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.