A Vixen's Charm School Guide to Wearing Vintage Jewelry

Upon consulting our Charm School textbook (first published in 1962), we Vixens found a number of indispensable tips - and a few archaic ones - about how to wear vintage jewelry. According to the charm school headmistress:

• Pearls are ideal for both day and night, and are quintessentially classic.
• Bracelets that don't jangle are both understated and proper.
• Earrings with a matching necklace "speaks of good taste".
• Gold or silver bracelets can be worn in great quantity "if they fit you and the costume".
• Rhinestones may only be worn after noon, if paired with a dressy outfit.
• If purchasing an entire parure of rhinestones, wear only one or two at a time.

When selecting a necklace, keep in mind the length of your neck. The charm school says "A high choker, for example, is not for the woman with a short neck, for it tends to make the neck appear even shorter. A brooch or clips are more flattering ornaments in this case. But, if a necklace is really wanted, it should be long enough to fall well below the base of the throat".

And when shopping for earrings, "the woman with a large, round face should wear massive, bulky ear clips for better proportion. Little ones will look lost". For a long, narrow face, choose "ear clips triangular in sharp - with the base at the lowest part of the lobe and the point at the top" to create a "more becoming" oval appearance.

And for prettier hands, choose according to their shape as well:

• Long and slim hands require a flexible mesh bracelet or several slender circlets. Rings should have stones with wide settings, as wide as the finger, and dark fingernail polish.
• Large hands use wide rings best, or rings with high dome-shaped settings. "Wear a massive bracelet with high ornament, pushed up on arm" and dark or medium polish with clear moons & tips.
• The slim little hand needs narrow bracelets and rings with gems set as rosettes.
• And the broader hand can use substantial bracelets pushed up the arm to balance the proportion, with rings in elongated settings and light polish.

Resources:
Author Unknown (1969). State College of Beauty Culture Guide to Beauty - Charm - Poise. New York: Milady Publishing Corp.

Shameless Plug: Vintage Jewelry

Okay, so I'm loving writing this blog, but I love shopping for vintage stuff even more than talking about it! And here's a few of this Vixen's favorite finds from our just-posted vintage jewelry collection:


This pin's one my favorites for its asymmetric grandeur. A smashing look from the 1950s!

These are small earrings with spitfire attitude! A bit of bohemian gypsy meets "I Dream of Jeannie".

Quite literally a charmer! This bracelet is like out of a fairytale... and it's new-old stock, no less.

View all our jewelry, and let us know your favorites! There's currently over 600 jewelry pieces to choose from on VintageVixen.com.

Book Bits: Katharine Hepburn

One of my favorite pastimes is reading biographies, specifically to devour any tidbits about what the subject wore. I recently read Katharine Hepburn's autobiography, and here's what she dished up -

1932: "I had gone to Elizabeth Hawes - New York's highest-priced designer - to have an appropriate costume made to wear getting off the train in California. It was a sort of Quaker gray-blue silk grosgrain suit. The skirt was flared and very long. The coat was rather like a nineteenth-century riding coat with tails. The blouse was a turtleneck with a ruffle around the top of the turtle. And the hat. Oh!

Well, the hat was a sort of gray-blue straw dish upside down on my head... it had been very expensive, the whole costume, and I had great faith in it."

Elizabeth Hawes, 1938

1932: "... I went to Europe fast with Luddy. On the chance that they would call me and tell me that I was a hit, I went to Schiaparelli and got myself a costume to get off the boat in. A three-quarter coat and a skirt and blouse, and a knitted hat of knit 2-purl 2. Very easy to wear... That was my first French outfit."

Schiaparelli, 1930s

1935: "We started to shoot [Alice Adams]. I had bought all the clothes for an insignificant amount of money. The only one which cost anything was from Hattie Carnegie - the party dress. I made it tacky-looking by putting little black bows on it and in my hair."

Hattie Carnegie, late 1930s/early 1940s

1951: "[For The African Queen] I had heard... that the one person to do the clothes was a Doris Langley Moore... She was a charmer and had a lot of all sorts of petticoats and underwear.

So our first meeting with her and Huston and me. He was fascinated by the underwear. I tried on every variety of split-pants, of chemise - and I was terrified that he was going to have me wear nothing but an envelope chemise in the picture".

Resources:

Hepburn, K. (1991). Me: Stories of my life. New York: Knopf.