Holiday Baubles, Belated

At the beginning of December, before the seasonal mayhem of cheer, I bought these gold and pastel stone earrings as an early birthday present to myself. My lovely friend Sarah and I were having a catch-up booze brunch, with two-for-one cocktail specials at a favorite local haunt, and after some sufficient lubrication, wandered out within the neighborhood to peruse the vintage shops and the Brooklyn Flea winter market fort. As the holidays have flew by, and the air has transformed to a deathly chill, that late afternoon seems eons away, another dimension, another person. The sun shone warmly, my naked hands not numbed to stone by frigid winds. Sarah has since moved west, California, a huge move. She is the latest of many friends to abandon the seductive cruelty that is this city. I am proud of her, excited for her, but miss her desperately, and selfish wish for a quick return, or at least a frequent visiting schedule. With her family firmly planted here on the east coast, in our childhood city of Baltimore, I am sure I will get that last wish.

Before that delicious, fun brunch, I had been lusting after these earrings for awhile. A score from Prospect Heights boutique 1 of a Find, a regular stop on my vintage shopping crawl, I had always devised some reason to leave them be on earlier visits. While a tad pricey, the soft asymmetric design paired with the soft colors was unique and, that day, I decided to treat myself. While the earrings certainly match, or dare I say reflect (purposeful pun; see the unintentional self-portrait above) a sort of bombastic and decadent style that most of my accessories imbue, they were profoundly different from anything else I owned. Always eager to display a shiny new glint of gold, these became my holiday staple for the various parties for the season. Worn with simple black silhouettes, my holiday look was simultaneously classic and bold.

Irregular Inspiration

(image taken from Irregular Choice)

I unearthed an intense love for the shoe brand Irregular Choice while traveling in London awhile back visiting a dear friend; while meandering through Camden, she led the way to one of their boutiques. Since that afternoon, I have learned that, despite no store in New York, I can peruse their wares at a slew of various online fashion purveyors, including ModCloth. With bombastic embellishments, featuring sculptural elements, dyed lucite, emblazoned embroidery, these shoes are certainly not for the meek, the mild, the mute.

During an antiquing excursion, on the Friday following Thanksgiving, a sort of tryptophan and pinot noir-cleansing ritual, I stumbled on these adorably funky vintage wedge sandals at the back of a dusty stall in an antiques mall in rural Pennsylvania. The conceptual resemblance is uncanny. Slender fingers clutch a small sharp knife, carving each detail, the veins of the bright green palms, chisel minute openings for the windows, the door. I imagine these shoes are handmade, hand painted. Decades ago, amidst sloping dunes, rounded mountains of millions of miniscule diamonds of sand, a tiny house, made immortal, dwelling soul dwelling in the soul of a shoe.