How to Wear It: Vintage Bracelets

If you're a typical fan of vintage accessories, you can't stop at one. Your delight with finding a wonderful example fuels the urge to find more, and before you know it, your cupboards overflow with floral scarves, or alligator clutches, or venetian glass chokers.

If you collect watches, bracelets, cuffs, or bangles, you have an advantage over the rest of us. You can display a substantial selection of your horde at one go. There's just something so atavistic--primitively attractive--in a mass of adornment at the wrists. What's more, it hews perfectly with the coming season's trend to the tribal.

The sole risk (unless you work with heavy machinery) is that you'll look like a seven-year-old who's just raided mom's jewelry box. Here's how to keep the look from spiraling into chaos:

1) Be sure your adornments fall into the same general family of materials. Wooden bangles, Swatches, studded leather cuffs, or metal watches (as seen gloriously here on stylist Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele). If you mix your media too much, the look will be less Tiffany's window than kitchen sink.

2) Unless you're fully buying into the schizophrenia of the tribal look, keep the rest of your outfit fairly quiet. The point is to highlight your collection, as though against a gallery's white walls: a simple blouse, as seen here, is ideal. A black polo/turtleneck/tee would be an equally fine.

Pile on!