DKNY JEWELLERY

DKNY Jewellery and Accessories

DKNY Jewellery is a division of Donna Karan New York, a prominent fashion company. The colourful founder of this firm is famous or infamous as the "Queen of Seventh Avenue," a mover and shaker of high fashion since 1985. While her early creations were well-received by the elite world of New York fashion, they were out of the price range of the average woman. In 1988, Karan launched DKNY in an attempt to make fashion accessible to a less elite market.

DKNY jewellery seems to have been designed for fantasy fans. Some of these creations could have been worn by the queen of some other world. Others are like machine parts turned to jewellery, post-apocalypse haute joaillerie. Necklaces are made of heavy links that could have been pulled from a fence. Some pieces have leather straps with odd baubles hanging off. Rings look like segments of piston shafts polished and set with cold diamonds. There is an exotic wildness about these pieces, a Buck Rogers élan that deliberately rejects the staid conventions of older, more traditional jewellery designers.

DKNY's jewellery has a completely unconventional look that will appeal to people with that kind of personality. This designer brings the stark, strange and surrealistic to a market of young people who love that sort of thing. In previous generations, jewellery was high art that might have been conceived in a studio or a conservatory. DKNY is a complete departure, jewellery for the comic book generation.

Like the art nouveau of another time, this jewellery draws on our fascination with the exotic, beautiful and fantastic. Earrings and bracelets are made of pieces of chain with metal rings. Necklaces are like elaborate charm bracelets with miscellaneous bits attached. On the other hand, some pieces have a fluid smoothness highlighted by diamonds, and others have an air of wild, pagan beauty like artefacts from an ancient tomb. As varied as it is, all DKNY's jewellery has one common trait, its rejection of dull, ordinary beauty.

DKNY seems to be dedicated to the idea that fashion is not meant to be something only known and understood by an elite few. Rather, it is a creation of the grassroots culture, incorporating its imagery and standards. Donna Karans' fashions are the art of their time, and will be remembered as much more than just interesting baubles.

© SDK Jewellers Ltd.