at the hem. I like dancing but I really don’t go out dancing much at all at this time in my life. Anyway I put the dress on and I asked my sweetheart if he liked it. He had a big smile on his face. Sometimes that kind of reaction matters more than anything. I mean if we have a fella we like to get a good reaction when we get dressed up, right? So I guess I am keeping this dress and wearing it out to dinner or something nice soon.

Meanwhile I didn’t really have the right shoes but for this post I wore my old red Kenneth Cole Reaction shoes. I just bought a pair of black Born shoes which will be better for my feet. They don’t have quite the heel these red ones do but generally I like to make my feet comfortable since I have foot problems. My black lace-up oxford type of Born with a heel might need a vintage shoe clip to dress them up a bit. I will have to look into that. I recently read you can use old clip-on earrings as shoe clips.

Anyway so that is how I ended up with these shiny rhinestone 1950’s earrings; something new that requires stretching my wardrobe to a degree that I need to get a bit fancier. Or keep an eye out for a simple black knit dress like I had before which would put all the main focus on the earrings, aside from my figure. I like how these earrings have such an art deco shape in their six strands of rhinestones that dangle down from the top two larger rhinestones.

I hope you all are enjoying the arrival of spring. I am enjoying when it is warmer but we still have some cold fronts coming in here in New York. I became a bit overwhelmed for a while with a temp job in midtown, back working for a brief period in the fashion district, but that is over now and I am back to looking for work again! I also have many creative things I am working on that hopefully I can share with you before too long. I am always trying to find new things to work on and to keep myself busy with being creative!! It keeps life exciting and gives me a reason to feel inspired when I wake up in the morning.

All photos  and written material by Marilyn Lavender. © Marilyn Lavender, 2016.  “All rights reserved.”

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