Archive for March 16th, 2006
Bella Rose hosts trunk show for festive fashions
Lexington Herald-Leader
By HarrietT Hendren
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
Bella Rose, 126 West Maxwell Street, will have a trunk show Thursday through March 18, featuring styles from Lazaro.
Designs include looks for weddings, Derby balls and spring galas.
Seeking this year’s models
Macy’s in Fayette Mall is conducting a model search for an upcoming prom fashion show.
Girls and women ages 13 to 19 are invited to sign up from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the store’s mall entrance by the cosmetics counters.
Twelve winners will model the latest in prom wear at a fashion show at 2 p.m. March 18 in the store’s “social occasion” department. They’ll each also receive a $25 prom wardrobe certificate and a goodie bag of prom products
Cottage sale
Eve Goins of Eve’s Cottage, 714 Henry Clay Boulevard, at the corner of Liberty Road, has just returned from a buying trip with home fashions and garden accessories.
Merchandise includes vintage-look garden benches, trellises, potting tables, planters and scroll-work wall decor.
Through Saturday, save 20 percent to 50 percent on select lighting, jewelry, kitchen decor and painted furniture.
For more information, call (859) 576-8085.
Luggage for a cause
Leather Inc. in The Mall at Lexington Green will have its 11th annual luggage trade-in sale through March.
Bring in your used luggage and receive $25 off any new piece valued at $100 or more.
The used luggage will be refurbished and donated to United Way of the Bluegrass Gifts in Kind program. Since the event began 11 years ago, more than 700 pieces of luggage have been donated.
Book yourself a discount
Joseph-Beth Booksellers in The Mall at Lexington Green will have its 20 percent off sale on Friday, March 17.
The sale excludes newspapers, gift cards, cafŽ purchases, and items already discounted 20 percent or more.
Old is new in Morehead
The Morehead Antique Market is this weekend at the Carl D. Perkins Community Center on Ky. 32.
It’s the first time for the market, which will start out with more than 20 vendors selling a variety of antiques. Concessions will be available. Admission is $2.
March 16th, 2006
Opal Jewelry
ClickPress (press release)
If you are different and really particular about the color of your jewelry, you must have appreciated the myriad hues of opal that looks gorgeous and stunning with its vivacity and exclusive colors. Due to this, opal is really popular among jewelry lovers and collector as it has different color combination in every stones. You can find various ornaments in opal whose gleaming hues gave augment a phrase called opalescent because of its exceptionality and unmatched beauty.
[ClickPress, Wed Mar 08 2006] If you are different and really particular about the color of your jewelry, you must have appreciated the myriad hues of opal that looks gorgeous and stunning with its vivacity and exclusive colors. Due to this, opal is really popular among jewelry lovers and collector as it has different color combination in every stones. You can find various ornaments in opal whose gleaming hues gave augment a phrase called opalescent because of its exceptionality and unmatched beauty.
The exclusive color pattern and light of each opal is different from one stone to second stone. Depending upon the depth and characteristics, opals reflects their charm and sensation on its wearers and distinguishes them from others. Because of their multitude color pattern, opals represent feminine and soft side to fulfill the needs of women who love the touch of luster and coloring in their jewelry.
Being a semi-precious stone, opal comes in different colors. Black opals with their rareness and marking beauty can cost you equals to diamonds. Red opals with their catching looks and fiery appearance are generally expensive than other opals. Sometimes known as the Mexican opal or cherry opal, red opal is translucent in looks carrying a vivid color. On the other hand, blue opals are measured least in price. Doublet and triplet opals that are available squeezed in between two other metals are also comparatively less priced than solid opal stones. Solitaire set in opals is also popular these days which gives energy and shine to its wearer.
With their great looks and beauty, opals are really a tough gemstone to clean and keep in fresh and wearable manner. Unlike other jewelry, opals can not be cleaned in solutions and cleanser rather you have to use a soft brush dipped in vinegar to clean the jewelry frequently.
Being the birthstone of October, opals possessed some positive and negative powers. In Europe, opal is considered as an official gem of robbers and thieves but in many other cultures opal is the symbol of good fortune and magic. Greek believed that wearer of opal can possess the power to predict the future whereas Romans were in impression that opal can bring purity and hope.
Whatever the reason is, the beauty and irresistible charm of opal was popular and it is still creating its magic and radiance on the wearers that includes not only women but men too are realizing their extraordinary color sequence and pattern and adding their spark in their jewelry collection.
March 16th, 2006
Collectible vintage costume pieces are bright, bold fashion statements
Waterbury Republican-American
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
By Marta Salij
Copyright © 2006 AP Wire
Can a woman ever have too many fabulous jewels? This is a question we put to Carole Tanenbaum, collector extraordinaire of antique and vintage costume jewelry.
Too many? Consider: She has more than 3,500 pieces in her personal collection and more than 8,000 in her retail Carole Tanenbaum Vintage Collection. (Ogle them at www.truefaux.com.)
Fabulous? Oh, yes. She has a particular love for bold, colorful jewelry from the 1950s, the sort of statement-making pieces that take a strong personality to carry off.
Which Tanenbaum cheerfully agrees she has. “I love the `wow’ factor of `50s jewelry,” she says by phone from her home in Toronto. “Like my personality is kind of bigger than life, so is my jewelry. I’m a very small person — I’m 5 feet — but I wouldn’t think twice about wearing three pins at one time or multiple necklaces.
“I love the rhinestones, I love the color that was used and I love the scale of the ’50s.”
