HATS: AN ANTHOLOGY BY STEPHEN JONES

Today I went to the press pre­view for a new exhi­bi­tion open­ing at the Bard Grad­u­ate Cen­ter in New York: Hats, An Anthol­ogy By Stephen Jones. The show will open this Thurs­day, Sep­tem­ber 15, 2011 and run through April 15, 2012. The exhi­bi­tion is a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the Vic­to­ria and Albert Museum in Lon­don and one of fashion’s favorite milliners, Stephen Jones. I’m sure you are ask­ing your­self at this junc­ture, “What do hats have to do with jewelry?”

Good ques­tion. My answer: Not a thing. Well, per­haps a lit­tle. I asked Mr. Jones (sorry, I know he received an OBE from Prince Charles and there is a titled involved but I’m not quite sure how to address this — advice?) if he takes into con­sid­er­a­tion the jew­elry worn with a hat. His reply was, “Absolutely. You must take into con­sid­er­a­tion every­thing that will be worn with it.” He notes that sim­ple ear­rings are often the best yet if you are wear­ing your hair down and long then longer ear­rings, in his opin­ion, work to cre­ate a bal­ance between the hat and the face and shoul­ders. The milliner was as charm­ing as his work is clever — and I urge you to visit the show when it opens. Even if you don’t ever plan on wear­ing a hat, go see Darth Vadar’s hel­mut from Star Wars, an ancient fez or roman­tic flo­ral cha­peau from the 18^th cen­tury or a flight of fancy Mr. Jones worked up for Marc Jacobs run­way. There are tiaras too — a bejew­eled hat of sorts. Unfor­tu­nately there weren’t any thumb­nails avail­able of an incred­i­ble chan­de­lier hat Mr. Jones cre­ated, com­plete with hang­ing crys­tals. My Jewel His­tory heart went thump.

And so this lovely diver­sion from Fash­ion Week gave me a lit­tle break from review­ing the shows on Style.com. As is the usual tra­di­tion of spring and sum­mer col­lec­tions, styling the mod­els with jew­elry isn’t a pri­or­ity despite all the real estate that becomes avail­able when the sun turns up the heat and men begin to turn their heads. If there is a story for jew­elry for next spring and sum­mer it is about COLOR. Gold and sil­ver have fallen to the way­side and in their stead are pieces that blend, coor­di­nate, or oth­er­wise work with the clothes in both hue and effect. I LOVED what Donna Karan pre­sented, a col­lec­tion that ran the rain­bow of eth­nic motifs done in broad strokes of strong color. The neck­laces coor­di­nated in kind and while I’m com­pletely bored with ban­gles, hers were sculpted and mean­ing­ful to the looks. This was a beau­ti­ful col­lec­tion and presentation.

Donna Karan Spring 2012

Donna Karan Spring 2012

Donna Karan Spring 2012

Donna Karan Spring 2012

I will have more on Fash­ion Week. In addi­tion to my cur­rent project, I’ve now jumped onto another idea which I NEVER envi­sioned but really does make sense: his­tor­i­cal romance. Those clos­est to me and my work think this is some­thing I could do very well. Well, ok, I’m game if they are.

Some­times writ­ing — or any new job — is like a hat that sat in your closet for ages. You just never really knew you could wear it well until one day you sim­ply popped it on your head, and then headed out the door…