My proudest vintage find ever has to be a 1920s star hair pin that I bought at an antiques stall in Oxford one weekend a few years ago. I had been looking for something a bit like the hair pin Keira Knightley wears in Atonement, and it has really come into its own recently.
I’m a bit of a Justine Picardie addict, and particularly loved her column about how stars are super on trend the other month. (I’m slightly loath to link to it, because it’s such a great piece that I almost feel no one needs to write anything else on the subject.) I’ve loved stars ever since the days of unicorns and rainbows, of course, but there’s something about stars that crosses over from the whimsical and childlike to grown up glamour and sophistication. They are that rare thing: fun and classically, elegantly stylish.
The other week at London Fashion Week we saw a starry theme emerge at the Mattijs show, and people were wearing sparkly star head bands and prints all over the place. But perhaps the most obvious reason that stars are really having their moment right now is because they come hand-in-hand with the 1920s trend that’s sweeping the fashion floor this year. Think vintage Chanel jewellery and a cheeky finishing touch to your sophisticated Little Black Dress.
Like all the best trends, the trends that we really take to heart and enjoy, this one has all sorts of poignant associations for me. The blue domed ceilings of late Medieval Italian churches dotted with gold stars, star gazing with my father on clear nights in the countryside; a diamond broach on my mother’s dressing table, nestled in a pile of scented silk scarves.
