Alternative uses for vintage jewellery – fancy dressing

Posted on Aug 7 2015 - 11:01am by Charlie

The fashion world is a fickle place, where the “in thing” changes every few weeks and gaudy and daring fashions can be all the rage in one moment and old hat in the next. There are sites that allow you to design your own necklace and make something truly your own. While other fashion fads tend to fade away with time only a few remain timeless. Nonetheless, it can be relieving to see certain fashions that never change and always have their own place in our modern world.

costume jewellery

Vintage Jewellery – Back In Fashion

One such fashion is the vintage or ‘retro’ style of clothing and jewellery. Every few years it is announced worldwide that ‘retro’ is back in fashion and people are able to drag their old outfits out of their cupboards, squeeze fondly back into them and wear them once more.

Vintage jewellery is a great example of something that always makes a successful comeback as everything sets about changing. With its stylish handmade designs, delicately wrought silverware and quaint features, vintage jewellery can make a great gift for those looking at getting a bargain, or a hidden treasure found at a car boot sale. Even worn out vintage jewellery can sometimes be salvaged and transformed anew, which is often great news for elderly patrons looking at leaving behind something meaningful for their relatives.

Another use for Vintage jewellery is one that is a little unorthodox and that is for fancy dress.

Fancy Dress – Themed Parties and Steampunk
Fancy dress parties have always been a popular way to celebrate events such as birthday parties and Halloween, so vintage jewellery can be used to great effect when organising Victorian themed or ‘Pre-war’ themed parties and other similar events. It is easy enough to get cheap jewellery from party shops or online, but buying genuine vintage jewellery adds an extra element to the costume and it means it will be far less likely to break throughout the night.

Steampunk fancy dress and its lesser known cousin; Dieselpunk, also makes good use of vintage jewellery.

The Rise of Steampunk
Steampunk is essentially a fantasy idea based on Victorian steam technology. It follows the path of a ‘parallel future’ whereby humans never invented electricity and continued to use steam as their main source of power. This Victorian style of clothing, weaponry and armour is then adapted to this futuristic setting, so that it has become very much like its own fashion statement.

People can go to comic book conventions and other events in ‘Steampunk-esque’ dress and there are even a few Steampunk themed conventions in their own right, which hosts panels documenting the theory behind Steampunk, tea drinking competitions and stalls selling vintage jewellery, hats and accessories.

Making your Own
Can you make your own vintage jewellery? If you’re a little craft-minded and you have a device that can access the internet, or a local craft shop where you can buy supplies, then certainly yes! Local craft shops will sometimes offer jewellery making glasses working with iron or brass and these are great places to start making your own vintage jewellery. You can also look up guides online.

If you’re not as crafty as some others, you can always buy pre-made pieces to customise your own necklaces and bracelets. Because of the rising popularity of Steampunk, it is becoming easier to find quirky pieces of jewellery, including iconic ‘cog and screw’ decorative charms and brooches, which are very popular in the Steampunk community.

So there you have it! Next time you think about perhaps throwing out that old necklace because it is no longer ‘in fashion’ maybe consider saving it for a costume, or better still, see if you can get a few pounds for it online, as there are countless people who are willing to buy and repurpose old jewellery into a new lease of life.

Article provided by www.amabyss.com, an independent, design led boutique that is all about unique and edgy vintage home accessories, unusual gifts and quirky jewellery.

 

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