Recently I was chatting with a friend in the vintage community and we got onto the subject of jewellery, specifically what to wear with our vintage style clothing.
Extra Large Earrings
Now, there really are two trains of thought (in my opinion) you have original jewellery which is either very sparkly and decorative (diamante, gemstones and marcasite) or Bakelite, acrylic and Lucite which is fun and functional.
The second is to go with a more modern look. There are numerous creators of Lucite and Fakelite jewellery such as Luxulite and Splendette to name a few, whilst for sparkle and glamour, there are Swarovski crystals and fake gemstones.
Start of the Collection
Depending on the event or situation, I tend to go with the modern styles especially the fun Fakelite options as they can be both cheap, easy to wear and the biggest factor of all, match every outfit.
So, just how many earrings does one person need?
The Full Collection
Until recently, I had all my earrings loose in a big cloth bag. All higgledy-piggledy, I had to search through the whole bag to find a matching pair and it was a real pain in the posterior.
Deciding that I needed to get on top of things, I purchased a fair amount of plastic boxes that would fit a pair of earrings in. I tipped the bag of earrings onto a flat surface and started sorting them into pairs.
Lots to Choose From
I had around 90 boxes in two sizes (large and small)and I was shocked when I had filled every single one of them and still had a large amount of earrings to box up.
The small boxes were priced at 40 for just £3.25, whilst the larger containers were 10 for £2.00.
Vintage Repro Earrings
Ordering a few more sets, I awaited their arrival.
Unfortunately, several new sets of earrings were also ordered at the same time so this increased my collection even more!
Choices, Choices
The new earrings were from the fast-fashion company Shein, and such good value for money.
On average a pair of acrylic earrings cost £7.00 a pair, minimum. The sets of earrings were five pairs for just than £2.00. That is around 40p a pair which is brilliant value.
All Different
The best thing about them though was the colours that they all came in. Bright, pastel, jungle, clear, primary and even natural were available so of course I had to get a set of each.
Those that know me well, know that I have this compunction on everything matching; from the top of my head to the tip of my toes, it either has to be of the same colour as my outfit, or pick out one of the secondary colours in any pattern that I wear.
Sparkly and Shiny
Now I have pretty much every single colour imaginable, and some in various shade.
If I need a pair of blue earrings I have the choice of navy, royal, cornflower, aqua, teal, and sky. I have the option of matte, see-thru and glossy.
Too Many To Count
Obviously I will still be purchasing from my regular companies. They tend to have patterns or matching bangles, where as the Shein range is a simple plain hoop or drop.
Amongst the acrylic order, I also put a few coloured ‘pearl’ earrings. Simple round pearls in lots of colours; red, orange, blue and more. A set of little rose earrings also made the grade, again in an array of colours.
All The Colours
The pearls were priced at £1.00 for a set of 12, whilst the little flowers were £1.30 for 12 pairs. Bit of a no brainer really.
Of course, I also used the boxes to store all of my other earrings, regardless of which company they had come from. This gave me a really good start on getting organised and more so, allow me to find the right set of earrings in the least amount of time possible.
Still some more to add…..
The only issue I have is some of the earrings are extra long or wide and they simply won’t fit in the boxes I currently have. I just need to find some that are a little larger and then all my problems are solved!
