I Love Love Mert's Wooden Crystal Necklace & Faceted Rings

Need I even explain why I love Love Mert's painted wooden "crystal" necklace and faceted wood rings? They're handmade in Lake Tahoe, California using wood from designer Melissa Michelsen's dad's workshop. They're the perfect way to do folksy art teacher without looking like Ms Lippie from "Billy Madison." (Not that I wasted a cumulative 144 hours or so of my life that I'll never get back watching that movie during college or anything.)

Below are a few snaps of my favorite pieces Love Mert's doing for fall. The crystal necklaces start at $32 each and are available this summer on Endless.com. And the Trae rings are $36. No, that's not a typo.

 

Lanvin's Winged Eagle Necklace Deserves To Be Saluted

$1985, Lanvin, BergdorfGoodman.com

Lanvin's eagle necklace commands so much respect that you really ought to take your hat off, stand, and salute it. It's a necklace befitting R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly," which, I'm sure we can all agree, is the apotheosis of his career.

I Have A New Jewelry Tumblr! NOW WHO Wants To Win A STUN-NING Ippolita Resin Mother-Of-Pearl Bangle?

SO many things going on here in the world at Camp FashionBinge! A zillion people INCLUDING KANYE WEST are occupying Wall Street and using all of the available bathrooms! They discovered glowing cats that could help fight AIDS. I shot a year-end video series for VH1, which was quite fun. (Sadly, none of the Basketball Wives were there). I had the teeeeensiest quote in the New York Times. Small, true, but it was enough to make my hyperbolic Jewish mother call everyone she knows back in Cleveland and tell them I just got a new job as the editor-in-chief of the New York Times. (YOU DIDN'T HEAR?) And, I recently dipped a painted toe in the milk of Tumblr, to paraphrase something that Elvis Costello hardly said and barely meant.

My new Tumblr is called AddictedToAccessories.Tumblr.com. As one might correctly glean, it's a Tumblr completely devoted to my magpie-like fixation with jewelry. Expensive's not always better, but bigger is almost decidedly best.

To celebrate the launch of AddictedToAccessories, I've teamed up with Ippolita jewelry -- they make everything from timeless diamond pieces like this gold and diamond bracelet (FashionBinge bucket list!) to more affordable, more modern pieces like their excellent Hard Gloss resin collection -- to give away a very AddictedToAccessories-leaning bangle.

It's a black resin and mother-of-pearl bracelet. And it's decadently Deco, right? Wanna win it? Here's how?

1.) Follow @FashionBinge and @IppolitaJewelry on Twitter.
2.) Retweet this Tweet.
3.) Leave a comment in this post with your twitter handle and your email.
EASY!!


The winner will be contacted by email.
Giveaway ends Tuesday, Oct. 18 at 5pm ET.

Okay, now go be a nice person and Like Ippolita on Facebook.

PHOTOS: Alexis Bittar Resort 2012

My very favorite jewelry designer, Alexis Bittar, recently released his Resort 2012 collection, and the lookbook alone is art. I mean, THERE'S A WIDE-EYED CAT (an Abyssinian if I'm not mistaken, and believe me, I'm not usually mistaken when it comes to cats) LOOKIN' TO RUN UP ON SOME JAGGED LUCITE-AND-GOLD BRACELETS! This is solidly within my wheelhouse!

The whole thing is very surreal, very neon (I always gravitate toward his '80s references) meets gold meets LOL Cats meets Man Ray.

+ Check out the Alexis Bittar Resort 2012 lookbook on Alexis Bittar's Facebook.

Nally And Millie Does A PERFECTLY PERFECT Slouchy Top

Photo by Young Fat & Fabulous' Gabi Gregg

Nally And Millie makes very versatile, drapy, flowy, ultra comfy tops, tunics and dresses in perfect basic blacks and greys and bold-not-boring stripes. They're softer than a kitten's ear, and they hang just right. (Notice how I avoided a well-hung joke.) The nice folks who do Nally And Millie's PR sent me this floaty grey top. Usually I'm always like "I'm not one of those fashion bloggers who takes photos of myself." But I guess I am. Because here I am, standing on TOP of New York City. Yes, that's the kind of power I wield. 


