Style By Design (SBD): Perfectly Clear

Monday, March 18, 2013

Perfectly Clear

Perhaps it's a fashion metaphor for us to be our true, transparent selves. Or maybe it's life imitating fairytale art in the form of Cinderella's glass slipper. The crystal clear element making its way across the season's hottest accessories can evoke to mind many other images as well - a futuristic, Jetson-induced tomorrow, or a tinted jelly sandal from our youth. Even the negative connotation of an exotic dancer's heel is banished with the emergence of these much more tasteful alternatives.

Love them or hate them, there is no denying the surge of clear shoes, bags, jewelry, hats, clutches, and countless other pieces that are very much in vogue right now. Whether or not you choose to sport them, the intrigue is inarguably high: a box clutch that demurely reveals your most streamlined possessions, a shoe mysteriously propped on an invisible heel, or the baffling mirage of your car keys being suspended in hot pink lava.

Futuristic yet retro, lucite and acrylic evoke a mood of the 1960's mod era. Already having established their place firmly in modern home decor, there is an unmistakable Hollywood glamour to these see-thru elements. So much that designers have even attempted transparent shirts and bottoms, (sometimes with cleverly tinted, strategically placed bits, and other times...not) but who are we kidding? Those looks are best left to the runway for most of us, who can shrewdly decipher a shrink-wrapped looking shirt from a real-life interpretation. Clear watches were mainstream in 2012, perhaps paving the way of acceptance for their classy sister-accessories in the form of shoes, belts, baubles, and bags. Translated into safe and practical new accessories, the element of fun and surprise is still there. Maybe we don't need the clear, giant derby hat from the runway, but we can start small...

So go ahead, indulge. Take a bit of this glamorous, not-so-practical trend and cleverly insert the lucite element of choice into your life. And if you choose not to, at least admire from afar all they represent....a little bit of fairytale, a little bit of nostalgia, a glimpse of tomorrow, and a bit of the confidence it takes to reveal a little tiny part of your whole, real self.