JEWELS

Creative bound

I remember being in elementary school, through junior high, making these necklaces out of seed beads, fishing line, and safety pins. It was a business, a marketing tool, an image. I had so many of them, I could coordinate most any outfit. I was even turning my friends on to them too. It was fun. I liked the process. I liked getting my folks to venture into the craft section of Wal-Mart to let me pick out new beads and value bags of safety pins. I liked that people would see some of my necklaces and be jealous and have to have one to, at a price.

I even remember going on a school field trip in 7th grade, I think, to this behind in the times reenactment place. I was bored out of my mind until I ran across the little lady pretending to make beads. She had this jar full of beads in front of her. I would never believe she had really made them herself, but that was beside the point. I saw beads. I saw beads no one else at school had. I saw my classmates laughing at me for buying beads from a woman in a bonnet with a sleeping German shepherd. Seriously, I saw beads that were going to be so turn of the century cheap I could do some major damage. And, I did. I bought a handful and went home and made some pretty fantastic junior high quality necklaces. Sold out in no time.

I should have known. I was a trendsetter. I did what I wanted and didn't apologize for it. I liked that about young me. I can remember in 8th grade jellies, the plastic shoe, came back in style. Wow, I was so excited. I loved jellies when I was young, younger. I begged my mom for two weeks, until she finally bought me some on sale at Target. They were old school sandal type, clear with a woven top and low ankle strap. AMAZING! I went home and pulled out my best crazy printed socks and matched up a Monday outfit. I was so ready for school. I remember being caught off guard when everyone teased me on Monday. It wasn't bad teasing, but obviously they thought it was a joke. Hell nah, I was super serious! I kept it up. Everyday I had a new fab outfit, crazy sock, and clear jellies sandals. Everyday that week, I stepped out like a runway model. Everyday that week some ultra popular, my shit don't stink, girl had something to say. I did not care. I had fought my mom for those shoes and I would wear them to death. So when the week ended I felt that I had really accomplished something. I had stared down a lion, dressed as a 8th grade girl. The next Monday every laughing commenting 8th, and trying to be cool 7th, grade girl were walking down the halls in multi colored jellies or crazy jellies and sock combinations. I was furious. Posers!

That's who I am. I do what I think is fashion. I am a creative force and I like to live it. Because that's what style is. It's what fashion means. It's the opportunity to blur lines and interpret things the way you want. The only thing that matters is fit and appropriateness.

All this to say, I love my jewels. I love the way they make me feel and the statement they make. I love how accomplished I feel when I create them or when I wear them. I love being creative. I thank God for this blessing. It's AMAZING!

Little did I know, many never to be counted, years ago I had discovered my destiny.

"Fashion? Fashion is..." they said. (QUOTES)

"A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous."
—Coco Chanel

"The difference between style and fashion is quality."
-Giorgio Armani

"I don't do fashion, I am fashion."
-Coco Chanel

"Elegance is a question of personality, more than one's clothing."
-Jean-Paul Gaultier

"Style is primarily a matter of instinct."
-Bill Blass

"Chanel is composed of only a few elements, white camellias, quilted bags and Austrian doorman's jackets, pearls, chains, shoes with black toes. I use these elements like notes to play with."
-Karl Lagerfeld

"Art produces ugly things which frequently become beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time."
-Jean Cocteau

"Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity."
-Plato

"Fashion is made to become unfashionable."
-Coco Chanel

"We live not according to reason, but according to fashion."
-Seneca

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."
-Mark Twain

"The expression a woman wears on her face is more important than the clothes she wears on her back."
-Dale Carnegie

"Fashion condemns us to many follies; the greatest is to make ourselves its slave."
-Napoleon Bonaparte

"While clothes may not make the woman, they certainly have a strong effect on her self-confidence - which, I believe, does make the woman."
-Mary Kay Ashe

"Above all, remember that the most important thing you can take anywhere is not a Gucci bag or French-cut jeans; it's an open mind.Gail Rubin Bereny

"I've always thought of the T-shirt as the Alpha and Omega of the fashion alphabet."
-Giorgio Armani

"I dress for the image. Not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men."
-Marlene Dietrich

"Women dress alike all over the world: they dress to be annoying to other women."
-Elsa Schiaparelli

"Fashions fade, style is eternal."
-Yves Saint Laurent

"Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening."
-Coco Chanel

"Jeans represent democracy in fashion."
-Giorgio Armani

"The well-dressed man is he whose clothes you never notice."
-W. Somerset Maugham

Yes, still obsessed with ribbon wrapped bracelets!

Yes, I am obsessed with ribbon wrap bracelets!