Accessories

From time to time, I realise that I don't have the accessories that I want to set off an outfit perfectly. I like to wear charm bracelets on both wrists, a pendant and earrings. Because of the style of wig that I prefer, I tend to use a pair of clips or pins to hold the sides of the wig off my face. The only ring that I wear is my wedding ring. Because I have quite a few pairs of earrings without reasonably matched pendants, I often go without a pendant, particularly if I'm dressing down to go out shopping.

When I stop to think about it, I suppose it's odd that I want the pendant and earrings to match not only in colour but also in style, but when it comes to charm bracelets, I like them to complement the outfit and the other jewellery but to be different to each other.

Finding earrings and pendants that go together can be difficult, and finding charm bracelets, let alone ones big enough for my wrists, is always a challenge. One thing that has made it easier is that my wife does beading and jewellery as a hobby, and is able to make, alter and repair a lot of the sorts of costume jewellery that I wear.

For example, the necklace and earring shown in this post are from a set that my wife made for me. The photos are from the long lost photos from an outing in 2008, when they were new. These days, I often look at them and feel sad that they've tarnished, presumably because of a reaction with my skin. I've had the same problem with most metallic jewellery. I also find that cheap hair clips that have fake gemstones glued into them inevitably have some of the stones fall out.

In addition to the usual accessories, I'm currently looking for a fascinator for Melbourne Cup day on 2nd November. For those readers outside Australia, the Melbourne Cup is a horse race that is described as The race that stops a nation. People all over Australia have Melbourne Cup parties, including in many workplaces. A lot of people continue to party into the evening by going out for dinner.

Seeing as it's a Tuesday night and I'll be out for dinner anyway, I'm hoping to put together a suitable day at the races style outfit. I've got my eyes on a sterling silver pendant and earrings at Tree of Life that I might get in time for the event. I may also need to try to find some grey shoes to go with the pink and grey dress I want to wear, as I suspect that the bright pink shoes that I have are likely to be a bit too loud to really work with it. If all goes well, it will also be the first outing in my new blonde wig, so it could be a new (for me) dress, wig, fascinator, shoes and perhaps earrings and pendant.

I've reached a point where, to be honest, I have more dresses than I probably should have. I have also recently realised that I have several tops that I don't have skirts to go with, because I often buy dresses and tops in op shops in boy mode, but prefer to buy skirts when in girl mode so that I know if they fit properly with my hip and buttock padding. It might seem as if I would need the padding to try dresses, but in practice if a dress fits from the waist up, it's going to be the right size at the bottom as well. So, as of now I'm going to try to remind myself to look at accessories and skirts in op shops, not dresses and tops. I also plan to make more effort to look at accessories when I'm wandering around shopping centres en femme.