I have been loving all things vintage for quite some time now, without really knowing quite what 'vintage' means. In my head 'vintage' is anything with a soft focus 'yesteryear' feel with muted corals, jades and rose gold. Something exactly like the necklace in the picture in fact.

What I learned recently is that "vintage" is officially something that has passed the 25 years old mark. So um... that would be me then. Oh dear. Further investigation tells me that "vintage" is actually something pertaining to a particular season or period - like wine - so something from the fifties is vintage, simply by way of being from a designated period in time. (I assume the period has to be over 25 years? The 80's isn't vintage yet.)

My obsession with vintage, however, has never before stretched to 'antique' (officially something that has passed the 100 years old mark) and antique still reminds me of stately homes I was dragged around as a child where I did not even pretend to be interested in shabbily upholstered chairs and peculiar oil paintings of dead people. All this has changed. Antique jewellery, my friends, is my New Obsession.

Go have a poke around here and tell me that isn't something you would love to have in your jewellery collection. All of it. What I am noticing about antique jewellery is how unashamedly beautiful and sophisticated it is. I am not, and have never been, a fan of especially blingy 'statement' jewellery. There is something about it that is too ostentatious and too... gaudy. Antique jewellery is like the Queen - it can and will wear a tiara because it is old enough, and respected enough, that nobody would think to call it over the top. It is stately and it is quietly, determinedly, classy.

I unfortunately do not have a rich old relative with a stunning jewellery collection, so I am going about this very very slowly - with the hopes of being the rich old relative with a stunning jewellery collection some day. I cannot quite afford the jewellery in the link above, but I am officially going antiquing at the weekend (instead of "vintage hunting" through thrift stores) and hope to find something to start my collection (and learn a little something along the way!) I will keep you posted