Perusing the fall fashion magazines, I am struck by how actively aggressive much of the jewelry appears. Sharp points, straight edges and studded metal are designs not for the faint of heart.
The September issue of Elle magazine, for instance, is filled with page after page of in-your-face jewelry. See, for instance:
Studded cuff bracelet by Tom Binns (photo by Xavier Brunet);
Huge straight-edged floral-inspired motif in red on a cuff bracelet and a similar effect in a black brooch by Lanvin (photos by Mark Platt);
Gold and diamond ring of sharply pointed diamond shapes by DeBeers (photo by Mark Platt);
Hematite-studded gold bracelet by Stephen Webster (photo by Mark Platt).
Perhaps the jewelry counteracts all the primness of the secretary bow blouses, pencil skirts, textured cardigan sweaters and chunky shoes that are currently in vogue.
Interestingly, InStyle magazine, in its October issue, attempts to put similar styles of jewelry and more into twelve categories. While some of the categorizations arguably work, such as including an aggressive looking silver and resin crescent moon cuff by Nine West and an enormous in-your-face necklace of steel with enameled brass from Subversive Jewelry by Justin Giunta in the category “Temperate Rebel” (all the style categories are undefined), I think some of the categorizations are much less successful. For instance, a Goth looking necklace of dark brass with huge blue emerald-cut resin stones by Gerard Yosca is referred to as “Well-Mannered Romantic” and wide faceted-mirror bracelets from Pono by Joan Goodman are put in the category “Glamorous Gadabout.” In my opinion, there’s a bit of rebelliousness and not much that is temperate in all of this jewelry.
Needless to say, this jewelry is not to everyone’s taste. It takes a great deal of attitude to carry off these pieces, especially the larger examples, although a modestly sized prickly ring, earrings or small brooch might be accessible to more customers.
Jewelry this powerful, especially in its larger manifestations can be off-putting. It is not the kind of thing to wear on an occasion when the wearer wishes to be perceived as approachable. For this reason, these are not the pieces for your staff to be modeling when assisting any but your most fashion-forward customers.
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