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June 1998 Professional Insider:Trend Spotting Luxury TimeThe fall/winter 1998 designer collections get jeweled BY ADRIENNE WEINFELD-BERG The recent American collections, shown during Fashion Week in New York, focused on a plethora of riches when it came to clothing and fabulous jewels. Luxuriant sportswear, featuring long, longer and longest skirts and pants worn with all kinds of mohair, alpaca, cashmere and fine wool elongated sweaters (the big fashion item of the season) took on an extra dollop of opulence with fur trims and layers of gold, platinum or sterling silver necklaces and bracelets. Pearls were everywhere, in every length, size and color. Evening gowns and dresses, as defined by the look of the early 1900 Orientalists to the 1920s flapper through to the minimalist 1990s, sparkled with beading, embroidery and intricate jeweling. The must-haves of the moment for night are elaborate chokers, sometimes worn with long strands of plain and mixed jewels and pearls, large embellished earrings, brooches, bracelets and cocktail rings. Here's a quick read of the best and brightest fashion and jewelry trends just in time for the new luxe season. Retro Glamour Historically, artists and designers review one century as they prepare for the next one, lovingly recalling and re-creating the past. So it was this season. The feeling of the 1900s and memories of the Titanic showed the start of the key trend toward long, floor-sweeping skirts, luxury tops and jewels everywhere. The '40s brought us back to Hollywood-style movie star glamour, the '60s gave us Emma Peel in "The Avengers" lookalikes. Of course, jewelry followed suit. There were wrapped torsades and chokers, multicolored rings in every size and every kind of stone and metal and pearls, pearls and more pearls.
 Red All Over
Red (from lipstick right through to flame) was the only flash of intense color we saw during the week ... rose wine in rich retro-inspired burgundy and berry took us into the palette of shocking pink ... black is there and always will be ... plus every shade of gray from light, dark, blued, greened, misty, cement, steel and silver to charcoal, dove, platinum and oyster ... beige from light to dark tones ... winter white gave light relief from all the gray, beige and black ... the jewelry that adorned, accentuated and highlighted day and evening clothing in these colors either totally matched or completely clashed to give a different and often surprising take on accessorizing, from Isaac Mizrahi's minimalist necklaces to Han Feng's hair ornaments. Han Feng accessorized her lipstick-red dress on the runway with a large, heavily embellished brooch in the model's hair.
Very special effects push way beyond the norm ... fur-trimmed sweaters and coats in fox, mink, sable, chinchilla, lamb ... the sparkle of all kinds of embellishments seen all over clothing and outerwear (beads, stones, crystals, pearls, diamonds, gold, platinum, silver) Oscar de la Renta piles on layers of mutishaded purple wrapped
beads and crystals inset with gold to complement gold and stone earrings
from Verdura's couture jewelry collection.
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