The Accessory Point of View in Fashion Week

For some, Fashion Week is a time to be proud. A time to wave that designer flag and show them what you are worth. For others, not so much. I found some designers quite boring. I love Michael Kors, but I must tell you, even my poodle fell asleep watching his show. If it weren’t for the splashes of hot pink, hot yellow and hot red, I would have thought it morbid. Unfortunately, I found that with a lot of designers. Black was definitely the color of show for Fall of ’09. This was the case with other celebrity designers such as, Cynthia Rowley, Vera Wang and so on and so on.Betsy Johnson had an almost cartoonic appeal to her designs for the fall but I must say, they caught my attention. The combinations she styled for her fall collection reminded me of being back in high school and looking at a crowd of Artists dressing themselves. The individual style was funkingly cool but the combo was dreadful. I loved the leggings and tights. Betsy Johnson and Cynthia Rowley had wonderful “tight appeal”. Not to show my age too much but I remember the last time tights were in. I loved and wore all the crazy designs offered. I am sure Betsy Johnson did the same and that is why she has soared to great heights in this category.I did have some all time favorites, however. I loved Diane Von Furstenberg’s collection. She also did wonderful things with tights and leggings but so much more. I loved her prints and color! It made me forget I was looking at fallware but looking at an artist’s palette. One thing I thought so unique and yet only an accessory is her pom pom hat! Every outfit she showed had different colored pom poms hat which coordinated. Loved it! Almost made me wish I lived in NY instead of FL. Another thing she had going for her is her jewelry. I call it American Indian Funk. The choker necklaces were made of what looked like wood or stone beading and then had leather strands with wooden beads on the end. As a matter of fact I found several designers using a similar design and that is the dangling strands.Another designer, whom I loved as well, did the same thing with his necklaces, Isaac Mizrahi had a wonderful COLORFUL selection and his jewelry also had the dangle. His necklaces were multiple strand and yet had two long dangling tassels. I saw tassels on several necklaces but I loved what he did with it. Another unique accessory he added was, like DVF, a hat. I can’t say I loved this hat design as but it did catch my attention. You have to see it to believe it but it is a leather tote bag hat. No kidding. I couldn’t help but wonder if you can keep your car keys in it and a tube of lipstick as you would a purse. Just a thought.Another tassel lover was Oscar de la Renta. As always, his style was classic but he had a gold necklace, which I believe was made of tassel “yarn” and full of classic tassels. Sound tacky? It really wasn’t. He also had an incredible necklace which was full of gold chains, seed bead strands, and medallions throughout the necklace. Quite stunning.The few things one designer had with the other are layers, chunk, seed beads and gold. I saw no silver. Some feel silver is a summer metal but I disagree; however, I do find I wear more gold than silver in the fall and winter.Fashion Week has given me lots of fodder and no, I am not speaking of the falling runway models. I had some other likes and dislikes but I will save that for another day. Until then…..Anita ShawNita’s Gems, http://www.nitasgems.com