The jewelry at New York Fashion Week was undeniably strong (the pinnacle being the enameled baubles at Marc Jacobs), but the eye-popping jewelry moments spilling out of London and Milan lent some welcome theatricality to this season’s batch of high-fashion jewelry offerings.
Here are five unforgettable jewelry moments from London and Milan (and if this level of jewelry fabulousness keeps up, we might need smelling salts before viewing the Paris shows).
Moschino’s Biker Ballerinas
Moschino designer Jeremy Scott borrowed a page from the iconic ’80s photo shoot by Peter Lindbergh featuring Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, and Naomi Campbell in glam biker gear for his Spring 2018 show. The jewelry followed suit by centering on toughie pieces, such as padlocked leather chokers and leather cuffs bearing some very forbidding-feeling spikes.
Cindy Crawford’s daughter, Kaia Gerber, in a bikeresque choker and seriously studded cuff at Moschino (Image: @moschino)
A padlock leather choker in red (Image: @moschino)
Piling on the white metal at Moschino (Image: @moschino)
Prada’s Pop Talismans
Designer Miuccia Prada found inspiration for Spring 2018 in cartoons and manga art; runway looks included full coats, accessories, and separates fabricated in cartoon-printed fabrics. The jewelry was just as pop-oriented and included long necklaces anchoring colorful plastic and acrylic talismans, such as crosses and cartoon characters. There was even, at one point, a pair of yellow banana earrings swinging down the catwalk. The overall effect was one of empowered playfulness.
Those charming banana earrings (courtesy of Prada)
Punk-rock plastic (courtesy of Prada)
An eye-popping pendant necklace (courtesy of Prada)
Armani’s Delicious Drama
A collar necklace fabricated with loops of colorful cord, brooches the size of iPhones (the big ones), and enough earrings to comprise an entire personal wardrobe—all oversized and in various geometric configurations, colors, and transparencies. The “wow” jewelry moments at Giorgio Armani’s ultra-glamorous Milan runway show just kept coming.
Top and above: Theater in fabric form at Giorgio Armani (Image: @giorgioarmani)
Earrings, earrings, earrings (Image: @giorgioarmani)
Styled to slay at Giorgio Armani (Image: @giorgioarmani)
Gucci’s Wonderland
“I’m trying to push the fact that fashion is full of little things,” Gucci designer Alessandro Michele told Vogue writer Sarah Mower. And no one in high fashion nails the little things—jewelry in particular—like Michele, who’s considered by many to be the most dynamic major designer working today. Michele’s vision for Spring 2018 included homages to Elton John’s rhinestone-studded heyday, hip-hop, and suburban ’80s mall style. The jewelry similarly ran the gamut: there was a huge interlocking Gs pendant necklace in multicolored stones to kick things off, a few chunky double-stranded coral (or coral-like) necklaces, and incredible silver and white metal pieces that included American Indian–style animal head rings and animal skull pendant necklaces.
An amazing ode to Elton John, topped with a coral-colored beaded necklace. (Image: @gucci)
A fist full of animal head silver rings (Image: @gucci)
Chunky animal head and bone-anchoring necklaces (Image: @gucci)
More coral-colored beads, worn with an ’80s-inspired glitzy track jacket (Image: @gucci)
Roland Mouret’s Earth Girls
In London, designer Roland Mouret collaborated with sculptor James Benjamin Webster on a series of spare, beautiful porcelain pendants depicting hefty animal skulls, which Mouret’s models wore with his easy-feeling fashion on the runway.
A spare, pretty porcelain pendant at Roland Mouret (Image: @rolandmouret)
The designer with his models (Image: @rolandmouret)
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