I spied these in the New York Times style section a few weeks ago and was taken by them. Never mind that I don't usually wear dangly earrings nor that my birthstone is sapphire, not opal. These inspired me to step outside my box.
I won't be offended if nobody springs $142,670 for them.
They reminded me of earrings at Target by Dana Kellin. Specifically the pair at left. I passed on them because they were too dangly. If they get marked down I might buy them and clip off the drops on either side of the middle one.
I'll preface this by saying that I do not shop exclusively at Target, it only seems that way from the things I write blog posts about. For someone minutes from the center of the free world the shopping choices within 10 minutes of my home are a bit limited but I do have a Target, so I go there a lot. To illustrate my point, it's 45 minutes with traffic to the nearest Walmart.
The Dana Kellin earrings I bought are at left. The line had been featured around the web and Target positions the earring section near the front of the store so as I was waiting for the line to drop off I browsed. Browsing is what you do when you don't need help from the salesperson. For me it's almost synonymous with purchase.Whoever named Internet accessing software "browsers" had retail on their mind! I like these because they have a blue stone. I'm a sucker for blue stones.
When I got them home I realized that they're remarkably similar to earrings I inherited from my mother-in-law. The thing about her earrings is that I hesitate to wear them because they are so precious to me. Thus the replacement fakes.
I had intended to give mother-in-law's earrings, which have a matching necklace and ring that doesn't fit me, to my older son's girlfriend should they have become engaged. The broke up last year so that didn't happen.
Mother and Father-in-law spend some time in the Foreign Service in South America. Father-in-law was a Labor Officer. As far as I can tell Mother-in-law, who was the one who spoke Spanish fluently and had the Master's Degree in International Relations, spent her tour entertaining, raising my husband AND buying jewelry. I admired these when she wore them.
What I coveted from her estate was the bathroom scale. It kept a true weight, there isn't ever a need to reset the zero point. She was skinny, father-in-law was the one that purchased the scale. I doubt she ever even stepped on it. I'd seen her in the earrings but never focused on what might I do with them when she was gone. She suffered a stroke and a long decline and most of our focus was on her and her declining health. Her things were sometimes an issue but usually it was in terms of she's moving to a smaller space this weekend, we've got to do something with the things that won't fit. The bathroom scale was an early overboard, and once I had that everything else was peripheral.
The Target earrings are a sorry second. But, if one gets broken or lost I won't have lost an heirloom.
Things are nice, but the stories that go with them are what make them precious.
