I am by nature very… forthright. I was labeled “To the Point” in my yearbook, and am known for my direct honesty even now. Which is why I value honest feedback, even if I don’t like it.
I recently met a lady, who commented on my jewelry, and she gave me some very interesting feedback. Mrs.Blue (name changed at her request) very obviously struggled to come up with something nice to say. As I was very curious….
I told her to be as brutally honest as necessary.
Here’s the approximate transcript allowing for my memory:
“To be honest, I hate it. It’s too tiny. Too dainty. And bland. I’m sorry, but even if you gave it to me, I’d never wear it.”
Now, dainty I’m somewhat resigned to, but bland?
“I’m not a big girl, but I’m hard on my jewelry- and I want to be surrounded by color. In fact,”- and here Mrs. Blue looked a little embarrassed-” the gaudier the better. I know I don’t have ‘good taste’ but I like big flashy stuff.”
So after assuring her my feelings weren’t hurt, we talked for a while about what she termed “gaudy”.
1. Color you can see across the room.
So no itty bitty little stones unless there are masses of them.
2. Metal that you can practically stand on without breaking.
Makes sense. I’m hard on jewelry too- and all my pieces are quality tested by my kids. Strong is necessary!
3. Designs that are flashy, but not cheap.
Eye-catching is key here, but no plastics or plated pot metal.
So then I pulled out my iPhone and showed her these pictures from my portfolio:
She just lit right up and said- “Yeah! Only with more color!” Turns out, her tastes weren’t tasteless, but bold, and individual.
So because Mrs. Blue had never seen large scale handmade jewelry that appealed to her, she just decided that the retro pieces she liked were ‘gaudy’ and thus she ‘didn’t have good taste’.
This is what made me so upset in the end. This senseless brainwashing of women into believing that only that tiny mass produced stuff is of “good taste”.
Give me a break. If it makes you happy- Gaudy is good.
This is a really interesting post to me, Kaelin, because ‘gaudy, retro-pieces’ usually do grate on me.
I stand for timeless, sexy, success, and while I don’t mind period-pieces, in my experience they are often people ‘settling’ and ‘living in the past’, or ‘pretending to be vintage’ (settling sounds like it describes Mrs. Blue).
*Yes I’m aware these are judgments and labels, bear with me 😀
Your designs above are some of the most appealing, attractive ‘gaudy’ pieces I’ve seen, and it’s refreshing.
I always say ‘any look can be pulled off’, but it’s really refreshing to see some one showing it.
What nice compliments! I do identify with your preferred style- understated with jaw dropping elegant design in the art nouveau style is a large part of my inspirations, after all. What really bothered me about Mrs. Blue’s comments, though, was that she just assumed what she liked was bad because it didn’t conform to mainstream jewelry design. The jewelry she was wearing was anything but gaudy. Large swaths of color and substantial visual weight yes, cluttered overblown gewgaws no.
I guess I’m just tired of “acceptable” “good jewelry” being defined so narrowly. But I’m going to convert people one conversation at a time, if I have to. Mrs. Blue has a new point of view, that’s for sure! We decided she prefers “statement jewelry”. 🙂
That’s what I was getting at! Anything can be pulled off, it’s all about perspective.
“Statement jewelry” is a great perspective, keep doing your thing Kaelin!