The necklace and earrings didn’t really come from New Mexico. Indeed, the hammered silver disks attached to their hammered silver framework more closely resembled a Chinese gong attached to its hanger than Native American handiwork. But this beautiful set, a gift from the nephew of my annual Christmas dinner guests, Robby and Ging, who was visiting his aunt Ging from his native Thailand over the holiday, seemed well-suited to the Southwest American ensemble I put together for a day of research at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. Today, the small hammered plates would be Indian conches, not Asian gongs.
I started with dark-washed, boot-cut Levi’s Perfectly Slimming jeans, which I purchased on sale at Macy’s last summer (for only $12!), and added a vintage cotton top by Fashion Force that my mother bought me when I was a teenager in Northern California. To ward of the January chill during my 90-minute commute each way by car, subway and on foot, I added a cropped, Southwest-style blanket jacket by Circle-T, a gift long ago from a cherished friend, Linda, in Reno, Nevada, who passed away in 2005. With a silver-metal watch I found at a tiny boutique in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, a fashion ring of fuschia-colored glass that was a birthday gift from my best friend’s mother, Joyce, in Washington state, and a silver Pandora bracelet full of charms depicting my love of gardening and horses from my girlfriend, Trina, and her mother, Mary, I headed out into a crisp but pleasantly sunshiny day.
Compliments came! A cashier at the supermarket on my way home from work commented on the shimmering circles, and the receptionist at my veterinary clinic, where I stopped to pick up supplies for a medical procedure my little rescue kitty, Ember, will undergo tomorrow, said she liked my entire outfit. Seems that hammered silver from Thailand plays well with the American west.
Cheers,
Lynell
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