“Accessories are little pick-me-ups designed to invigorate what has come to feel drab and predictable.” David Sedaris - When You Are Engulfed In Flames.
Eyewear
First up; if you don’t have to wear glasses then don’t wear them! Glassless alternatives enable you to say goodbye to your specs and instantly appear more youthful. You could find you’re a candidate for laser surgery. This is a permanent solution where a laser is used to correct near and far sightedness. It’s an option that may not be as expensive as you think. Could you persuade your family to pool their resources and give you laser treatment for a birthday or Christmas present?
Once laser surgery is done that’s it, no more glasses. Usually one eye is treated at a time. Ask your optician or eye doctor if you’d be a suitable candidate, it depends on your eye shape, astigmatism and any other eye issues.
Exciting Contacts
Contact lenses could be a viable option, and if you’ve worn optical correction since your early years you’re probably already wearing contact lenses - at least sometimes. The bonus to wearing contact lenses is the choice of tinted lenses available that enables you to re-intensify and refresh your eye colour.
Even those of us fortunate enough not to need glasses yet can benefit from ready-to-wear coloured contact lenses that are designed purely to change eye colour. These lenses come in stunning blues, greens, violet and browns. You don’t want to look weird or batty so start with colours that enhance your natural eye colour rather than change it completely. Embrace more ‘out there’ colours as you grow more comfortable but remember that natural human eye colours don’t flash tiger, zebra stripes or hearts or flowers!
The 10 Worst Ever Eyewear Mistakes
Some eyewear is just plain out dated and old fashioned and should not be put near your face:
- Functional unsexy square frames
- Having new lenses fitted into your old frames
- Half glasses and bi-focals
- Rimless glasses – unless they are designer/expensive and look it!
- Frames that sag downwards
- Dame Edna frames that swoop up
- Round Harry Potter (or John Lennon) glasses with metal frames
- Dark, heavy frames
- Glasses hanging from necklace chains
- Pink or yellow sunglass lense
Finding fabulous frames
There has been an overwhelming amount of contradictory eye wear advice issued over the years. Frame specialists have suggested that face shape, eye colour, the size of the face, skin tone, make-up preferences (how much we wear) hair colour, the colour most dominant in our wardrobes, plus the basics - fit and price all be taken into consideration in varying proportions when we are choosing glasses frames.
Forget it! Even remembering all those points is too hard!
Of course budget does play a big part; and fit is paramount when you are selecting glasses and frames. To begin your search for your own perfectly fabulous frames go to one of the bigger optical retailers who offer a wide selection of frames at all price points. Eyewear makes an instant impact and reveals volumes about your personal style so you’ve got to get it right. The bigger the range you have to choose from, the more likely you are to be successful! Eyeglass frames are fashion items and every big fashion house has its logo on a line of eyewear. New styles, shapes, colours and technology are added each season.
Your eyeglass frames can make you look intriguing, intellectual, edgy, arty, sexy and smart. They can also make you look prissy, prim, mumsy, dopey, ditsy or sad.
Locate the most stylish consultant in the store and tell her (or him) that you’d like assistance in finding fashion-forward frames as you want to give yourself a bit of a makeover (people love giving advice and they love being part of makeovers!).
Then try on. And try, try, try! Put every frame in the store on your face if you have to. You’ll know when you’ve found the right pair; it’s like Cinderella, the handsome prince and the glass slipper, it will all just fit!
· The perfect frame will be in proportion to your face and features. Where do the frames hit your eye brows? The top of the frame should be at the bottom of your eyebrow. The eyebrows should be out of the frames, not hidden by them or within the lens.
· The shape of the frame doesn’t necessarily have to follow the shape of your face. Face shape is a factor, but more flattering newer frames are designed to counterbalance face shapes. So, if your face is rectangular or oblong (the two most common face shapes) try oval shaped frames or frames that softly curve around the eyes. If you have a round face try glasses with sharper angles such as bevelled or diamond shaped sides.
