Keep your memories alive.

One of the biggest rules of elegance says that your clothes should be an accurate description of who you are. You must be yourself, not someone else. The question is, who are you? Most probably your past and echoes from the past of your ancestors.  If you make things with your hands, you can find the way to incorporate in your wardrobe your most beloved things, like memorabilia from your childhood, or family heirlooms. It’s not easy because most of these items are old, out of use, half-ruined, sometimes ridiculous. But if you think hard enough and you keep it simple, you can wear the weirdest things on you, be original and maintain your elegance. 

This is a vest that it is made from a medium grey fabric in a mix of linen/ cotton, whose purpose is to host 26 of my most beloved buttons. They were on important clothes of my grandmother, my mother and myself.  The sixth from the top was on a wool suit that my mother was wearing on my sister’s christening. It has a domed shape and the fabric of the garment can be shown through the filigree openings. 

The linen is the right color to cool down the effect of the many shining objects and the topstitching on the buttonholes emphasizes the different sizes of the buttons. I wear the vest as a blouse and it has matching pants in masculine cut, so that no new element on the outfit would diverse the attention of the viewer from the buttons. Do you know how many times wearing this outfit I’ve caressed the sixth button with tenderness?