Vintage Hand-Painted Art and Gold Tone Fashion Jewelry With Modern Workwear
My grapes of wrath :) I’m wearing them instead of drinking them. :)
I found this wonderful vintage 1980s blouse, hand-painted with grapes and wine, oversized and soft and completely itself.
It is the kind of piece that could easily be treated as something precious.
I didn’t want to do that.
I paired it with fitted Dickies camo pants.
Workwear. Outdoors. Rugged. Durable fabric. Practical clothing. Clothing made for getting through the day.
I feel that.
Getting through the day.
That’s why it felt right.
I have worked hard in my life.
Sometimes too hard.
Sometimes things were made harder than they ever needed to be.
I certainly didn’t grow up being told I deserved nice things. If anything, the lesson was the opposite: you don’t deserve much, so don’t expect much.
And somehow that can become something else entirely.
Don’t enjoy too much.
Don’t indulge.
Don’t get comfortable.
Luxury is lazy.
There have been years when being capable, useful, adaptable, and willing to keep going were not personality traits so much as survival skills.
And I couldn’t tell the difference.
I was just in it.
In it up to my skin and nerves.
Maybe that is why I still like a little grit close to my skin.
Camo. Dickies. Denim. Boots.
Things with weight to them.
Things that suggest somebody might actually have somewhere to go and something to do.
Someone not made faint by the idea of wading into water or leaning into the wind on a stormy day.
I don’t really think of camouflage as military when I wear it.
Or even as hunting wear.
To me, it is leaves and dirt and being unafraid to go outside and get dirty.
I love nature.
So camo, to me, is nature broken into pattern.
An abstract.
And this shirt is nature too.
Grapes.
Vines.
Wine.
Except the shirt takes nature and turns it into something lush and indulgent.
So naturally, I added gold-tone shine.
Gold-tone sandals.
Chunky vintage gold-tone fashion jewelry.
Bracelets, rings, chains — all costume jewelry, all chosen for the weight and gleam of it.
Some of it is imperfect.
A little wear. A little age.
Not fine jewelry.
Not precious.
But still wonderfully shiny.
Heavy enough to feel substantial.
Glamorous enough to change the whole mood.
And mixed in with it, one especially beautiful statement bracelet — still fashion jewelry, but with exactly the kind of polish and presence I wanted.
I love that combination.
Not all treasure has to be expensive.
Sometimes the slightly imperfect thing gives you exactly the flash you were looking for.
I suppose that is where my taste tends to live.
Somewhere between hardworking and extravagant.
Utility and ornament.
A little roughness and a lot of shine.
I like clothes that can take a beating, but I also like the suggestion of luxury.
I like practical things.
I like ridiculous things.
I like the old, worn, useful thing beside something that glints.
Maybe because I have had enough austerity.
Enough doing without.
Enough earning every inch.
I don’t want a life stripped down to what is strictly necessary.
I want beauty in it.
I want indulgence.
I want things that exist simply because they make me happy to look at them.
Maybe glamour is partly that for me.
Not status.
Not perfection.
Not showing anyone what I can afford.
Just the refusal to live entirely in the realm of necessity.
A shiny gold-tone bracelet.
A ridiculous shirt.
A beautiful glass.
A good meal.
Something handmade.
Something found.
Something that shines.
I don’t want to choose between being tough and being soft.
I don’t want to choose between practical and artistic.
I don’t want to choose between the woman who has worked hard and the woman who wants beauty.
I don’t want to choose between grit and glamour.
I guess I want it all.
And maybe style is one of the places I am allowed to have it.
Hand-painted art with workwear.
A little earth.
A little gold-tone shine.
A little evidence that I have lived.
And a little evidence that I still intend to enjoy myself.