· Everyone looks best in frames that tilt upwards slightly at the sides. Every lift helps! Where are the arms? If they’re at the base of the frame; if there is a decorative lower frame or the frame turns downward making the face drop and look sad and droopy then the frame is not for you. Up, up, up!
· The perfect frame blends with your hair colour, not your eye colour. This is because proportionately we have a lot more hair colour than we have eye colour! Tortoiseshell is the most flattering frame colour. It contains many shades and undertones that are found in hair colour, and lends itself to blingy diamantes - if you are so inclined.
· How dark are the frames? Black frames tend to be severe, grim, ageing and harsh. Warm coloured frames are kind to everyone regardless of their skin tone and some gorgeous colours are out there.
If you have hair in the blonde and/or golden shades: Go with frames that are white, ivory, light beige or translucent and containing hints of pale gold. Light tortoiseshell frames threaded with khaki, medium chocolate brown, rose or gold look good with blonde hair. Avoid black frames even if they are shiny and teamed with another colour. Black frames are too heavy and do not youthfully complement blondes.
If you have red or auburn hair: Pale caramels, cream and translucent ivory frames are flattering. Do you fancy tortoiseshell frames? Find medium warm brown tones with hints of gold and red. Avoid yellow, red and brown henna-hued shades look best with red or auburn hair.
If you have brown hair: Try warm russet or deep chocolate brown frames. Golden tortoiseshell shades look great with brown hair. Don’t go too dark; black frames will be too severe.
If you have black hair: Tortoiseshell without any gold in it could be brilliant for you, or try dark chocolate browns that do not contain yellow or red. Try the warmer solid violet colours, or black, although the correct frame shape will be vital if you choose black framed eyewear.
If your hair is grey: Eyeglass frames bring extra colour and warmth to your face – choose red, plum, or deep pink and avoid cool blues, greys, greens and silver. Tortoiseshell will be too warm, solid coloured frames are more flattering.
Eye make-up draws attention through the lenses to your eyes which is where you want people to look. A couple of individual fake eyelash clumps will give your eyes a boost and a dash of lipstick balances the face.
What about those cute little inexpensive reading glasses stacked on display stands in boutiques and chemists or available in the markets? Don’t you love them? There’s a great range of frame colours and choice of magnification. These little glasses are handy to keep in an office drawer, glove-box or handbag for emergencies when you’ve forgotten your reading glasses; but they are not long term substitutes for professionally prescribed eyeglasses.
Glasses for charity
Recycle your eyewear when your eyes outgrow prescriptions and frame styles. Lions Clubs world wide operate glasses collection programmes. Discarded eyewear is collected by local clubs and sent to a regional centre where volunteers clean, repair and prepare it for distribution to the needy. The rejuvenated glasses are delivered to humanitarian distribution teams or supplied to charity clinics both at home and abroad. Foresight Australia is another not-for-profit organisation who recycles eyewear and distributes it to charity.
Finally, a word on eye tests: Australian citizens (adults and children) are eligible for a free Medicare-covered eye test once every two years. Some optometrists claim the cost direct from Medicare so you may not need to pay up front.
Eye checks are worth having as the blood vessels and nerves in the eyes can reflect what is happening within the rest of the body. Issues such as diabetes, raised blood pressure, tumours and other health problems that we may not even realise we have could be detected early and addressed. On top of that, at least you are getting something back from the government for your tax dollars!
Statement Sunglasses
Go for big, bold, oversized sunglasses! Frames too big for clear prescription lenses look fantastic with sunshade lenses inside them.
Don’t presume that because lens glass is dark coloured it will block out dangerous sunrays. Sunglasses should offer 100 percent ultra violet (UV) protection and fully cover the eye area. Health wise, sunglasses are sun blocks for the eyes, shading them from the UV rays and helping ward off issues such as cataracts and muscular degeneration. When you wear sunnies you’ll squint less (less crow’s feet!) and you’ll protect the vulnerable skin around the eye area.
Tortoiseshell frames are timeless sunglass frames, aviator sunglasses have a touch of masculine style about them and the Jackie O shape is a beautiful classic sunglass. Oversized glasses ramp up a simple outfit, but it is not youthful to wear sunglasses indoors or at night when it’s dark!
