Fabulous fake jewellery

Press, 26 December 1984, Page 13

Fabulous fake jewellery

In vogue

Paula Ryan

In the European and American winter, jewellery, or more properly “faux” jewellery, has become the most important accessory. With style and panache, in an overstated, rather grandiose manner, jewellery is separating the girls from the boys in a winter season that is alive with men’s wear overtones.

For next winter, the best fashion has a men’s wear inclination, contrasted with great, “femme de la femme” jewellery. None of it is real, and none of it pretends to be. Designed for maximum effect and ultimate femininity, it is reminiscent of Marlene Dietrich, the romance of the early ’forties movies, Ziegfield, gowns by Irene Head, and a long-lost, pre-Second World War glamour. For many years in fashion, accessory jewellery influences have stemmed from Coco Chanel. She loaded her classic daytime styles with multiple ropes of baroque pearls and massed antique chains, and balanced the simplest shapes with immense, Byzantine earrings.

This winter in Europe, everybody is doing it ... Saint Laurent, Valentino, Montana, Lagerfeld ... all the “greats” in a wave of fashion excitement next winter.

Gilt and silvered metals are combined with gunmetal, huge pearls, crystals, jets, coloured stones, and lavish diamante are used singly or in unending combinations, producing the most unusual and startling effects. Militaria comes into its own. Borrowed from its active source and revamped with super-glamour, it will now adorn lapels and pockets in lavishly jewelled and embossed military shapes hanging from grosgrain ribbons and ornamental pins. Necklets appear on the scene, throat-high and lavish. With pearls or metals combined, they finish at the throat with enormous pendant jewels, flashing lights from crystals cut with many facets, or huge baroque pearls, enormous teardrops, big, square cut “diamonds,” “emeralds,” “rubies,” or sparkling diamante often in large, heart shapes.

Unless the neckline is low and plunging, necklets are not often worn on the skin, but rather sitting closely under wing collars, or little stand-up collars. Thus, the shirting borrowed from the

boys gains its feminine and ultra-glamorous style. On the catwalks in the Paris and Milan collections for winter were simple daywear suits in men’s wear fabrics. They were very often not worn with a blouse, but with the long line of the lapels framing a magnificent “faux” necklace, tiered from the neckbone in opulent elegance and finishing with a magnificent dropped jewel or great teardrop pearl. Most often, the pieces ot interwoven metals offsetting the stones were glimpsed under wing collars, off-setting high, ruched necklines, peeping out from under soft, Oscar Wilde floppy or pleated bow ties. But always, there was the glitter and the gleaming

glimmer of indisputable femininity. In a natural progression, earrings take on new importance.

Sometimes shown in matched sets with the necklets, they are both opulent and elegant.'

The heart shape recurs often — the last droplet on a tier of crystals, cut in heart shape — or large single diamante-studded hearts.

Diamante is used lavishly in giant square or triangular shapes or in tier upon tier of intricately interwoven dimensions, almost always finishing with a show-stopper — the giant “gem.”

As an exciting foil to the tailored men’s wear medium, or as the last word

on the understated casual airs of evening i that are coming up for next winter, “faux” jewellery seems to fall into a natural place. It adds some brilliantly exciting dazzle where it is least expected.

One can almost imagine the great designers of the world, all sitting down with their heads together, 'trying to figure out how they were ever going to loosen up the looks stolen from men’s wear.

Were they going to progress along that line and tailor us up even further? Were they going to starch our collars, tighten our ties, sharpen our lapels, narrow our trousers, cut our hair, shorten our fingernails, and leave us to sort out who we were?

Having discovered the lasting good looks of men’s wear fabrics, and the datelessly casual elegance of the looks and lines of men’s wear, they were reluctant to pass it over. So they came up with the answer for the winter season ahead.

They have added the softnesses of scarves and shawls, bows, lace, and flowers, and set a final seal on femininity with intricately designed, lavishly ornate, and totally female “faux” jewellery.

The hoarders of this world are heading for a winter field day.

Glimpsed recently ... a wonderful multi-faceted tiered lapel brooch, all fire and ice, with chandelier earrings to match ... circa early fifties.