Good afternoon my little pumpkin mellowcremes, how’s every precious thing?
I’m dandy and am bringing, as promised, a more detailed post on the successful deployment of costume jewelry, including 10 Plumcake’s Picks (clicky click on the images for links).
So let’s talk about necklaces.
While all women can pull off a serious statement necklace given sufficient attitude and force of personality, big girls have a leg up on our more slender competition because huge gobstopper gems that can overwhelm a delicate swan-like thing look fabulous and proportionate on our bigger frames.
You gotta have a big canvas if you want to paint a masterpiece.
And before I get all you art history majors waggling your invisible fingers at me, I know that’s not technically correct.
But you know the deal: you don’t split hairs with my turns of phrase and I don’t roll my eyes and cough *shouldagonefortheMBA* whenever you complain in genuine surprise at the shocking lack of high-paying jobs requiring an advanced degree in upside down toilets.
Moving on.
Big necklaces can be tricky for the big girl.
We’ve got the bulk to carry it off, but we don’t necessarily have the neck. I know, I know. Just as I’m convinced my church exists solely as a place for me to lose my sunglasses, you might think this blog exists solely as a place for me to bemoan my lack of giraffe-like qualities.
That is a damnable misconception. It’s also a place for me to post pictures of Spanish footballers in compromising and slightly homoerotic positions. Whee.
Generally speaking, the shorter your neck, the longer you want your necklaces to be.
I’m not saying go for all lavaliers all the time, but chokers or extremely busy bibs close to the throat run a higher risk of making you look a little squatter than necessarily desirable, you want the necklace to enhance the beauty of your face. A too-short necklace is like a photograph that’s been too tightly cropped.
Also there’s the dreaded disappearing necklace, where the front vanishes entirely under my double chin when I talk with any degree of animation.
This is a Very Bad Look for me. It’s like, acid wash and mullet bad.
*shudder*
When you’re tall you can fudge a bit on length, but the sweet spot for short necklaces is juuuust below the hollow of the throat. It’s the prettiest length on almost anyone, and you can still get a lot of drama without the Campbell’s Soup Kid effect.
Now let’s talk about body shape.
Apparently we’re either apples or pears. While I slightly object to being described as any part of Cockney rhyming slang, let’s have a butcher’s at what suits the various fruits among us.
I’m pretty much an hourglass pear, but there’s definitely more time at the bottom than the top.
For me, most necklaces extending longer than the middle of my decollete (I’d say cleavage but my gals have a wide stance so there’s no actual cleave involved unless coaxed via specialty equipment and possibly the Army Corps of Engineers) get lost and are more distracting than anything else.
For apples however, especially short ones (crabapples?), the opposite holds true.
While pears are best served with chunky but clean bib-style ornamentation, those lucky apples can rock the long ropes, pendants and lavaliers like nobody’s business. They make short girls look taller and encourage the eye to travel all the way down the body instead of just hitting the rack or belly and stopping.
Basic styling advice for a statement necklace: Minimize distractions.
Wear your hair up or back if it’s long and you’re wearing a big piece close to the face and keep the neckline clean.
You can have an orgiastic explosion of ruffles OR an orgiastic explosion of jewels, but please, one orgy per outfit.
The last thing you want is to have a visual competition between Big Necklace, Big Hair and Big Neckline.
Go High/Low for day.
It’s really the most chic way for day.
Yesterday I tossed on a dead simple and cheap black t-shirt jersey dress, flat gold sandals and an enormous Bollywood-style necklace.
I added an understated but substantial ring to continue the look of casual glam and it was enormously successful.
For some reason people seem to think every article of clothing has to have the same formality level.
For evening okay, I’ll buy that, but for day and early cocktail, splashy jewelry with understated clothes (jeans, a little cute knit top) is the most fun combination since Ovaltine and compound opiates, and that my friends, is a lot of fun.
Okay ducklings, it’s time for Miss Plumcake to hit the showers. Okay, really it’s time for Miss Plumcake to swim in her pool of costume jewelry like Scrooge McDuck (but in a tiara) but either way, have a fantastic day and tell me all about your favorite necklace in the comments!