What colour lenses should the sunglass lenses be? The darker the better! Charcoal, grey, green and brown exude an air of mystique. Yellow and pink make the sun look bright and you look ditsy.
El cheapo designer copy sunnies are always tempting. They might stop you squinting but they may not offer the UV protection that decent quality sunglasses provide. It’s a no-brainer isn’t it? Protecting the eyes is what it’s all about.
Check out what the designers are doing, whatever is happening on the catwalk will be translated to eyewear and the designers always get it right.
The Crown Jewels
Where do you keep your good jewellery when you’re not wearing it?
Is it hidden away in a safe place and dragged out just for special occasions? Actually, how often do you wear it? What you’re saving it for? Are you going to bequeath to someone? The chances are that your eventual heir will have the pieces remodelled. And could even plunder the gems and metal to create a totally new and trendy piece! In the meantime you are the one who is missing out on the pleasure of wearing your own jewellery!
Are you keeping it ‘for best’? From now on, every day is ‘best’ - for the rest of your life.
If you’re wearing faux jewellery and storing away your good stuff then get it out, mix it up and get it on! Wear everything – but not all at once!
Fake it ‘til you make it!
We might not be able to buy any of the famous diamonds - the Topaki, the Hope or the Liz Taylor diamond (even if they were for sale), but we may well be able to rake together enough money to buy one or two of the fashion-forward jewellery pieces waiting for us at the mass retail jewellery stores! Just because we can’t have the real deal doesn’t mean we can’t have one like it! And who’s to know whether the gems are fake or real anyway? To be honest, most people assume that diamonds worn by women in their summer years are genuine.
Costume jewellery doesn’t have to be in-your-face-fake. There’s plenty of splendid middle of the road reasonably priced faux jewellery that looks infinitely more attractive than one weenie genuine diamond dangling around the throat from a thin gold chain.
Carats and cost are not the point, have fun and fake it until you make it.
Every woman should have these classic accessories, genuine or faux in her accessory wardrobe:
- A great pair of diamond studs – the bigger, the better.
- A fabulous watch – big, chunky, metal and maybe men’s.
- Several strands of pearls in different lengths. Always in style.
- A pair of silver or gold hoop earrings.
- A cocktail ring – fantastically kicky! Wear it with a tee shirt, dark denim jeans and a linen jacket.
- Patent accessories. Footwear, clutch bag and belts never go out of date.
Scale
Do you have jewellery you love but when you put it on you feel awkward and so you take it off and put it back in the cupboard? Most likely you feel uncomfortable with the piece because it is not within your correct bone scale.
The size and shape of our ideal accessories depends upon our bone structure - the weight and size of our bones. As bones can’t be carved out of the body to be measured and weighed we must rely on instinct, style, and interestingly, personality, to establish the scale that’s right for you! A simple pointer to the correct scale is whether you wear the accessory or whether the accessory wears you!
To determine your scale place your dominant hand around your other wrist (if you are right handed put your right hand around your left wrist and visa versa).
Where does your thumbnail meet your middle finger?
If they don’t meet, or just connect at the tips, you are large scale.
If the thumbnail connects comfortably with the top half of the pad of your middle finger then you are medium scale.
If they meet towards the bottom of your finger pad and the inside crease of your middle finger where it bends, then your scale is small.
Hands are a strong indicator for sizing the scale of accessories that suit you. What looks best on your fingers – a delicate and dainty ring or a big shiny knuckleduster?
However, when it comes to selecting the size of accessories you feel comfortable wearing there are no hard and fast rules. Personality also comes into play.
If you’re shy and reticent there’s no way you’ll feel comfortable wearing huge colourful stand-out pieces that screech for attention, no matter how grand your scale is.
On the other hand, if you are a person who revels in the spotlight and you know that larger-than-life accessories are going to attract attention your way, then you are going to wear ‘em regardless of any designated appropriate scale I might write about here!