Now, Tanenbaum is sharing her love of jewelry from all eras in a book, “Fabulous Fakes: A Passion for Vintage Costume Jewelry,” and a bookstore tour.
“It’s a passion that I’ve had for more than 20 years,” she says. ” I’ve worked very hard at trying to find the special pieces … really art pieces, objects of art rather than jewelry, in many cases.”
“Fabulous Fakes” offers hundreds of mouth-watering, full-color photos of jewelry from the late Victorian period through today, bracketed by Tanenbaum’s stories of how history and personalities became reflected in jewelry.
One surprise in her research was to discover the extent of the feud between Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli in the first half of the 20th century. You know Chanel: the creator of slim, simple suits that begged for multiple costume jewels to adorn them.
As for “Schiap,” as she was called, she’s the designer who coined “shocking pink” as a name for her favorite color. She also dreamed up new ways for women to dress and adorn themselves with costume jewelry, but there the resemblance ends, Tanenbaum says.
Chanel’s designs were classic and elegant, she writes. Schiap’s were influenced by surrealism and were bolder and more daring, with unusual colors of crystals often used in pear and octagonal shapes in the same piece. Those are much-sought by collectors today, Tanenbaum says.
Other personalities loomed over jewelry in unexpected ways, Tanenbaum discovered.
Queen Victoria, for one.
“Really, all of the Victorian era was influenced … all of the jewelry that was made was influenced by what Queen Victoria did,” she says.
Take the jet mourning jewelry that came into vogue then or the jewelry woven from the hair of a loved one, which seems a little morbid to modern eyes. We have Victoria’s protracted mourning of Prince Albert to thank for that, Tanenbaum says. Victoria’s influence continues today, she says, “like when you have a baby and you cut off the baby’s first locks and keep them,” she says.
The photos and histories in ” Fabulous Fakes” are fun, but many readers will want to know how to start a collection themselves.
Tanenbaum herself buys with an eye to condition first, and that’s her advice for new collectors. Look for pieces in excellent, original condition and pass by pieces that have been remade or renovated.
“If I needed a piece to fill in a certain area in my collection, and the condition is not great, I would buy it until I found another one to substitute it out when I find one in great condition,” she says.
Another question: What’s the difference between costume and fine jewelry?
Today, she says, the line is well-drawn: Fine jewelry has precious stones and is set in gold or platinum. Most everything else is costume.
But in earlier eras, some semi precious stones figured in what would today be collected as fine antique jewelry.
Other pieces, such as the Scottish plaid pins she shows in her book, are carved from agate, malachite, bloodstone and even granite — no sparkly gemstones at all. Nonetheless, they are highly collectible.
As for eBay and Web sites such as www.rubylane.com and www.trocadero, among many others, Tanenbaum thinks they’re a boon to collectors — if buyers approach them with proper care.
“When they go to an antique show, or when they go to the store, they can see eye-to-eye the person who is selling it to them,” she says. “They can examine the piece, they can ask questions about the piece, etc. Online, you know, it’s `buyer beware.”‘
To protect yourself, don’t even bid unless you have an assurance from sellers that they’ll take the piece back, should you discover it’s not what was advertised.
Tanenbaum has bought many pieces in her existing collection from online sellers, but she avoids the types of jewelry that counterfeiters seem to target — for instance, the much-collected mid-century jewelry of Miriam Haskell.
“I would never buy a Haskell on the Internet,” she says. “Eighty percent of those Haskells on the Internet are embellished `Haskells.”‘
In January, Katie Hafner of the New York Times published a story about the growing discontent among jewelry collectors over fakes on eBay, such as fake Weiss brooches.
March 16th, 2006
History of women’s jewelry detailed in Hanoi
Thanh Nien Daily
A display of women’s ornaments and jewelry is on at the Women’s Museum in Hanoi, categorizing items that beautified Vietnamese women over generations.
The exhibition features unique pieces of jewelry worn by Vietnamese women from the Phung Nguyen and Dong Son periods thousands of years ago.
More contemporary forms of jewelry are on display, from feudalist reigns including Ly, Tran, Le and Nguyen between the 11th and 19th centuries.
Also on display are photographs and images of women of different ethnic minority peoples in Vietnam since early 20th century.
The highlights include a collection of stone bracelets in various sizes and shapes dating back 3,000 to 3,500 years ago, and a collection of 70 to 80 earrings made of semiprecious stones 2,000- 2,500 years ago.
Dong Son jewelry
The most noteworthy artifacts are a collection of bronze jewelry, from bandeaus and brooches to necklaces, bracelets, earrings, belts and mirrors, which belonged to the Dong Son civilization.
The headbands, embellished with feathers were precious jewelry that the ancient women used to wear on holidays and festivals.
The exhibits also includes bronze brooches whose heads have the shape of flying birds while an image of a dancer is in the center of the piece.
Among the highlights are original bronze buttons, each with a hook in the middle and a very large button, 13-14 centimeter long – possibly used for noble adornment.
The Dong Son civilization was discovered when a fisherman stumbled upon some bronze artifacts in the Dong Son Village of central Thanh Hoa province more than 80 years ago.
Hearing the news, French collector L. Pajot rushed to the site and began a large-scale excavation of the region.
In 1929, a researcher from L’Ecole d’Extreme Orient (School of the Far East), Victor Goloubew, linked the Dong Son artifacts with others found in the Hong (Red) River Delta and presented them as Bronze Age relics.
The exhibition at 36 Ly Thuong Kiet Street, Hanoi is scheduled to wrap up on March 30.
March 16th, 2006
