It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

...Unless you love shopping and you have no impulse control.

Then it's the most dangerous time of the year.

Yes, I know, I'm breaking my own Xmas shopping rules left, right and centre. I'm a bad role model. But I have some cool stuff.

While sourcing some great loot for great friends, I discovered - and yes, purchased - this:


The piece, by Polli is actually much more delicate and lovely than this photo suggests. The chain, in particular, is much better... Each stainless steel pendant is thinner than a credit card but strangely tough. This one lies very nicely against my chest without calling too much attention to either itself or to my tits (except Hilary disagrees, she wants you to know, that it doesn't call attention). And yet it's substantial. I love its nod to the natural world, though it's constructed from a very industrial product.

Polli, which I had never heard of until a couple of weeks ago, is an Australian company comprised of two Sydney-trained industrial designers who bring sustainability and a Danish-meets-Japanese sensibility to their rather broad-ranging collection. Can the Aussies do nothing wrong?!?! One of my absolute fave TO stores bar-none, the chameleonic design stuff-meets-everything else Ziggy's at Home, sells a number of these pendants and earrings at rather reasonable prices. And Polli's website also provides a well-organized online shop.

Maybe one of the women in your life needs a little bauble over the holidays? Maybe you do?

I keep telling myself I'm going to give it to someone who's been really good...

Snake-y Goodness

You know I love beautiful, stylish things - and writing about them (obviously) - but you may not know that I'm the kind of gregarious girl who will stop you on the street to tell you if I think you look gorgeous / engage you in a conversation about when you bought your _____ in Paris on your graduation trip / accost you (demurely, I hope) to ask about whether your jeans are Sass and Bide and when did you get them and where.

Which is why it might not surprise you that I, too, am sometimes stopped by women having an espresso or walking down the road on a beautiful day, the likes of which encourages wearing one's most adorable things. And, a propos of this, there has rarely been an item of any category I've worn that has received as much positive feedback and actual touching as the snake jewellery, pictured above.

Seriously, even men touch it. Men I don't know.

And it seems to appeal to every age group and dressers of all shapes and styles.

The credit for these ingenious malleable trinkets - metal cups fitted one inside the other and secured by a tension cord from the inside - must go to the intrepid traveller, visionary and entrepreneur Sandra, who brought them back from Spain on one of her many adventures.

So Pretty...

My grandfather, Sicilian-born, was a jeweller in New York for many years. As a testimony to his talent, I have some fabulous things in my jewellery box, among them: a braided gold ring with a dusty-speck of diamond (gift I got for Xmas at the age of 12 which I have never taken off since - seriously), cameos, a terrific charm bracelet - with intricate working charms - that my mother has locked up in the safe-deposit box (I so need to get that back), and the list goes on. I admit, I went through a dry spell of extreme minimalism - it's called early parenthood - during which the jewels were all but banished from my wardrobe. Having said this, my early intro into the world of baubles fostered in me a love that has recently re-emerged with a vengeance.

So imagine my delight, while speaking with E, a very stylish workmate and new friend-in-fashion, at discovering that she too has recently started a blog (http://miiinjewelry.blogspot.com/) - and that its subject is beautiful trinkets which she crafts by hand! Behold these lovely earrings:

The things you learn when chatting over coffee on a Wednesday afternoon...

Please stay tuned for more about my latest jewellery fetish - metal snakes from Spain - imported by my great friend Sandra.