Anyway, this grey top is a lightweight, slightly sheer knit with that elusive ability to do slouchy without doing shlumpy, and does the Dolman-batwing thing the way it should be done. I mean, I'm "just a regular person," and look how much happier I look in it than this model!

 

 Get this Nally and Millie top in black at tcboutique.com or at Bloomingdale's.

Also, I need to quickly call attention to my Dannijo "Grace" cuff, because it is SEVERE! I got it at the Dannijo sample sale a month or so ago. It looks like a cuff, but it acts like a freaking WEAPON. I have bruises from it and owntevencayre.

 

 

 

Oh Woe, Dannijo!

($585, Dannijo, Dannijo.com)

Oh Dannijo. Get OUT of my dreams and ONTO my neck.

I'm in the market for a new necklace. Like THE necklace. Like a necklace that's an entire outfit in and of itself. I even recently said to someone, someday my entire wardrobe will be all black with a different enormous statement necklace for every day of the year. I consider this reasonable. Amen.

Two Pieces Of Jewelry I Won't Be Buying

($695, Haute Hippie, Shopbop.com)

This is some Mad Max ish that looks like someone attached some chains to road kill. And I'm uncomfortable with it.

($21.95, Neivz, Amazon.com)

Though not as uncomfortable as I am with this boobs ring! It's fine to have boobs, and fine to have rings, but I'm uncomfortable standing having arrived at the intersection of both. It's an intersection that just doesn't need to exist.

No, Really, YOU'RE WELCOME.

($300, Sterling Bartlett, Bloodisthenewblack.com)

All that's missing from illustrator Sterling Bartlett's "You're Welcome" ring is a Kanye shrug. He already threw the Black Sabbath lyric into the inside and a rat on the outside. I just love the how the font itself basically implies that this is the "f--- you" version of "you're welcome." The nastiest "you're welcome" of them all.

(Credit/ Copyright: Sterling Bartlett)

Candace Ang's Dinosaur Necklaces + Iosselliani And Fall/ Winter 2010 Pieces

So, I visited W29 Showroom the other week. That place is a fashion fulcrum for some of my favorite left-of-center designers like Ashish, who LOVES a sequin, and I DEFY YOU not to love sequins too.

Anyway, check out a few snaps I took of Iossellani's Fall/Winter 2010 tribal/Westerny-inspired/ Fleetwood Mac-ish heavy metal pieces.

Um, this is ALL ONE PIECE. If I could only wear one piece for the rest of my life, it'd be this one. Because it's like 23939 necklaces in one. This + a white t-shirt and some skinny black ankle-length pants and a pair of slipons? Are you kidding me?

($675, Iosselliani)

The tribal pièce de résistance!!


Candace Ang's phenomenal chunky mixed material (bullets! mesh-wrapped gems!) bracelets.

And here we have Candace Ang's hilariously cheeky dinosaur necklace from her collaboration with Margita Saplala. Annoyingly this dino necklace has -- har -- since become extinct, but the pyrite T Rex necklace is still around.

($210, Candace Ang, store.candaceang.com)

Also, can dinosaurs please be the new owls? PLEASE?

DANGER! DANGER! Alexis Bittar Sale!

WARNING! Alexis Bittar's having a huge sale, and I've only got one word for you: oof.

I already picked up this adorable neon pink pyramid necklace for $47, but I will further forewarn you, they kinda kill you with shipping and tax. Oh wells.

($47.50, Alexis Bittar)

I avoided buying this gunmetal ring and the rest of the neon pink Lucite pieces. But just barely.

($131.25, Alexis Bittar)

($47.50, Alexis Bittar)

($72.50, Alexis Bittar)

Gold-Dipped Crystal? Um, Why Yes. I Think I Will

WHY has this not crossed my mind before: gold-dipped quartz?

($150, LauraLombardiJewelry.etsy.com)

My style pendulum keeps swinging back and forth between loving gold and not caring about gold. Right now it's very much entrenched in the "YAY GOLD" side of my fickle desires. Same with crystal. So this necklace, by the HIGHLY talented Laura Lombardi, PERFECTLY satisfies my love of mixed materials and chunky shapes and textures. I'd probably swap out the vintage brass chain for a silver one to add a little more intrigue.

BTW, speaking of "cross my mind," can we get in the wayback machine and listen to this TIMELESS Brian McKnight song? So sad, but SO good.

Brian McKnight - New Music - More Music Videos