Accessories rejuvenate, update, and embellish. They lift an outfit from mundane to magnificent, from sedate to sensuous and make an essential contribution to youthful dressing. They individualise and add interest to your appearance. As focal points they have the power to draw attention towards an area or deflect away from it, so they are useful tools to help overcome figure challenges.
French women, universally acclaimed as the epitome of chic, invest in just a few classic garments each season that they accessorise in a zillion different ways for fresh and stylish looks.
Getting it right is not difficult. Many accessories make a seamless transition from outfit to outfit and from day to evening wear, but not all do.
Evening accessories essentially have more intensity, luminescence and stronger colours than accessories worn in the day time.
If you put on an accessory and are uncertain about it, take it off! You won’t wear it with confidence, you’ll continually fiddle with it, and it will probably end the day (or evening) in your bag or pockets anyway!
How often do we hear that ‘less is best’ or that we should practice ‘simplicity in all things’? When it comes to accessories these age-old maxims ring true. Some women are born with the ability to put together a jumble of eclectic clutter and make it work and others manage an effortless collection of magic. Most of us find our style by knowing when to stop stacking on the accessories and take something off.
Movies are a great source of accessory wizardry. Look closely and see how costume designers skilfully portray individual characters by their dress and accessories – often without the actors uttering a word.
Colour and accessories can be worked to manifest different images:
Do you want to look confident, inspirational, and be noticed?
Attract attention by wearing light coloured garments with minimal pattern and accessorize with dark contrast. For example wear a simple white linen dress with a chunky black, chocolate and gold linked necklace. Finish with a great metallic hobo bag.
Do you want to look enthusiastic, fun and youthful?
Wear medium toned garments with smooth textures such as a turquoise top made from fine wool, a pair of dark denim jeans and bright accessories such as a warm coloured scarf, a score of thin tonal Indian-style bracelets and a pair of denim wedge shoes.
Would you like to look as though you are wealthy, powerful and confident?
A medium coloured jacket and straight skirt suit in fine purple wool worn with a charcoal silk shirt looks impressive. Accessorized with dark and light contrasts such as sheer black pantyhose and patent black heels and finished with a strand or two of medium sized creamy pearls exudes wealth and confidence.
Is dramatic, dignified or formal the look for you?
Dark toned garments such as black crepe pants teamed with a deep forest green shirt look striking. Add light coloured accessories - a medium link chain (in your metal), a great watch and stand out pearl stud earrings. Keep the footwear subtle – black patent medium heeled court shoes would do it.
Do you want a delicate and feminine look?
Wear light garments in light fabrics, and add light weight accessories. For example a medium geometric white and melon coloured dress made from fine cotton teamed with a white one button cotton knit cardigan are similar light weights. Accessorize with a toning structured floral patterned handbag, nude strappy heeled sandals, delicate glass drop earrings and a dainty bracelet watch.
Do you want to look sophisticated and elegant?
Team your outfit and accessories in closely related medium to dark colours. Midnight blue top and black crepe pants, with black or midnight patent heels, charcoal snakeskin clutch, a long midnight blue toned silk scarf and a tonal necklace.
Become a mix master
Mix your metals – several gold and silver link chains look stylish when worn together. One thin silver chain worn with a small pair of gold hoop earrings doesn’t work quite as well.
Mix pearls with metal – mismatched jewellery works! Wear pieces from sets of jewellery separately: a strand of pearls with a chain necklace and a pair of medium metal hoop earrings; or a linked chain with pearl stud earrings looks far more youthful than a matched set.
Mix textures such as wood, glass, resin and plastic together. Find a unifying element such as colour, size or theme and create the illusion of an of-the-moment cuff by putting together several bracelets you already own.
Mix matt and shiny elements such as faux diamonds (diamantes), leather and pearls. Pin a diamante and pearl broach to the lower part of a handbag strap (or the bag), or attach an orphan diamante and pearl drop earring to a leather belt near, but not on the buckle (we don’t do indicators pointing to our nether regions!).
Mix eye-catching broaches in odd numbers on the lapel of a denim jacket or casual cotton jacket. Unifying elements such as colour, texture or theme (flowers, gemstones etc.) make collections look deliberate.
