How viv&ingrid switched us from sterling-only to "Yes, gold!"

| Posted May 15th 2008 3:29PM by Cat Lincoln
Filed under: Accessories, Jewelry, Designers

For years we were die hard silver aficionados. Hoop earrings, clangy bracelets, shiny necklaces, it was sterling or nothing. Gold was what our mother wore, for Pete's sake. It was classic but not cool.

Then, while shopping in Abbot Kinney, a too cool for us part of Venice Beach, we found the cutest four leaf clover charm necklace. Except it was gold.

We picked it up, put it down, tried it on, got it all tangled in our hair, took it off and walked away. In a different corner we found the same charm in silver, but somehow it wasn't as...charming. For this necklace it was gold or go home, empty handed.

Being a shopper, and totally superstitious, of course we got the necklace. Then we needed to buy some gold earrings to wear with it. In the next store we found some simple viv&ingrid gold vermeil hoops. Just as we were turning away from the display, we saw an even bigger and better pair of their 14k dangling gold loop/hoops. We thought the necklace was good, but these earring were so beyond perfect, in gold, that it pushed us over the edge.

A dizzying new world suddenly opened up. Our viv&ingrid earrings needed complementary gold accessories. We were starving for volume, so we picked up any and every $10 necklace and $7 ring. No H&M bangles were too sleazy to bring home. We were gold crazy!

Of course, the danger of fast love and sudden promiscuity is social disease. Cheap, fake gold jewelry rubs off on your skin, and gives you groddy, green neck herpes if you wear it too many days in a row. For a couple of weeks we had to white knuckle it and skip wearing any "gold" at all.

While playing with our wooden prayer beads, we considered our new fascination with gold, and re-evaluated our approach. Clearly the trick was to dial it back, going for quality pieces that stay gold even if you accidentally wear them in the shower.

And all our silver? It's slowly growing tarnished in our jewelry box, patiently waiting for us to come back. Someday.

Tags: abbot kinney, AbbotKinney, bracelets, california, charm, earrings, gold, HM, hoops, jewelry, necklace, silver, sterling, venice beach, VeniceBeach, vivingrid, wooden prayer beads, WoodenPrayerBeads