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.

New header design

You may already have noticed my new header design! I was craving something really pretty for the blog and stumbled, quite by fortunate accident, on Vanessa Warren of ButterflySparks Designs. I fell instantly in love with this design, which also works for me because it still lets me include a picture for marketing purposes.

Vanessa was great to work with and I can't recommend her enough if you need graphic design projects. Her response and turnaround times were super fast, her rates were very reasonable, and I love the fact that she cites Anthropologie as one of her inspirations. A designer after my own heart. Lastly, she created a matching Etsy shop banner for me - check it out!

Hope you like it!

Going to see Alexis Bittar

Next week I'm attending a talk given by Alexis Bittar, and I'm excited. He's a very famous jewelry designer with a store in SoHo. His designs are opulent, decadent, colorful, and very luxurious. This is the writeup they have for him:

Described as “one of the most innovative jewelry designers of the 21st century,” Alexis Bittar burst onto the scene in 1988. Fueled by his passion for antiques, including Art Deco Bakelite and turn-of-the century Lalique glass, Bittar’s boldest, most whimsical, and easily recognizable pieces are created in Lucite. After making fashion headlines on Sex and the City, Bittar won the Accessories Council’s “Rising Star” Award and became a member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. In a short amount of time, Bittar has gone from selling his jewelry on the streets of SoHo to answering a growing demand from luxury retail stores and world renowned museums. In this fascinating and inspirational evening, Alexis Bittar describes his roots, artistic vision, and design process.

Design fun

This Wordle thing is pretty addictive.

Type in a bunch of words and watch them form into different colors and layouts, or put in a blog's URL and watch it form a word cloud based on that blog's content. These are some of the ones I came up with. The first one kind of reminds me of my wedding invitation.