Alexander Calder's Jewelry

Fabric Necklaces

Danny Mansmith textile necklace.

Ruff from an Elizabethan costume designed by William Ivey Long.

Make a textile necklace from vintage upholstery fabric.  The simpler your design, the better, though consider adding texture with seams or embedded wires, as in the Elizabethan ruff.  

Consumer Frenzy #1: Mid Century Modern Jewelry

After over a year, the ornate botanical motifs of these art nouveau-inspired earrings have grown a bit tired. Wood Cut-Out Earrings from South Street Designs on etsy, $20

Deco Drop Earrings from le train bleu, $88

Modern mid century jewelry, with its abstract geometric shapes and textural emphasis, is sadly underrepresented on the streets of Portland, a problem which I for one will do my part to correct. Check out the collection at 20th Obsession, which is impressive, though pricey. For more affordable wares, look to Recyklotron.

Chrome Mobile Earrings from Recyklotron, $20

Sterling Oval Modernist Earrings by Polly Stehman, circa 1960 from 20th Obsession, $225

Sterling Abstract Cast Earrings, circa 1960's from 20th Obsession, $150

Coro Necklace from Recyklotron, $30

Unsolicited Advice #2: Wear Vintage Hair Combs

Vogue magazine cover from 1923

Trends #2: For The Birds

This feathery friend, which can be found on etsy, is merely the foreflier of a flock as vast as that which menaces the characters in Hitchock's The Birds. Why are birds, particularly those of the quasi-biblical swallow varitety featured in this necklace (from Sabine Cayet Tucci of Pudding), so ubiquitous?


This highly stylized little charm is one of many manifestations of a general return to the aesthetics of art deco.

Unsolicited Advice #1: Wear Adjacent Colors

Disregard the disembodied voices warning you away from wearing more than one shade of a color. These bracelets' adjacent colors (kelly green, pea green, and olive) and contrasting materials (plastic, Bakelite, and wood) make them an appealing, if slightly unnerving, trio.