1940s black hat with millinery daisies: A Vintage Affair
Art deco inspired handmade black dangle earrings: c/co Mon Carrousel
Mid-century vintage yellow flower embroidered blouse: Foxy Brit Vintage
1940s style black jumper dress: Tatyana Clothing
Gold coloured faux leather skinny belt: eBay
C. 1940s cream gloves with mini button detailing: Unknown, had for many years
C. 1930s cream celluloid flower bangle bracelet: Unknown, had for many years
Vintage style black plastic flower stretch bracelet: Thrifted (Value Village)
1940s black and cream telephone cord handbag: Armstrong Antiques
Black seamed nude stockings: eBay
1940s style black faux suede round toe pumps: Walmart
Lip colour: MAC Partyline
Special offer just for Chronically Vintage readers: Etsy shop Mon Carrousel has very generously offered my readers 15% off all of their merchandise between today and August 31, 2016, when you use the discount coupon code MCSave15 at checkout.
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In the moment at least (I'm the first to admit, I have cringed years later looking back on certain outfits - but, hey, that's all just part and parcel to one's continually developing personal style), I tend to really like, if not flat out love, everything that I wear. My closet is, objectively, one of my greatest sources of joy in this world and I delight in the act of putting outfits together and curating my wardrobe.
Sometimes however, one hits upon a look that they're so in love with, they know that it bound to be a favourite for the rest of time, and for me, the ensemble highlighted here in today's very recently captured photographs is just that.
While, objectively, it is not an overly complex or formal ensemble, the sum of its parts equal a whole that I'm genuinely pleased with - and that I know I will reach for many times to come in the future.
The starting point for this particular look is an elegantly gorgeous pair of art deco inspired handmade earrings from the Spanish brand Mon Carrousel.
Called simply Romantic Black Earrings, this pair – that are, like some of Mon Carrousel's other offerings, made from nickel-free components, thus letting nickel allergy suffers like myself safely don them – combines genuine vintage Czechoslovakia mourning jet with vintage black vulcanite and marries the two with brass components and lovely little clear rhinestones.
Though big on style, these sophisticated earrings (which I want to sincerely thank Mon Carrousel for bestowing on me) weigh next to nothing and are, really and truly, one of the most comfortable pairs of earrings in my whole collection. They're immensely stylish, wonderfully classic and such a pleasure to wear.
Mon Carrousel's designs are hand made in Spain by a lovely lady named Diana, who looks heavily to the past when she creates to compose beautiful, often dainty jewelry that is equally wearable by vintage and modern fashion fans alike.
She's a relatively newcomer to Etsy, where she set up shop last year, and has a standalone online jewelry shop for longer that, however it is only presented Spanish, so instead when she approached me to team up for a collaborative post, we both felt that it made more sense to focus on her Etsy shop, given that most of my audience speaks English.
Diana's pieces are classy, fun, and eye-catching. She is especially inspired by the look of the early 20th century (including how it is portrayed on the Spanish TV show Seis Hermanas), and it wouldn't be a stretch in the slightest to think, at first glance, that you were looking at an actual antique or vintage piece of jewelry when you browse Mon Carrousel's curated collection.
Well priced and expertly made, I'd happily shop from Mon Carrousel and highly suggest checking out and favouring their Etsy shop, where, as mentioned above in this post, you can currently save 15% off on all orders between now and the end of August when you use the exclusive coupon code MCSave15.
I don't have a lot of 20s or 30s garb or newer styles that look the part, so instead of trying to scrap together an outfit of that nature, I opted instead to take my look in a strongly forties direction.
To do so, I reached for my super beloved black 1940s style jumper dress from Tatyana (purchased back when they were still called Betty Paige Clothing), which, despite having owned and worn many times, has only appeared here once before and that was just in a single photo (in this 2013 travel post), not as a key player in a dedicated outfit post.
I teamed it with a dusty yellow hued vintage blouse that features beautiful floral embroidery, a fun 1940s hat with millinery daisies on the underside of the brim, my treasured 1940s telephone cord handbag, an assortment of bracelets (including a 1930s cream celluloid one, in a further nod to the deco-ness of the earrings), a pair of vintage cream gloves, and my black forties style faux suede pumps that have appeared here more times over the years than I can recall.
As has been the case so very often over the past nearly 3.5 months now, these snaps were taken quite literally between rain showers (early on Saturday evening while there was still some daylight). They were snapped at a location which, if you've been following my blog for a while now, you may recall having seen before. It's a relatively basic painted grey wall in the nearby city of Kelowna, which I've loved from the moment I first laid eyes on it.
There's scarcely an outfit around you can't partner with its neutral tone and I'm sure that if we lived in Kelowna, it would probably appear here several times throughout any given year. As it is, this is now the wall's third CV showing and chances are, far from its last.
It occurs to me, as I pen these words, that it's really fitting that one of my favourite backdrops would team up with a new favourite outfit.
Love that - just as I do these marvelous art deco inspired earrings from Mon Carrousel, which even though my wardrobe is primarily 1940s – 1950s focused, transcend eras enough that I know they’ll be sported often and with much handmade jewelry adoring happiness.
