I like that there is something delicate about Fake
Hermes Handbags is a common misconception that the humble chain was a Bronze Age innovation, created as a tool or an element of armor. For more than a thousand years before that, it served a more primal purpose the flagrant display of wealth. The designer Marc Jacobs returned to this prehistoric way of thinking when he decided to accessorize his fall 2005 collection with the chain link necklaces not wrought from metal but knit in black or gold-colored polyester, some of them long enough to wrap three times around the neck.
I just think a chain is a classic symbol of status, Mr. Jacobs said by phone from his atelier in Paris. Maybe because there was so much rhinestone jewelry and pearl stuff from other people recently, Hermes Wallets felt very fresh to play with chains for fall. We just wanted to do it in our way.
There were waiting lists for Mr. Jacobs’s necklaces (priced from $890 to $1,100) almost before the models exited the runway, and shops quickly sold out, he said. He clearly was onto something. Chain necklaces have taken over this fall, said Sarah Easley, co-owner of the shop Kirna Zabête in New York. Burberry Handbags used to be a very small category for us, she said. We used to do much better with earrings.
Among the shop’s best sellers are Burberry Wallets with red, white or turquoise beads ($315) that can be doubled up or worn really long, and an 18-karat-gold necklace from Dima, an Egyptian designer, made of very thin chains scattered with citrine, aquamarine and pink tourmaline ($5,895).
The chain presents an appealing paradox. It can look like it’s art of high bohemia, said Harold Koda, acting curator in chief of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But Chanel Handbags can also be something that in isolation is very spare and sculptural, and it becomes a very different element of one’s dress.
A natural companion to the bohemian trend, with its grommeted and studded handbags, the chain complies with the outgoing fashion moment while forging the new. Seasons of light, colorful peasant dressing have made way for a sophisticated and stark, sometimes even somber, fall.
Chains suit both moods. At the premier of Proof at the Toronto Film Festival, Gwyneth Paltrow wore a late-19th-century oversize chain-link necklace in pounded gold from Fred Leighton, along with earrings and a bracelet from the same period.
During New York Fashion Week in September, Sally Singer, Vogue’s fashion news director, wore a fine gold chain with a black strapless peasant top. And Coltrane Curtis, the V.J. for MTV Overdrive, wore an oversize knit chain (a design by Biz Markie, the rapper).
I have started feeling I want things to be pared down, said Tina Chai, a fashion stylist who during Fashion Week wore a necklace of oversized links, made not of glaring metal but of shimmering black hexagonal beads, by Roxanne Assoulin for Lee Angel ($125 to $300). I think it’s a natural movement away from everything that’s oh so pretty. You want something that’s a little bit more hard and graphic. But for me, I like that there is something delicate about Fake Handbags. Ms. Assoulin said You just want something a little shiny. So you’re wearing a black dress and a black link necklace. It’s subtle. It doesn’t overpower it.
Some of the new chains are as fine as thread and require a squint of the eye to see. Others, like M&J Savitt’s chunky, no-frills links ($200 to $1000), evoke the clank of a shackle. And the most fanciful chains have precious and semiprecious stones running through them or a surface of shimmer. Both Cartier and Hermès have introduced oversize chains in white gold, with and without Louis Vuitton Handbags ($13,050 to $100,000). At Vuitton, dark chains are combined with resin beads ($1,200 to $1,880).
Janice Savitt, designer of the M&J Savitt jewelry, recommends mixing chains of various weights, lengths and styles. Her own chains are heavy metal, some coated in red Bakelite and some in shiny blue paint, anodized like the paint on a car. Still to ship are equally bold chains in navy, black and silver.
I like Replica Handbags, Ms. Savitt said, but I wear things that are big and small together. Pairing chunky chains with fine ones, ethnic with hardware, makes it look like something that’s new. The renewed popularity of the ancient chain, whatever its size or weight, shows no signs of tarnishing. Mr. Jacobs, for one, has used it again in his spring 2006 collections. At Vuitton, he said, we are using chains in knit clothing, all our charms are on chains, we used some for sandals, and we’re even doing a chain print.