Mix short and long necklaces. Display posters (in jewellery stores or magazine advertisements) are inspirational sources on how to wear several necklaces together. Youthful combinations of texture, tone, material and colour can be easily imitated and adapted to your own style.
Accessories from tip to toe
Headwear
Where have the hat wearers gone? Once no self-respecting woman would have set foot out of her front door without putting on a hat, and gloves too if she was ‘going to town’. My mother wore hats; it was a sign of her decorum, it commanded respect for her married status. My mother said she felt dressed when she wore a hat, it completed her ensemble.
In the mid 1960’s hats were relegated to the rank of accessory and they’ve stayed there ever since; to be dragged out only for the races, church services, weddings and at sports events to shade our faces from the sun (when we remember!).
Truly fabulous millinery creations arrive in the stores each season. Once you start looking you’ll find that they don’t all come with matching fabulously expensive price tags.
Most women purchase only two or three dressy hats during their lifetime. In Australia and New Zealand (and Spain!) we should wear sunhats. Regularly! Casual hats salvage our confidence (and disposition!) on a bad hair day, but more importantly they are our greatest ally to protect our scalps, ears, shoulders, faces and skin from sun damage.
Here’s the heads up:
· A hat is worn closer to the face than any other garment so if the colouring isn’t flattering, or if the hat is black, it will reflect on the skin and make you look old, pale and wrinkled. This applies to the undersides of caps and sun visors too – golfers and sportswomen take note!
· Try on hats in natural light.
· Find a style that works with your hair. If you wear your hair coiled on top of your head for example, you’ll be hard pushed to find a hat with a high enough crown to accommodate your hairstyle. Consider a different style. Try pulling your hair back into a low ponytail or chignon at the nape of your neck.
· Always tuck your hair behind your ears when you wear a hat.
· Make sure the hat is the correct scale for you. This is a tricky one. The rule of thumb is the brim of the hat should not be wider than your shoulders. A turned up brim draws the eye upward and makes you appear taller, if the brim turns downwards the opposite happens and you’ll appear shorter.
· Look for a hat to complement your face shape. If you have a low forehead a high crowned hat will suit you. Low crowned hats fatten the face.
· If you have a high forehead you can wear most hat styles
· The key to successful millinery is that you shouldn’t look as though there’s a party going on on top of your head!
· If you have a round or square shaped face your most flattering hat will have a high, wide crown and a brim you can tilt at an angle.
· If your face is oblong or rectangle tall high-crowned hats won’t do you any favours. A wide brim will counteract the length of your face. Try angling the hat a little to complement your face.
· If you have an oval, heart shaped or inverted triangle shaped face you can wear almost any millinery and wear it however you want!
· High crowned, small brimmed hats are difficult to wear. Instead of looking jaunty, most of us just disappear under the shadows. Hats with wider brims open up the face and give shoulders flattering proportions.
The bottom line is to try, try and try on all hats until you find The One for You.
Do you love a hat but hate that it slips around your head because it’s too big? The average head circumference is 57cms or hat size 7. Make small tucks evenly around the inside band (within the crown) and secure them with safety pins.
A felt or straw hat can be reshaped over a steaming kettle. Allow about twenty seconds for the steam to penetrate the fabric and then carefully reshape the hat with your fingers. Do it little by little as water is the worst enemy of hats (except rain hats) and too much steam will further damage the hat.
Store your hats in hat boxes. Line the box with white tissue paper (coloured tissue paper can bleed into the hat or the colour can rub off if you’re stacking several hats) and stuff the crown with crumpled white tissue paper. Roll some tissue paper sausages to retain the curves of wide-brimmed hats. If just one hat is being placed in a box overstuff the crown with crumpled white tissue so the paper supports the weight of the hat and lifts it from the base of the box, thus maintaining the shape. Push white tissue paper around the hat so it won’t move around in the box if it’s jostled.
It’s easy to create individual millinery from an inexpensive basic hat, fascinator shape or headband. All it takes is a few gorgeous embellishments and a tube of craft glue.
