Photo Find: Bright Color, Brighter Eyes

From time to time, I come across a photo of an individual styled so beautifully with jewelry that the photo deserves comment and another admiring look.

This post’s photo comes from the June 2009 issue of Marie Claire magazine, which features a montage of actresses mixing bright colors with black. Although many of the stars look fetching, particularly eye-catching is actress Jessica Alba wearing an ensemble mixing bright red and black, accented with a spectacular pair of earrings.

For many individuals, myself included, red is an exceedingly strong color to wear. Rather than being able to wear the color, the wearer finds that the color “wears” her. In her Narciso Rodriguez dress, however, Alba easily takes top billing.

The red is a warm, orangey red that flatters her golden skin. The one-shoulder design of the dress brings the eye up from the bandeau of black across her chest to her shoulder and thence to her face.

The earrings are elaborate shoulder-dusters that work extremely well because of the airiness of the design. Had they been heavy and solid of design, the effect would have been to block off the shape of her ears and meld into the shoulder of the dress, distracting from her long neck.

The detail on the earrings is similar to the detail on the embellished clutch purse she carries, which is black and closely approximates the width of the black bodice of her dress.  The detail itself is quite playful, with a sense of movement, on both the earrings and purse, like effervescent bubbles.

Despite the brightness of the dress, it is Alba’s earrings that keep the viewer’s eyes on her face and emphasize the sparkle in her own eyes.