The many bracelets of model Coco Rocha — Met Gala 2009

Last week’s Met Gala at The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Museum of Art in New York was its usual photo-op affair for celebri­ties and mod­els, with empha­sis on those taller-than-thou since they were the focus of the new exhi­bi­tion, Mod­els as Muse: Embody­ing Fash­ion. Vet­eran designer and model men­tor, Azze­dine Alaia, was not included in the show and the slight didn’t go unno­ticed. Alaia, appar­ently hurt by the omis­sion, came back with a frock-you of sorts. He asked all the women for whom he spent many hours cre­at­ing dresses, not to wear them. Out of loy­alty a few decided to forgo the event alto­gether. Would have loved to see the jew­els worn with his clingy cou­ture. The les­son? Where to place a blink­ing stop sign around whiplash curves –a mas­ter class in tac­ti­cal dress­ing if ever there was one.

Renee Zell­weger at the Met Gala 2009

As for the rest of the red car­pet, I received emails from my friends at Fred Leighton and Van Cleef & Arpels detail­ing all the won­der­ful things that were worn and by whom. Period pieces from Leighton, from the nine­teenth cen­tury through the 1940s, were among the most favored. Mary Kate Olsen wore nineteenth-century dia­mond flower pen­dant ear­rings, an enamel bird brooch in her hair, and two antique dia­mond rings. Eva Mendes was awash in vin­tage dia­monds and emer­alds, and Kate Hud­son proved the power of a period bracelet. Renee Zell­weger wore a fes­toon neck­lace, circa 1900 with a dia­mond and green tour­ma­line watch ring. A watch ring…!!

Eva Mendes at the Met Gala 2009

There were a cou­ple of mav­er­icks dressed in mid-century too: Lau­ren Hut­ton looked con­tem­po­rary and effort­less chic in her Michael Kors and a 1950s gold and dia­mond link chevron bracelet. Model Car­men Kass wore a hefty 51-carat peri­dot and dia­mond cock­tail ring from the 1960s. There’s a lot of mileage to be gained from look­ing beyond the first half of the twentieth-century. Strong jew­elry came out of peri­ods with a pow­er­ful sil­hou­ette. The 1980s would also qual­ify under this equation.

Anne Hath­away at the Met Gala 2009

The VCA crowd was potent if not as plen­ti­ful. I note a sea-change going on — celebri­ties are mix­ing peri­ods within a given brand. Of course, wear­ing a sin­gle designer may or may not have more to do with exclu­siv­ity and mar­ket­ing rather than style. Still with VCA, this isn’t quite the same issue. Their jew­elry, be it estate or con­tem­po­rary, is of the high­est crafts­man­ship and the firm is all about beau­ti­ful design. Here, blend­ing peri­ods is a grand thing to do — and I would guess — totally fun. Jes­sica Alba wore two of their bracelets; one circa 1967 and the other 1930 — thirty years and fifty-two-carats of dia­monds between them (44– and 8-carats respec­tively). Nice con­cept. Anne Hath­away chose their Camilla ear­rings, and two amaz­ing rings. Marisa Tomei paired a 1940s Adrian gown with ear­rings from 1967 and a bracelet, circa 1958.

Marisa Tomei at the Met Gala 2009