Blogger Babble: The Glamourai's Kelly Framel

By Felicity Loughrey
April 13, 2010

On her 25th birthday, stylist and fashion designer Kelly Framel and friends dressed up in kimonos and celebrated at New York’s Chinatown Brasserie. “After a few drinks, we started coming up with geisha-themed party names for each other and I was dubbed The Glamourai. The next morning, I woke up and started a blog.”

And so Framel's personal style blog, The Glamourai—described by its creator as “a portal of inspiration"—was born two years ago. Here, Framel not only posts artful snapshots of her outfits, but also shopping tips (favorite new nail color: Chanel's pale blue Nouvelle Vague), and images from her travels and other things and people that inspire her. She also designs a line of jewelry for Shrimpton Couture, a site selling luxury vintage and reconstructed pieces, and sells her handmade jewelry—which makes frequent appearances on her blog—on her own growing e-shop.

Carrying a vintage Morris Moskowitz purse from eBay; a favorite pair of Missoni shoes, found new in box on eBay.

Framel's personal style photos—the main draw of her blog, as evidenced by the dozens of comments each post receives—reveal a style that is part romantic, part eccentric, and always chic. Photos on the blog typically show her in her industrial Brooklyn neighborhood against a gritty landscape of metal roller doors and scaffolding. She favors piles of statement jewelry, Breton stripes, oversize vintage sunglasses and mixed prints. Favorite shopping haunts include flea markets, thrift stores and designers like Balenciaga and Rachel Roy. eBay also plays a large role in defining her look.

“Over the years, eBay’s served as an incredible reference for me. I went through a period where I wanted to learn everything I could about clothing from the 1920s and 1930s, and eBay was my encyclopedia," she says. "You start searching for something, which leads you into a seller’s store, which leads you to discover something else, and so on down the rabbit hole. I’ve spent way too many nights in an unending eBay spiral. It’s taught me a lot about vintage fashion and turned me on to new designers.”

Since high school in Texas, Framel has collected bug jewelry. “I realized I could use eBay to grow my collection exponentially by focusing my search and culling from all over the world.” Her first purchase was a 1920s spider brooch carved from tortoiseshell and celluloid. Just last week, she bought sparkly Miu Miu sandals that arrived new in their box. And her all-time favorite eBay score is a pair of vintage snakeskin-trimmed Emanuelle Khanh shades. “I’m a long-time addict of vintage sunglasses,” she says.

Sunglasses found on eBay. The oversize red ones (top right) are by Emanuelle Khanh.

Framel also uses eBay to source materials for home-sewing projects. “I’ll buy vintage fur collars to jazz up new coats, or vintage beaded belts to cut up and attach to jacket cuffs. When I have a new idea, eBay is a much more reliable resource than waiting for that special thing to turn up at a flea market. Sometimes I’ll see a fab vintage piece on someone else’s blog that I want. I hop over to eBay to see if I can find the same thing or something similar for myself. Voila!

Top: vintage coat reworked with a fox collar and beaded cuffs from eBay. Bottom: vintage dress reworked with beaded cuffs from eBay. In both cases, the beaded cuffs came from vintage embroidered belts Framel found on eBay. She cut the backing off the belts, then cut them into two pieces and hand-sewed them onto the garments.

“Recently I fell for a bag in an upstate New York vintage store, but the shopkeeper was asking an astronomical price. I made a note of the brand and found the same piece that night on eBay—at half the price!”

So what’s Framel searching for at the moment? “My watch list includes Miu Miu and Dries Van Noten shoes, gold tribal rings and Thai fisherman pants. I still check in for that rare antique embroidered kimono. I’m also constantly looking for vintage glassware to replace the pieces that get broken at dinner parties.”