The Ladybug and her love story with a Blackamoor special one!

I must confess that I have had a very strange and complicated relationship with vintage jewelry. Even when I started dressing with vintage clothes and accessories I was not very keen on vintage jewels because they looked too old style for me. I felt old when I tried to wear them.

A few years ago, when I got a lot of weight and I didn’t want to buy clothes anymore because I didn’t like them on me, I started buying a lot of vintage accessories, from shoes to bags and…jewels! Thanks to a couple of my now favorite vintage jewelry providers (first of all my friend Valentina from Déjà Vu Vintage) I am now passionate about antiques and vintage pieces, especially brooches. During my first times of vintage jewelry passion I also discovered that I am madly deeply in love with what is called Blackamoor, referring to vintage pieces usually representing African topics and people. Although this type of jewelry is often considered having racist connotations because it is associated with colonialism and slavery, I personally appreciate the representation itself without this type of association with which I totally disagree, and I love wearing and collecting Blackamoor brooches and other type of sculpture or jewelry.

Like a few weeks ago, when I wore my newly added vintage brooch from Déjà Vu Vintage to my daily outfit and paired it with silver African inspired handmade earrings from Metalica Creazioni. When I saw this piece on Valentina’s Instagram I totally fell in love and I waited for her to come to Milan to finally make it mine!

When I travel abroad or visit vintage and antiques markets I always look for Blackamoor pieces and I do the same online (on Ebay for example) where I can find amazing pieces especially from American sellers.

I wore a 70s inspired double-breasted jacket from Zara with large burgundy culottes from Please and black silk shirt from & Other Stories. Black leather bag is from Coccinelle and vintage inspired ankle boots are from The Shoes of Pretty Box.

The Ladybug’s love and hate for autumn

I have a strange love/hate affair with autumn: I am deeply in love with its colors, the dead leaves, the cozy clothes, a new season beginning and a lot of plans for the upcoming winter. Other things that I love: the red wine, the chestnuts, the pumpkins.

On the other hand it is the end of summer and it is always hard for me to accept that my second favorite season is over! I always feel like I didn’t enjoy it enough and that I didn’t wear all the clothes that I wanted to wear!

Anyway, one of the things that I do often when autumn is starting is to dress with its same colors: I wear camel, brown, blue, dark green, all the colors that make me feel like “it’s autumn time”!

This is what happened when I took these pictures: it was mid-September not officially autumn yet, but the weather was a bit chilly in Milan and I wore this beautiful vintage suede long skirt, a present that I received from my friend Carmen when I visited her in Frankfurt last July.

I paired with a camel toned bag from Coccinelle and burgundy leather clogs from Casta & Dolly (from Archivio Vintage in Milan). I completed my shades of autumn with a burgundy lipstick from Nyx.

On the other side there is blue, like my denim shirt with tiny tie on the neck from Max & Co (I bought it during the summer sales!) and like the stone on my vintage silver loops.

A Ladybug’s new outfit of the first ray of light!

This is not a very recent outfit, I think that I wore it about one month ago but I loved it a lot for two reasons: first of all because it was taken in an area of Milan that I love (Bastioni di Porta Nuova-via Solferino) and secondly because it was a beautiful sunny day, maybe the first warm ray of light of this early spring season in Milan. I wore it for a Saturday lunch with my friend at the ramen restaurant that we love so much.

There’s not vintage this time but I thought it was worth a share!

I wore Imperial navy trousers with Zara lurex grey sweater (both from older seasons) and I added my new Max&Co grey coat  from the last winter sales and & Other Stories printed scarf.

I accessorized with Coccinelle camel bag, Valentino rockstud sunnies and Giordana F (bargain from Yoox) pointed brogues.

PS: Yes, I didn’t wear tights that day…I’m getting very Milanese, I know! LOL

The Ladybug Fades to White…

Sometimes a good outfit post is what you need to make your day brighter, especially if you have an amazing new white shirt that you want to wear almost every day because you love it so much!

A few months ago I told you about my visit to the White Trade Show to meet the talented designer Indra Kaffemanaite, owner of the emerging brand Balossa. I also told you that I fell in love with her collection of white shirts, with the aerial dimension and details of her pieces and how she made me change my point of view on white shirts- moving from a perfect foundation for a vintage statement piece to becoming a real statement piece in itself.

And you may remember that I also told you I was going to own one; so here it is, my first love! This one caught my eye immediately because of the amazing asymmetry (pairing with my new haircut asymmetry!) and of the beautiful work on the large sleeve. I wore it in a special corner of Milan, Piazza Sant’Alessandro.  It’s one of my favorite spots… the city seems so faraway even if it’s just around the corner. It’s also where time seems to have stopped for a while, and you can breathe a little vintage in the Milanese atmosphere.

In this outfit I decided to let the shirt be the main character: I paired it with black skinny jeans from Acne Studios and black décolleté by 8. More details: Celine black sunglasses, Coccinelle camel bag and Alcozer & J ring.