I have a beautiful, sparkly, wide Vivienne Westwood bracelet. But I am a single woman with a mundane life, fighting my inner child. If I could, I would roam my territory massively bejeweled, even though jeans and a T-shirt or sweater is more appropriate. How terrible would it be to wear this bracelet with my daily wardrobe? I hate to just have it sitting around. — Priscilla, Portland, Ore.
There is a famous portrait of Coco Chanel by Man Ray taken in 1935 that shows her in a simple black dress with a black hat, smoking and as casual as can be with her hands shoved in her pockets. Yet she is also draped in pearls with enormous bejeweled cuffs on each wrist. If the photo had been taken today, she probably would have been wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, but she would have been just as bejeweled.
“The point of jewelry,” she once said, “isn’t to make a woman look rich but to adorn her.” She believed women deserved to be adorned and modeled that belief until the end of her single — if admittedly not mundane — life. Still, I bet she would have been all in for your bracelet. (See those cuffs, which feature Maltese crosses created by Fulco di Verdura.)
After all, as Samira Nasr, the editor of Harper’s Bazaar, said when I asked her about it as we whiled away time before the Dior couture show in Paris this month, “What is the point of buying things you love if you don’t wear them?”
We are past the point of spending money on stuff that is kept in the vault and rolled out only for special occasions. (It’s just … well, not worth it.) Past most of the old rules about what can be worn when, be it white only between Memorial Day and Labor Day, no silver with gold or no more than three trinkets at a time.
Case in point: Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele, the French stylist who has made a fabulous personal signature out of her high-low wardrobe of jeans, sweatshirts and piles of gold chains, and who said that her policy had always been the more bling the better — real or costume, no matter. And no matter what she was wearing or whether she was backstage getting ready for a show or at a photo shoot.
Such a job may sound glamorous but really involves long hours toting garment bags and pinning clothes on your knees. As far as Cerf de Dudzeele is concerned, it’s the contrast between the glamour of the baubles and the banality of what’s underneath that makes the look modern.
Still, I understand your hesitation. Jewelry, perhaps more than any other item of clothing, sparks all sorts of assumptions in our judgey lizard brains. It is associated with luxury, leisure and ostentation, with a certain station in life. If you wear it, especially in places where eye-catching jewelry is not common, you will most likely draw attention — even comment — which is not always comfortable if you are used to fitting in.
Also, you could, depending on where you are wearing your bracelet, be making yourself a target. In recent years, Cerf de Dudzeele has become more aware of her surroundings, she said, and, for example, no longer wears her sparklers when she is on the subway.
But rather than ignore your “inner child,” perhaps it’s time to listen to her. Children, after all, haven’t absorbed the same inhibitions about clothing that adults have (and that honestly track back to high school). That’s why they are happy wearing tiaras and Spider-Man costumes to school.
If seeing your bracelet makes you happy, if it makes you smile, you should wear it as much as possible. In fact, wearing it when it feels like a surprise, when it lights up the monotony of quotidian task, may be the most subtly joyful act of all. It can be a small daily gift to yourself, a reminder of the color and magic in the world.
Your Style Questions, Answered
Every week Vanessa will answer a reader’s fashion-related question, which you can send to her anytime via email or X. Questions are edited and condensed.
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