The other day, my group text was chatting away about movies and kids and the best mint chip ice cream (McConnell’s), when the conversation turned to necklaces. One friend texted a selfie and asked, “Does this look normal? I am challenged by the layering trend.”

Curious myself, I called up Andrea Linett, the genius behind the style site ‘I Want to Be Her‘ and the former founding creative director of Lucky Magazine (rip). “To look effortless, like everything else, it takes effort,” she told me, laughing. “You have to play around with it for a while until you know it’s working.”

Here are her main tips:
* The #1 rule: Everything has to cascade down. Don’t have two chains that are the same length — if they’re almost the same, they’ll just cancel each other out and hit each other.
* Switch up the heft. Layering too many skinny chains will result in a tangled mess.
* I like mixing gold and silver. People comment on my site asking, can I do that? But I don’t even think about it; I just throw them on, and it’s a cool element.
* Colors are fun for summer and a pick-me-up in the winter. Etsy has great lapis, jade, coral, turquoise, white and malachite. (For example, search for “turquoise charm.” I could do that all night.) A strand of pearls or word charms or little coins would look cool, and shark teeth are great, too.

After playing around, my friend Gemma sent this photo of herself, above. How pretty does she look? I’m inspired!

What tips do you have for layering necklaces? Madewell actually has layering sets, which look beautiful. I especially like this one. xoxo

P.S. Five-minute phone calls, and an ode to signet rings.

(Top photo from Madewell. Gemma is wearing this and this.)

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