3rd Time Charm Vintage: A Little Southwest, a Little Urban, a Little 80s Glamour

Dark, dark indigo blue jeans by Wallflower, boot cut with a little flare at the ankle. Leopard-print boots with 1½-inch heels. A slim black T-shirt with a gray-and-white longhorn steer skull.

Then my black denim jacket: intentionally distressed, cropped to the rib cage, torn and frayed, with brass snaps that have a dark finish. Who knows why we like our denim distressed, but this is the look. I roll the sleeves up at the wrists so my bracelets can have their moment.

And finally, the beginning of true vintage for me. A 1980s Monet gold-tone mesh chain necklace and coordinating earrings. The earrings are round, about the size of a silver dollar, echoing the necklace’s Brutalist-style details. A dark wash emphasizes the textures. One of the first “sets” I’ve collected.

Vintage Monet is collected for its quality construction, durable plating, and distinctive designs. With care, its finishes can hold up beautifully for decades. These pieces are roughly forty years old, bringing a little 1980s glamour to my distressed denim and leopard-print boots.

What works is how it all comes together on me. The boots give me a little height, and the jeans show the muscle tone I’m enjoying from my hips down to my ankles. The denim and shirt contain and smooth my midsection. Then the jacket gives me some distressed structure.

I get to enjoy my high-low look: a little Southwest, a little urban, a little old glamour.

All very American. All things I love to wear.

I spent summers working in my dad’s vegetable garden, harvesting corn, peppers, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and the like. He bought property and grew potatoes and more. We raised animals. He was from Texas. Being self-reliant, self-sufficient landowners was the ideal.

At home in the evenings with Mom, we watched Dynasty and Dallas, wrapped up in the faux luxury of American dramas.

It was a wonderful part of my childhood, when I didn’t have a clue what was going on with my family, other people’s families, or the world. For me, then, it was only the material world.

Now I put it on, and I feel a little of that comfort again.

But I don’t leave my country roots behind.

I let them be the rootstock for a different vine.

My style is becoming a way of reconnecting with parts of my life that once felt in conflict—the country roots and the attraction to faux luxury. Now I get to wear them together, in my own way.