Autumn Accents
Accessories designer Isabel Canovas, at an informal event in her Madison Avenue store, was among the last to unveil her new fall collection here.
The Paris-based designer with the international clientele has turned over a new leaf. Several leaves, to be exact. Gold oak leaves dappled with glass raindrops dangle from a bracelet. Maple leaves attached to acorns have been fashioned to decorate earlobes. A rustle of purple crushed velvet leaves turns out to be a muff, one of the more unusual cold-weather accessories in the new collection. And a bark-patterned shoe has a leaf attached to the toe. It looks as if it is blowing in the wind.
“It’s all about a nostalgia for fall,” says the designer, who in the past has themed her twice-yearly collections to things as various as Russian icons, wild animals and “surrealistic fruit” (for spring ‘89).
Though her accessories are among the most expensive in the world, she says she prefers to design them with a sense of humor and wit.
This season, snails or “escargots” are one expression of it. A snail has taken a few bites out of a maple leaf pin. Another playful idea is a handbag that looks like an acorn of black velvet and green felt. A spectacular pair of green suede gauntlets are patterned like a chestnut tree on the outside and lined in bark-patterned silk stitched to resemble the veins of a leaf.
Born and raised in Paris, Canovas never studied design, though her Spanish father was a textile designer and worked with the legendary couturier Cristobal Balenciaga. (Her brother, Manuel Canovas, is a noted fabric designer.)
She does remember the first accessory that made a strong impression--an Hermes blanket she bought 20 years ago and converted into a shawl.
She learned her craft on the job at Christian Dior, where she worked for seven years before opening her first shop in Paris in 1982. She has subsequently opened shops in New York in 1985 and Madrid in 1988, and says she projects opening a Los Angeles location in 1991.
Canovas, who ranks with Frances Patiky Stein and Paloma Picasso in the realm of fine accessories, says she thinks the field has grown as women have grown more sophisticated about fashion.
“When I started on my own eight years ago, very few women were interested in accessories,” says the striking brunette, who could pass for an enigmatic heroine in a Spanish art film.
“They wanted to be recognized as dressed by Yves Saint Laurent. Now I think they want to be more individual and express themselves with accessories. Working women also want to change their look from day to evening, which they can do easily with accessories. It’s also an easy way to change your mood.”
Canovas needs to be in the mood to design. To get there she settles into her midnight-blue studio. Her boutiques are decorated in the same inky shade.
“It’s very obscure--midnight blue--it’s like the night. It’s almost like black, and it makes all the other colors I work with more vivid. I prefer the night to the day.”
Canovas’ designs retail for about $350 to $3,500.
