F1 Fit Shack: Custom Trackside Jewelry

Welcome back, everyone! If this is your second year following along with me for Austin, you already know I had an absolute blast last year planning out outfits and making DIYs.

But this year, I wanted to go even bigger, especially after seeing how insanely creative the members of the Formula One community have been over the past year . I really want to highlight that you can absolutely be hyper-feminine in what you wear to the racetrack, and nobody can tell you otherwise [cite: 1]. As long as you’re comfortable and you aren’t hurting anybody else, wearing skirts and girly fits to the racetrack is entirely your choice—and if that’s your thing, it is totally fine!

To kick off our 6-week series, I wanted to start with a simple set of DIYs: some custom jewelry that you can easily wear both on and off the track . Today, we are making two versions of this necklace. The first is an upcycled beaded necklace with a wide carabiner closure, and the second is a floating charm, Y-shaped necklace.

Project 1: The Upcycled Carabiner Bead Necklace
For this first DIY, it’s more of an upcycle. My best friend Perry found this beautiful beaded necklace with a carabiner-style closure. We’re doing a minor tweak to some of the beads inside the necklace and we’ve changed out the carabiner to be something a little bit wider to accommodate more chains. You can find one you like at any craft store or online.

The Tweak: We ended up going with a pearl bead for our spacer swap, giving it a classic, elegant touch.

Pro Tip: Using a dedicated bead board makes taking apart the necklace and re-stringing it super easy without losing any pieces.

Get the Look: If you’re not great at making jewelry yourself and you want to keep this as a simpler DIY, finding a premade necklace base like this one is a great way to customize your trackside jewelry.

Beads not your thing? You can put the same charms and carabiner on a plain chain as well.

Project 2: The Eclectic F1 Charm Y-Necklace

The gold charm necklace is more inspired by some of those word or name necklaces I’ve seen, but I wanted to do something a little bit more eclectic. I am a big fan of charm bracelets and Pandora-style bracelets, so I wanted to take a simple gold chain and five specific charms to lay them out in a Y-style necklace.

The Supplies & Charm Lineup

You can use a long enough premade necklace chain with a clasp of your choosing, or if you have a little bit of jewelry-making knowledge, you can grab some jewelry chain, a lobster claw or toggle for your closure, a few jump or split rings, and your charms. My charms are as follows

• A little black and gold Formula One car
• A tiny matching tire charm
• A gold Formula One helmet charm
• A classic checkered flag charm
• A sweet little heart charm

Step-by-Step Assembly

1. Measure and Cut: First, measure out how long you want the necklace to lay on you and how long you want the dangling part at the bottom to be.

2. Build the Base: Take your chain and lay it out to your desired necklace length. Attach your dangling center section using a jump ring or split ring. Open up the back portion of the necklace behind your neck to add your lobster claw or toggle closure and an extender chain if desired.

Alternative Styling Note: If you’d like to keep the lobster claw portion right on one end of the necklace to attach all the way around as a wrap style, you can totally do that! It just means that the lobster closure will be visible somewhere along the front or side of the necklace where you wear it, which can add a cool, edgy industrial hardware element to your look.

3. Attach the Charms: Using jump rings and a pair of pliers, attach your charms evenly spaced along the main chain and down the hanging drop portion. Pro Tip: Use your heaviest charm at the very bottom of your hanging portion—which in our example is the gold helmet charm—so it hangs straight and flat.

4. Secure Everything: Once you’ve added all your charms, seal up your jump or split rings with a tiny drop of UV resin or clear nail polish to make sure nothing slips off while you’re walking around the grandstands. All done!

Stay tuned for next week’s drop where we roll out our next custom race-ready piece! Let me know in the comments below which of these two necklaces is more your vibe.