a trend i can actually wear: leather wrap bracelets

alright! so i guess i survived my first blog entry and now we're on to number two. things are looking good.

today's story begins a few months ago, when my sister and i took a trip to italy. throughout our vacation (we were in rome, capri and florence) i saw leather bracelets everywhere. i actually quite liked them, but by the time we got to florence where i was thinking of getting one (you know, being a city of leather and all that) i had spent way too much money and decided it was unnecessary. that was a really dumb decision and i knew even as i made it that i would regret it later - oh well.

so you can imagine how excited / dismayed i was to see that leather wrap bracelets are popping up in relatively mainstream retail locations this fall. excited because i can get my hands on one, dismayed because probably every single girl at my school will have one that is exactly like mine when i could have had a unique one from italy. le sigh. anyway, the first one that caught my eye is the gorjana graham leather studded wrap in gold:

they are available in pretty much every colour ever, but i love the "grey" one, which to me looks more like brown, but whatever. i love the little studs - i think i could actually pull them off even though my wardrobe is 95% cardigans aka prep city. i also like that the studs are gold - you can get them in silver, but 95% of my jewelry wardrobe is silver so i like to branch out sometimes. this bracelet is $55USD and i am really hoping i can snag one at neiman marcus while i'm in san francisco, because apparently neiman carries gorjana. i'll keep you posted.

the second version i like, and which i actually saw a couple of weekends ago in florida but didn't buy and now regret that decision (hmm...) is the flat stud double-wrap bracelet from j. crew:

this one is available in tuscan olive (pictured) and black. i like tuscan olive - the black seems too extreme with the gold studs, and as discussed above that probably wouldn't go well with my preppy wardrobe. it's also nice that the length is adjustable. the j. crew in san francisco (where i am right now) didn't have this bracelet, but it did have another wrap leather bracelet sans studs with a belt-like closure. apparently i do learn from my mistakes sometimes, because i got that one - it's kind of dark brown / mauve-y and sparkly, and therefore awesome. i can't seem to find it online though, so you i guess you'll just have to imagine it. :) i can't remember how much mine was, but the one above is $26.50USD and i know mine wasn't much more than that. personally that seems like a pretty reasonable price for a piece of jewelry that is pretty much costume, but that will last a while because it's leather. 

a final thought about this leather wrap bracelet situation. i generally shy away from costume jewelry because my skin is super sensitive, especially on my hands, and metals other than silver and gold leave a lovely (hideous) greenish brownish tinge on my skin. but since leather is not a metal (i know, shocking) it shouldn't leave a mark. even if you're worried about the metal clasps, they can be arranged so they're on top of the other "layer" of leather and don't touch your skin. it's not very often that i find "costume" / cheaper jewelry which i actually like, so i am pretty excited!

a welcome of sorts - and the first (of many, most probably) tiffany pieces

hello everyone!

so begins my foray into blogdom. i came up with this idea randomly one day at work - these things happen - and decided it was a good one for the following reasons:

1. i love jewelry.
2. i have yet to find a blog out there (although i'm sure one, or ten dozen, exist) that focuses solely on jewelry.
3. i am picky about my taste in jewelry and i find that sometimes general fashion blogs talk about pieces that are too trendy for my tastes. maybe that is the point of blogging, to keep up with trends... clearly i do not care.
4. i like good grammar. lots of blogs (not all, but lots) have bad grammar. therefore. i will write my own.
5. i talk about jewelry a lot. jewelry is also the first thing i notice on another person. true story.

you might also discover in the relatively near future that i like lists.

anyway, i guess i should also include some sort of review in this post, so i can actually call myself a blogger and not a rando who rants to herself in cyber space. after some strenuous internal debate (ha), i have decided to start classic and talk about a tiffany piece. specifically, the elsa peretti round pendant with rhodonite in sterling silver.

isn't it lovely? i love the pink, although realistically i could do with any of the colours. i have this pendant on a tiffany charm bracelet in onyx and it is quite nice as well. i like this piece because it doesn't scream "TIFFANY" to me - i mean, obviously if you are a walking tiffany box (ahem) then you will know this is both tiffany and elsa peretti, which i hear a lot of chirping about because it's so "common." everyone has elsa peretti jewelry (open heart, i'm looking at you), it's not a novelty any more, blah blah blah. but i don't know if all this chirping is necessarily a bad thing. it is basically a weird way of acknowledging you have good taste and you are willing to invest in nicer casual jewelry (i consider silver to be casual jewelry for the most part, but that's just me) - both of which are good things, at least to me. at $295 (usd), it is a bit pricey for elsa peretti pendants, but i think that is also pretty self-explanatory considering there are gems involved and not just silver. i think that is very reasonable for, say, a christmas gift (not that i have already started my list or anything). 

i also like tiffany silver pendants because they are so consistent. the chain is always dependable, always 16", and always coordinated so the clasp goes in your right hand and the eye goes in your left hand when you do it up (which is weirdly important to me because i suck at doing anything with my left hand). as any good tiffany salesperson will tell you, the 16" length is absolutely perfect because it sits above a crew neck tee and basically works with any article of clothing you could wear. i have a couple of necklaces in 18" just to mix things up, but for the most part 16" is classic.

what do you think? am i being way too predictable for talking about a tiffany piece first, or do you like this one? (do you think it's annoying that i constantly write side-notes in brackets?)