Peppermint Trifle

I just knew these delicious Minkpink sunglasses were mint for me when I saw them on the sale rack. Aren’t they the prettiest colour? They make me daydream about sunshine and breezy, puffy clouds, and walking by the seashore eating ice cream. Peppermint ice cream naturally. 

Read about sunglasses trends for this summer – mirrored (blue ones, tick), clear perspex (tick), matt and flocked frames – at Fashionising.com.

Gold Rush

Oooooo! I was very excited to find a vintage Oroton gold mesh purse in the charity store a couple weekends ago. Although I love my current almost-Tiffany-blue leather wallet, it is starting to show wear. This mesh purse will be a good replacement when the former becomes too scruffy.

The Oroton purse is in mint condition, apart from a little tarnishing on the press-studs inside. It has two buttoned compartments inside, one for change, and another for keys or keepsakes perhaps.

There are no pockets for cards however, which, I am guessing, indicates it is from the early 70s, when plastic cards must have been extremely uncommon. I will have to use one of the two sections for bills for cards instead. Fortunately my current wallet is so tiny I downsized long ago, and am quite used to carrying only the essential few. (My loyalty cards live in a separate card wallet I keep in my tote bag.)

A Little History

Metal mesh purses and bags have been around for a long time, and I own a few bags already: a gold 70s clutch, and two classic 60s pouch style bags with kiss closures, plus a couple of belts in gold and silver. The bags are all by Glomesh, an Australian company founded in the 60s by a Hungarian immigrant couple, Louis and Alice Kennedy. Although the company has been closed for decades, it is being relaunched this year, which will be an exciting event on the fashion calendar. Oroton, another old Australian brand founded in 1938, has also manufactured metal mesh and other luxury accessories and still does to this day.

20s Whiting & Davis bag, available from Dorothea’s Closet for $295. Click through.Another American label I have discovered online, Whiting & Davis, has been making amazing metal mesh bags since 1892 (the company was founded in 1876). The first mesh bags were handmade from different coloured metals, but by the 1920s many of them were emblazoned with Art Deco style, intricately painted and silkscreened with patterns, featuring geometric edges or decadent fringing. Browse the shop and drool. 

It’s a fun way to add a little 1970s glam into one’s life* – or if you’re lucky enough to own a Whiting & Davis collector bag, some Fin de Siècle or Roaring Twenties style. 

A modern vintage style Whiting & Davis bag. Just wow!

* Ed’s Note: I do in fact also own a metal mesh backless top and wonder why on earth I haven’t long-since photographed it and featured it on these pages. How remiss of me.

Dreaming of Curls

Last year in Queensland I purchased some very sweet hair curlers from Dream Wavers, at a stall at Eumundi Markets. They are fabric-covered with a foam core, fasten with Velcro, and are soft enough to sleep comfortably in them. I managed to find a set made with a retro cherry-print fabric. They are trimmed with little red satin bows too. Cuteness overload!

Unfortunately I never quite got round to using them, because my hair was too long. Yes, it is possible for your hair to be too long, simply because one’s arms are not long enough to roll up the curlers neatly – or maybe I’m just unhandy? And then I cut off my hair into a bob, and now it is far too short! (This is sounding a bit like a Goldilocks adventure.)

But is this reason enough to grow my hair again? I’m rather fancying a 40s retro style next – something like this …?

Lauren Bacall

Or this? (Okay this is the same hairstyle, except Veronica’s is longer. I’d better start practising my smoulder too.) 

Veronica Lake

Sweet Treats

Here a pair of sweet, candy-coloured enamel pendants strung on gold chains, both of which I bought on eBay. Hot air balloons and carousel horses are two favourite motifs of mine, perhaps because they are nostalgic remnants of a more romantic era than our present one, or somehow they represent the freedom of childhood when life is one endless whirl of fun and unaccountability (for the lucky ones amongst us).

The sugar-coated brightness of the enamel and the twinkling rhinestones make these pendants look like sweets. They’re charming costume pieces perfect for an outing to a fairground by the beach, to be worn while eating toffee apples and cotton candy – although I guess I’ll have to wait til summer for that. Meanwhile I can daydream.

She Shall Have Music Wherever She Goes

I seem to have a thing for noisy clothing. I don’t purposefully go out to look for it – somehow it just finds me. There’s the sugary pink scarf with delicate white hammer shells on it that tinkle as I walk; the 1920s wearing-my-hearts-on-my-skirt skirt; the jingling Afghani recycled textile heart necklace; and now there’s this ethnic collar necklace positively dripping with charms. There are baubles, butterflies, birds, barrels, suns, and fish.

It is so eye-catching it prompted a discussion of its origins with work colleagues one day during our lunch break. I did not know, for I had purchased it in a Salvos charity shop – I guessed that it was someone else’s discarded souvenir. Was it Indian? Balinese? Thai? I saw very similar pieces in the Vietnamese markets when I holidayed there years ago.

I am uncertain of the type of metal alloy however – in Vietnam some of the jewellery was 80% silver mixed with brass, and looked quite similar to this. I don’t mind it’s tarnished either – I rather like the air of antiquity it bestows. It’s a double-fake necklace in fact: fake silver, and a fake souvenir, but it’s a genuine great find.