The Paris cou­ture shows for spring, that is to say Armani Prive, Chanel, and Jean Paul Gaultier, made an argu­ment for boldly col­ored jew­elry, ways to acces­sorize an allur­ing neck­line, and the appeal of prim­i­tive Mod­ernism. When design­ers choose not com­plete their looks with jew­elry or any­thing else, I some­times won­der how secure they are in the their over­all vision — or their design aes­thetic. If that sounds as though I’m throw­ing down the gaunt­let, well, per­haps I am. Every­one talks about real­ity, and with all due respect, where are we to actu­ally find it reflected in the arts that we admire, watch (as in tv, film, or web), lis­ten to (as in radio or an audio book), or our view of the run­way, if it isn’t pre­sented in a way to inspire? When a designer offers us their run­way, com­plete with rings, bracelets, neck­laces or ear­rings (or any com­bi­na­tion thereof), there is a sense of how women dress for an occa­sion, or even day to day. Oscar de la Renta, Armani, Chanel, even J.Crew com­monly show their clothes with jew­elry, and while I under­stand that these ensem­bles are put together by pro­fes­sional styl­ists, and not nec­es­sar­ily the designer, I appre­ci­ate the sug­ges­tion and the insight to what the cul­ture of fash­ion is say­ing with a neck­line, hem­line, sleeve length, shape of a jacket or color. Jew­elry works in tan­dem with all of these ele­ments. Ok, I know, a t shirt and gold chain in sum­mer do not a state­ment make — well, sort of. Nev­er­the­less, it is still an expres­sion of feel­ing in the moment — or the season.

Jean Paul Gaultier Spring Cou­ture 2012

Chanel cou­ture Spring 2012

The bright, acid yel­low for Jean Paul Gaultier had right kind of tart­ness. Blended with what seemed like black­ened met­als, it was vibrant, a lit­tle eth­nic, and ele­gant. Karl Lager­feld for Chanel elon­gated the bateau neck­line for his jack­ets, sculpt­ing them into lyri­cal and allur­ing shapes with­out mak­ing them seem too prim or overly bal­letic; he paired the widened col­lars with slen­der, long, shoul­der dust­ing ear­rings punc­tu­ated at the bot­tom with tiny gems. The spare sil­hou­ette of the ear­rings with its extended ver­ti­cal­ity let them swing freely and added light­ness to some of the longer skirts lengths. KL is a keen stu­dent of pro­por­tion and what I think he has always done best is bal­anc­ing his looks with­out prej­u­dice towards achiev­ing the equi­lib­rium whether he employs fab­ric or acces­sory; he is Machi­avel­lian when it comes to a suc­cess­ful run­way show. More often than not, he uses ele­ments simul­ta­ne­ously. The jew­elry on the Armani Prive run­way had a mod­ern totemic feel, like the kind of orna­ment you’d wear or pin to your coat for good luck. The snake again slith­ered around the necks and wrist of Armani’s mod­els in both a lit­eral and fig­u­ra­tive way. In the glos­sary of Vic­to­rian sym­bol­ism, the snake clasp­ing its tail rep­re­sented eter­nity, which is why Queen Victoria’s engage­ment ring mod­eled after the ophid­ian. Her real­ity is now a quaint notion, Armani’s on the other hand is about pure seduc­tion — with an empha­sis on the sssss.….…

Armani Prive Cou­ture Spring 2012

Armani Prive Spring Cou­ture 2012

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards take place tonight — if there are bejew­eled looks of note to report on tomor­row, then there will be a post. Or, I may tweet the news as I receive the news in my inbox tonight. Let’s see what hap­pens, so stay tuned…:)