Feathers, flowers, ribbons, jewels on stems or wires, tulle and individual gems coupled with other items such as orphan jewellery can look innovative and individual. Keep weight in mind – you don’t want your knees buckling the moment you put the hat on!
Keep it simple, arrange the embellishments in place before you glue them.
Try your masterpiece on in front of a mirror as you design it, what looks okay on the table might not work on the head.
Use a hot glue gun if you have one, or use 450 Crystal Clear Craft Glue.
Casual practical hats (sunhat, straw hat, etc) lend themselves to informal embellishments such as a couple of floppy flowers - silk roses, daisies, sunflowers etc. or interesting colourful ribbons and bows. Beware of dried real flowers and plant material that snaps and crumbles or attracts bugs when it is stored.
Earrings
The two questions I’m most often asked about earrings:
Question 1.
How obvious are diamante stud earrings masquerading as genuine diamonds?
Answer:
On the mature woman who’s to know? When diamantes are set in a delicate setting and unencumbered by an accompanying army of metal studs marching to the top of the ear, then they are very convincing. If they’re the size of blowflies and obviously fake what does it matter? Who cares! People assume that by the time we reach our middle years we can afford genuinely high carat diamonds. We’ve no need to disillusion them!
Question 2.
What style of earring suits everyone?
Answer:
Medium sized metal hoop earrings! Not everyone chooses to wear hoops, but when the hoops are made from the correct metal for the skin tone (gold for warm skin tones, silver for cool skin tones) medium sized simple hoop earrings absolutely suit everyone.
Hairstyles and clothing are not particularly relevant when it comes to the most flattering earring shapes and styles. Face shape, the length of your neck and whether you possess twin or triple chins are the major considerations. Quite honestly the more unexpected the pairing the better earring shapes and styles look.
Chandelier, round, square, fan shaped, angled oval and small drop earrings flatter a longish face. Studs are always great too.
Teardrops, oval hoops, rectangles, round studs and earrings with more length than width slim down a round face shape and flatter square face shapes.
Long dangling earrings make short necks look even shorter.
Pearl studs, solitaire studs or small plain metal hoops are ladylike, discreet and suited to the corporate world. A smart broach, eye catching necklace or a great watch is alternative jewellery for the professional workplace.
Necklaces
These essential accessories found in most women’s wardrobes have the power to lift an outfit from mediocre to mercurial.
If you are blessed with an elegant swan-like neck then you were genetically created to wear necklaces. You’ll look amazing wearing a wide choker or a chunky piece at your collarbone. Designers have you in mind when they create long thick beaded wreaths. Most necklace lengths, thicknesses and designs suit you.
Necklace selection for short necks is more limited. Consider wearing earrings to bring attention upward, especially if twin chins are present. Delicate pieces (as opposed to chunky jewellery) look terrific falling on the décolletage between the base of the throat and the breasts. A low thin, delicate pendant sitting in the same area and framed by a ‘V’ neck can also look interesting.
The most successful necklaces for those well blessed in the boobs department are droplet or pendants that end just at the top of the cleavage. It is not youthful to allow the pendant or droplet (or any necklace) to disappear into the cleft of the breasts. The most flattering length is from the base of the throat to the cleavage, and airy designs such as large open linked chains are more flattering than tight heavy pieces.
Flat-chested women have a wonderful display board in front for huge and spectacular pieces! Mix up necklace textures and lengths (find one unifying element such as tonal colours).
Pearls are classics that never go out of style and suit everyone.
If your colouring is cool then pearls in the whiter shades will suit you.
Creamier shades are the perfect pearls for warm skin tones.
Gorgeous imitation pearls come in a range of sizes, the most credible and real-looking are small to medium sized. People may question the authenticity of pearls the size of marbles but who cares, aren’t they fun? If you love the big chunky pearls of the minute but feel your neck isn’t long enough to wear them comfortably, find a big fat pearl bracelet and wear that!
Next time we'll look at accessories from the neck down - bracelets, rings, shoes, bags, etc. Exciting stuff, don't you love accessories? So, until next time, dig out your bits and pices and wrap them around your body! Kisses, Dawn
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