FASHION : Making Fun
Apparently harsh times call for happy-making measures. Three top luxury accessories designers are opting for fun and fantasy themes for their fall handbags, hats, scarves and costume jewelry.
Isabel Canovas is focusing on games people play with her dice, deck of cards and chess motifs. Paloma Picasso says her matador hat-shaped bags, clutches fashioned like rare books and leather curlicue details on evening bags are like “my dreams, fun and happy.”
Dominique Aurientis is looking to the heavens with stars and moons and to nature with flowers, feathers, leaves and rainbows as inspiration.
“Everything is bursting in this collection,” says Paris-based Aurientis, who has created galactic starbursts of gold and jewels for the ears, neck, wrist and for pins, which she says are the new important accessory and can be worn not only on the lapel (she suggests at least two at a time) but also at the hip, waist or shoulder.
Her flowered petal pins of Murano glass add a burst of color (“Colored stones are very important,” she says) and show up on hats and as closures on two-tone suede bags.
Aurientis has a newsboy cap in black with diamonds sewn on the bill, but she insists the look is more Brigitte Bardot than homeboy. “I imagined Bardot on a motor scooter,” she says. Her designs are carried by Neiman Marcus, Amen Wardy and Ron Ross. Besides Picasso’s handbags shaped like matador hats and her suede book-shaped bags with Leonardo da Vinci lettering embossed on the front, there are multicolored suede bags and gloves detailed with her signature “kiss” cross-stitching.
Picasso also liberally uses her signature sphere shape, which appears in her precious jewelry collection for Tiffany, as brass handles or rosette closures on bags and as part of skinny chain belts (the popularity of Chanel’s chain and leather belts are reflected here). Brass rings and squares function as handles on chic little leather bags that work for day or evening. Leather tassels decorate everything from belts to bags.
For those who want you to know the bag is by Paloma, she has created brass bag closures in the shapes of doves. Her jolly little belly bag for evening comes in either fuchsia satin or platinum leather, which Picasso says is perfect for tuxedo wearers. Her accessories are available at Saks and I. Magnin.
Canovas has definitely played her cards right for fall with a great game-themed collection available at her boutiques in New York, Paris and Madrid only. They include gilt playing cards dangling from chokers and earrings or shuffled to make a heavy gold cuff. She also does four sensational felt hats in the shapes of a diamond, heart, spade and club. Two-tone suede gauntlet gloves have an appliqued ace-in-the-hole tucked away. Tarot motifs appear on other items.
Lady luck also looks right in necklaces, bracelets and earrings of gold dice that can also be used as trims, on the edge of a satin evening shawl or as the handle of an evening bag. Canovas plays chess with elegant pieces that date to Charlemagne’s time on necklaces, bracelets and earrings and on a checkerboard-quilted suede bag.
