I was doing some (improvised) holiday shopping at a pop-up second hand store (furniture and treasures culled from estate and tag sales) when I noticed this fabulous necklace on the shop’s owner.

After I oohed and awed, she explained to me that during her childhood, her mother and she had collected multiple charms during their apparently extensive travels. As a result, each of them had several bracelets FULL of fantastic charms — mostly sterling but also some enamel and so on.

One day she decided to simply link all the separate (and mismatched) bracelets together using their existing fasteners and viola! — she now has two strands of the most beautiful necklace I have ever seen, which by the way, also SOUNDS amazing, clinking and tinkling…

Her improvised necklace is similar to a scrapbook or a travel log or memoir in that it is chock full of personal stories and memories — all awash in a lovely patina from the passed decades. Clearly, this is a woman who loves objects layered with meaning — not only because of her improvised fashion accessory but because she has opened a great little store that celebrates the reuse of beautiful things deserving of another chapter

—Pamela Hovland