Jewelry should be FUN!
Women spend less on expensive clothes these days, so it is easier to update something by putting jewelry with it, said the legendary Mr. Lane, who has been churning out colorful fake baubles since 1962 (he could not confirm the rumor that several are entombed with Princess Diana). They were worn by Veruschka on the cover of Vogue as early as 1965 and were later beloved of Upper East Side socialite Nan Kempner. To some style watchers, costume jewelry, or statement jewelry, or couture jewelry, or whatever you call the pounds of chains and metal being trotted all over town by fashionable women, is less a recession phenomenon than a welcome liberation from constantly changing seasonal clothing silhouettes, allowing a woman some small measure of individuality with her skinny jeans, stilettos, and wrap sweater.

The idea of Zen minimalism is dead. We need so many things to function in our daily lives that to carry on that idea in fashion with a disregard for all the extras is kind of a dying battle.

Mr. Lane says, “I did not like minimalism. I said on QVC once in those days, How can we have minimalism? Girls have to have safe sex and minimalism all at the same time? Where is the fun? Jewelry should be fun. That is really the idea of jewelry, not only for fashion and a look, an amusement for women.”

Even the stuffiest European houses seem to agree: For spring 2010, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Balenciaga boldly overaccessorized their collections with colorful faux gemstones and plastics.

When I was young, women wore hats, said Mr. Lane, who is 80. They wore gloves, they wore combs with little flowers in their hair, all that sort of thing, and they enjoyed doing it. Today, clothes are all sort of pared down, and really the most amusing accessory they can put on is jewelry. And shoes. Women love shoes, as you know. (He began his career as a women’s shoe designer.)

But could it be, mercifully, that jewelry is at last replacing shoes as the accessory du jour? As the introduction to his 1996 book, Faking It, puts it: Faux jewelry is like wearing glass slippers. A woman can feel like a princess going to the ball, even if she is not.