Eat flowers
Plus deep-cut vintage jewelry, ~$20 Italian-made sandals, & more
Welcome to Concorde, Blackbird Spyplane’s “women’s vertical” that the fellas love as well. Every edition is archived here.
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Here’s what you learn about how to get dressed when you wear all black for a month.
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Erin, back by your side.
Today we’ve got a Concorde heavy on vintage accessories that no one is checking for, including:
A secret trove of Italian-made sandals and mules. I just copped a pristine pair for $20.
Fantastic chill leather handbags from the ‘70s.
Very fire jewelry from two deep-cut designers.
Also?
The bright, crisp, Shaker-inspired Spyplane Salad of the Spring
Let’s get to it —
Anni Albers’ textiles are widely adored, but I’m just as partial to her far-lesser-known work in jewelry (pictured below).
Albers started making it in 1940 when she was a student at Black Mountain College, teaming up with her classmate Alex Reed. Rather than precious metals and stones, they used paper clips, sieves, bobby pins and other household items they found at five-and-dimes and hardware stores.
I love a “finding beauty in the everyday” approach, and I especially love finding beauty at hardware stores.
Rather than using something like gold, with clear material value, Albers was more interested in figuring out how to freak, e.g., a humdrum washer. Done right, the “surprise and inventiveness” of that choice, she explained, would give her pieces what she called “a spiritual value.”
Isn’t that the mark of truly great design? The value of the materials is one thing — what you’re able to do with them is something else entirely.
As you might have guessed, vintage Albers pieces are almost impossible to come by outside of rarefied institutional and collectors’ circles.
But! There are two other 20th century jewelry designers who also used humble, industrial materials to create pieces with “spiritual value” — which, while rare, are still coppable.
Kindred Spirit Number One: