Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Big earrings are back

I'm super exhausted right now from a pretty full day, but I'm on such a creative high from listening to Alexis Bittar's talk at the Corcoran tonight that I couldn't wait to write about it. We spent a couple of hours looking at inspiring slides of his various jewelry, most of them high-end art pieces that were created for fashion shows and Vogue. He was really fresh, funny, and very forthright. The picture of him is kind of blurry, but he reminded me of a mix between Tom Ford and Nicolas Ghesquire. The audience was 100% female, all of them fans and stylishly dressed, with a handful sporting his jewelry.

Bittar declared that big earrings (circa 1980s) are back for spring. I took notes on that one.

Perhaps the one piece of advice that resonated with me was when he said I should start at the highest level of whatever it is that's inspiring me and not think so much about whether it will sell; and then from that high-end concept, tear the piece down to what will ultimately sell. He showed us a bunch of pieces that were very high design that received a lot of positive press in the fashion magazines but that didn't sell well, if at all, to the public.

I also enjoyed the part where he name-dropped the various fashion industry people he personally knows: Patricia Field (Samantha's huge gold necklace that she wore with the red suit at the beginning of the SATC movie was a Bittar piece), Carine Roitfeld, Anna Wintour, Michael Kors, and Dawn Mello (the Bergdorf director who discovered Tom Ford). Cameron Diaz and Madonna are also fans of his pieces.

Finally, he spoke about the various things that serve as inspirations for his designs: antique jewelry, boxy '80s suits with large lapel pins, Etruscan jewelry, Gauguin paintings, Elsa Schiaparelli.

In the next few days I'm going to post some pieces from his current collection that are my favorites.

7 comments:

Zuzana said...

Look forward to see the pieces.
And I am happy to hear that big earrings are back, as I am a fan of oversize jewelry.;))

Karmela said...

Hmmmm...don't know how I feel about the big earrings concept now that I've grown out my hair. Plus the holes in my ears are getting really long what with the weight I ask them to bear everyday. But ultimately I think I *will* follow the trends, pain and comfort be damned. You know me...fashion lemming...

meridith said...

Oh no -- if big earrings are back, does that mean per marn, everyone is going to start talking louder?

Hazel Designs said...

Protege, you should do a post of your jewelry, I bet that would be fun!

Hazel Designs said...

K, might be time to chop off your hair for the sake of fashion.

Hazel Designs said...

Meri, HA! I think Marnie's theory only pertained to big hoops, right? Or was it ALL big earrings?

Marnie said...

HAHA!! I'd forgotten about that theory! I believe the original idea was just for girls with big hoop earrings. So if we're going to be purists about the theory, there shouldn't be an increase in loud talkers unless there are many, many big hollow rings involved in this trend.