Wendy Brandes Jewelry Blog

Never Is the Next New Thing

Purple and Silver

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The purple-and-silver combo from The Sartorialist that I saw on Cherry Magazine made me think of this Ossie Clark dress (below). I wore it to the Factory Girl premiere in January (I loved that movie and don’t care what anyone else thinks).


The photo is unusually craptastic, but I am sharing it anyway because this is an interesting Ossie. You don’t see a lot of his knit Mod pieces but that’s what he started with. This dress torments me because of the vintage coffee stain you can see near the hem. If I hem it above the stain, it’s too short and if I hem it below…you see the stain. I’m always changing it and I am dissatisfied either way. Out, out damned spot! Still, I’m not giving up an Ossie like this, no matter what. I don’t care if I’m 80 years old and have to tuck my saggy knees into my ankle boots. I’m wearing this sucker. Consider yourself warned.

This dress also works as a Mod-girl Halloween costume when accessorized correctly. That’s an original white vinyl ’60s hat below. The boots are replicas.

Halloween 2005
Something else I wanted to mention was those silver Prada wedges I am wearing in the first photo. Those are from a few years ago … I’m guessing three or four years ago. They were in a lot of magazine editorials and I think they are a great example of the kind of “It” accessory that makes people whine, “But you can only wear them for ONE SEASON!” I mean, who says you can only wear something for one season? If we got rid of everything, there would be no vintage. I buy things I love, whether they’re “It” or not. And I don’t get rid of things because someone tells me they have an expiration date. Things like these shoes get better over time.
The backgrounds of my photos are so bad they make the American Apparel backdrops look classy. Also, I only have one pose and it’s not even a good one! I think I should switch to Beyonce’s armpit pose, just to shake things up.
I wore the silver wedges all over Milan during Fashion Week earlier this year (once with a red vintage Sarmi dress as shown above). At every show I went to, people took pictures of my feet. One guy was polite and pretended he wanted a picture of my face after he shot my feet, but everyone else was pretty blunt: “Just the shoes, please.” I’ve never seen one of these pictures, so if you happen to notice my silver feet anywhere, please let me know.

The moral of this story is: Only buy things you love. If you love them, they will last. (And if you don’t follow my advice, please consign all your good stuff at a place where I can find it.) I’ve also got patent leather Mary Janes that I’ve had for over 10 years and a crazy pair of Patrick Cox wedges that are even older than that. And I never get rid of any of my Louis Vuitton “It bags.” Imagine the years of joy I will have if I finally get my fish feet, as I pray I will do any day now.

Thursday’s Book Club post is coming up … eventually!

UPDATED TO ADD: If you like the idea of a knit Mod dress with black tights and silver shoes, I suggest this dress by Alice + Olivia:

Available at ShopBop for $297

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Love the purple dress…

    You have a very nice blog going here… I love your jewelry too! How funny the story abotu Brit Brit stealign your jewels… worked out nicely for you, didn’t it? I will keep dropping by.

    Thanks for stopping by RO-and-JO.

    Smiles.

  3. I love that shopbop dress and of course your Ossie, but I loved your red dress even more. I know that’s not what the post was about, but it is so eye-catching and fits you wonderfully!

    Also, I just tried to leave this comment and the visual verification wouldn’t load! Jeez, c’mon Blogger. Get with it.

  4. Thank you, Jo and LML! And thank you, IYF! That dress was taped on in all kinds of strange ways. I’m very intrigued by Sarmi…that’s a designer I feel the urge to collect. I’ve been sort of studying up on that.

  5. ooh..very cute shoes! haha, love the dress. thanks for reminding me, I remembered I wanted to do something to my blog – add credits =)

  6. cute outfits! i especially like the first one with the mod dress and silver shoes – fab!

    🙂 D