my piece de resistance: a chainmail belt 🏰

vintage designer discovery, how i style it, and 10 similar pieces to shop

When I first I set eyes on The Photo, it was the most enchanted I had felt by an image in a long, long time. The Photo was quite simple. I saw it on Tumblr. It was a zoomed in part of a torso in a white ruched dress against a cornflower blue sky. It would have been a forgettable, ordinary image if not for the piece de resistance: a chainmail style belt with two hands on either end, wrapped around the waist.

I have spent enough time engaging with fashion images online to know when something is merely a cute little aesthetic dopamine zap I’ll forget after 48 hours, or when it’s something more. The Photo was more. I took a screenshot and looked at it now and then when I brushed my teeth or between Caroline Polachek spotify tracks. It was easy to imagine it melding with my wardrobe. I was captivated by how unusual it looked. It was unclear what decade it was from. Honestly, I’d just never seen anything like it—online or IRL.