ShinyStyle loves: Edie Sedgwick-style costume jewellery

By Emily Borrett.

Edie Sedgwick used to make dancewear and thrift store clothes look more expensive with dramatic costume jewellery

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As Marilyn Monroe was so fond of reminding us, diamonds are a girl’s best friend, something that rings especially true as the party season approaches. But who can afford them? Not even celebrities tend to wear their own jewellery on the red carpet; just like we borrow a cute dress from a friend to wear out to the office Chrthristmas party, celebrities ring up Cartier’s and ask them if they could borrow three million smackers’ worth of diamonds for an important première, pretty please. But that kind of behaviour is really only okay if you’re Jennifer Lopez or similar – I think if I rang up a jeweller’s and asked to borrow some diamonds to go and meet Barry the plumber for a date at the cinema, all I would hear on the other end would be hysterical laughter and them hanging up.

Which is why we should all be taking a leaf out of fashion icon Edie Sedgwick’s book when it comes to making the cheapest of outfits look expensive. One of the true original party girls and face of the 1960s “Factory art” era, Edie knew all about how to make cheap look good. She continues to inspire fashion today with her poor-little-rich-girl style, and is one of my favourite dressers of all time. Pop-art artist Andy Warhol said of Edie in his memoirs, From A to B to Back Again, “She was trying to prove to her family back in Charleston that she could live on nothing, she would go the Lower East Side and buy the cheapest clothes, which happen to be little girl’s skirts, and her waist was so tiny she could get away with it. Fifty cents a skirt. She was the first person to wear ballet tights as complete outfit, with big earrings to dress it up. She was an innovator–out of necessity as well as fun–and the big fashion magazines picked up on her look right away. She was pretty incredible.”

Edie was lucky enough to have a trust-fund – unfortunately, most of us don’t have one of those, which is why I thank the heavens above for costume jewellery. They look like expensive jewels, they glitter like expensive jewels, but they don’t cost like expensive jewels – you can pick up a pair of statement chandelier earrings or a gorgeous cocktail ring from costume jewellery site GlitzySecrets for about twenty quid. Once you’ve got that, it doesn’t matter what else you wear – Edie showed us that all you needed to look party-ready were a pair of black tights and a leotard once you had the jewellery. Hell, you could wearing a binbag to a party and still be the most fabulous person in the room, as long as you’ve got the jewellery.

Viva fake luxury! And viva Edie. Check out the gallery above for our favourite pieces from GlitzySecrets.