Rebecca from The Clothes Horse and I met up a few days ago and over a cider, we geeked out quite a bit over the details, semantics and ins and outs of blogging with comment-and-return etiquette being one of the subjects that came up. Unfortunately, I no longer really have the time to go through comments, checking out everybody's blog and do I tend to stick to my faithful Bloglovin' list (over 300 blogs but only one slot a week to look at em all...). I probably worked myself up into a guilt trip over all the foul blogging sins I had committed but this morning, when I looked at my comments and found this gem, I reasoned that if something compels me to go and seek, I'll rampantly stalk that commentor if I have to...
So this comment popped up on the previous post which touched on how I justify my spending on clothes...
For my degree show I researched Couture garment details for my jewellery collection especially Schiaparelli (as she was the QUEEN of amazing details, see her trapeze artist buttons!).
This is an extract from an open letter written by Elsa Schiaparelli, requested by the Daily Express on May 21 1936. It is titled; "From Europe's Most Discussed Dress Designer To Her Daughter". It is easy to feel guilty parting with a chunk of money for a piece of clothing, but worse to spend the same on twenty poor quality garments that won't last. When we are next tempted, let's listen to Elsa Schiaparelli's words of wisdom;
"Your first inclination will surely be to buy as much as you can for your money. Don't give into it...You can only get to know good clothes from bad by looking at good ones. So, when you see a smart woman, study her. Only the rich can afford cheap clothes. If something you see looks worth twice the price, you may be sure the illusion will not last. What you buy must be good."
I then had to compulsively click on this Jade Mellor who had left such a delightful comment, who then turns out to be a jeweller, concentrating mainly on rings, all of which I'm now completely enamoured with. Another quote...
"I am interested in the relationship between jewellery and clothing and how the two can converge such as the intricate embellishments found in haute couture or forgotten items from decadent fashions of the past. My passion for these historical details and my research into such inform my jewellery through which I hope to bring these qualities to modern and contemporary wearable pieces."
Influences of the past is all very well but how does this translate to a contemporary setting? The first thing that strikes me about her pieces is that they all evoke the feeling of a jewel buried in the ground. Like if you played about with an amateur metal detector in the garden and found a coin, thinking you had stumbled onto a Roman treasure when you were a child. Except the rings that Jade Mellor makes which have a resin based and are then shaped from a diverse array of materials: marble, granite, pyrite, carnelian and quartz to build into something that might have been found in its natural state - like an eroded hole in a rock as well as having a polish to it that makes them mighty fine to stack up on the finger. According to Jade's sole stockist (Kabiri surely needs to get in here!), Franny and Filer based in Chorlton in Manchester, there's also at the fine price of £35-£40 each - stacks of them in multiple figures is an even bigger temptation...
Some pleasingly chunky rings from her Facet collection... a ring resembling a sweet is no bad thing in my books...
Older pieces include these La Maison Bulles rings...
She also combined the facets of old buttons to incorporate into these rings... I loved how on the original button it said "Best Ring Edge" which of course prompted Jade to put it on an actual ring...
Her fascination with buttons extends to these collar pieces which I think are from an older collection...
Her most recent work that is available to order directly from her are her 'Hewn' rings that seem to come in a never-ending array of formations, which is down to Jade's hand finishing on each one as well as unpredictability of materials... again, making them irresistible to ring-stacking...
I also love that she predicted the mighty lion's roar that would ensue at Chanel's latest couture show with her Panthera Leo collection which features this fellow as a ring, a brooch and a handsome bag clasp... Jade herself was inspired by 18th century Georgian furniture embellishments...
Oh, and the final word from Jade... she has a very good list of clothing vocabulary at the bottom of her blog, some of which I'm dying to use in posts if I can possibly fit it in...
...Carbuncled, Bedaubed, Plumy, Monocled, Inwrought, Gussied, Crocketed, Crested, Cloisonne, Clinquant, Tufted, Tesselated...
