This Second's Obsession

You are here: Home / Archives for fashion

fashion

Earrings For The Unpierced: Part Two

By

Read about options for the unpierced in Earrings For The Unpierced: Part One!

The majority of my earrings are screw on. The other options are all too painful or too crappy looking in my opinion, and screw on earrings are as versatile as clips, but without the pain. On the right you can see my mole-y cheek and my fanciest pair of earrings. These are special occasion earrings for three reasons:

1. They are seriously blingin’.
2. They were £8.50, I consider this expensive for jewellery, so I do not want to lose them.
3. One of the screws is broken so it’s like wearing one screw-on and one clip-on earring. Ugh.

I got them in a little craft shop that used to be on my local high street. Unfortunately, it has now closed down. Fortunately, Etsy exists!

The majority of screw-on earrings on Etsy are vintage. As I mentioned before, earrings for the unpierced are rarely made today. These antique Czechoslovakian earrings are from the 1920s and look quite heavy. A great advantage of wearing screw on earrings rather than pierced earrings is that it is possible to wear heavier designs without causing yourself pain. If you don’t like purple, here is a blue and gold tone pair, also Czech. I don’t like wearing gold coloured jewellery myself, but if they were silver coloured I would be all over them! Moving on a decade, this Sterling Silver Mexico Jade set includes bracelet and earrings, and is in an interesting Art Deco style. I think it would look great with a all-black outfit so that the jewellery was the centre of attention. Forward another decade and we have these Juliet Red Crystal earrings, which look to be in excellent condition.

I also love these sweet Teapot earrings, if only they were in silver, along with these Golden Chrysanthemum Earrings. Sigh. I am very tempted by these Pearl and Copper Swirl earrings (love the rhyming name) and the seller has several lovely unpierced earrings in her shop.

For more screw on earrings I recommend you search Etsy and eBay, try Glitzy Secrets for clip-ons, and for magnetic earrings try eBay again.

Alternatively, you can try making your own! Here is a pair that I made myself. I’m really proud of these and I love them. I got the earring findings/backs from a local craft shop but if you don’t have a local craft shop or it doesn’t stock screw-on earring backs, there are plenty of places you can get the findings online (the Two Es – Etsy and eBay – again, for instance).

The design is based on one from the book Creative Beading: Over 60 Original Jewellery Projects and Variations by Juju Vail. I originally picked it up because “Juju” is one of my nicknames. Seriously. I am a complete nerd. The designs in it are pretty and modern, and the instructions are really clear. Projects include earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and rings and variations are suggested for each of the designs too. I also really like the ideas for weaving large beads out of small beads. It’s a great book and I recommend it whether you are a beginner or more advanced.

Top Obsessions of 2007

By

After reading the post The Item of the Year Award at Flying Saucer, I started to think about all my most favourite things from 2007. After a little bit of thought, I realised that there is no one item of clothing that I favoured above all others last year and so I decided instead to share my Top Obsessions of 2007!

Frequent motifs
These are the images and shapes that delighted me throughout the year. They were: stripes, crowns and hearts and there is no overall winner for this category, because all these motifs were combined most excellently in my Christmas present to myself, the necklace on the left. If you are charmed by this necklace, the creator has three similar designs available in her Etsy shop.

Best newcomers to my style
These are the things I tried out for the first time this year. First came skinny jeans. I am not entirely sure I’m satisfied with them. The pair I’ve got keep falling down my arse, which is not the look I really want to achieve. They also draw a lot of attention to my large feet, and I am not sure whether I like that. I love my feet but I’d rather have people look at my head. I do love them, but I think I might love them more on skinny indie boys than on me.

The colour red was another obsession. The roots of this took hold in 2006, when I performed in The Vagina Monologues for the first time and discovered the joys of red lipstick, and the fact that some shades of red do actually suit me. After I wrote the blog post My Rainbow: Red, I soon became obsessed with obtaining a red coat for the winter, inspired by Clare Devine, the red-coat-wearing femme fatale of cheesy soapdom. I stopped watching Hollyoaks shortly after she made her final exit, because the plotlines got too bad and there wasn’t her incredibly cute style to admire as compensation. Seriously, evil has never looked so good.

After reading Gala Darling’s article about cat’s eye make-up, and Merriam at Miss Vintage’s instructions for Audrey Hepburn-esque eyeliner, I decided to investigate the possibilities of liquid eyeliner for myself. I prefer it with quite a thin line, but a long tail that curls up long enough to end just below the end of my eyebrow and at an angle. I don’t wear it quite that long everyday, and I am still experimenting. I usually press dark green or dark purple eyeshadow (I prefer Bourjois’ Little Round Pots in ‘ Noir Emeraude 07’ and ‘Noir Précieux 04’) over the top of the eyeliner to give it a softer, more interesting look.

I conclude that the colour red has been the most exciting and best addition to my style in 2007. It makes me feel grown-up and glamourous, and it actually looks surprisingly good with purple. I really need to take some pictures of my red coat to share with you!

Most adored make-up item…

This presents me with the above dilemma all over again. It is really between liquid eyeliner and red lipstick, although glitter has also been much used and loved last year. But I think red lipstick was more of an item of 2006, whilst the eyeliner was worn more regularly this year, so 2007’s crown must go to liquid eyeliner! It has transformed my look no end!

What did you love the most in 2007? Did you manage to work skinny jeans or are you going to be glad to see the back of them when they go out of style? I’m not too bothered about them vanishing for myself, I wear skirts more often than jeans anyway, but I think it will be a shame when they are no longer sported by all the artboys in London!