80s fashion style: 80s fashion redux, part 8: Gold, silver, ethnic, flash, glitter and knockout extravagance

(This is the eighth in my series of posts on 80s fashion trends and the impact they are having on current fashion. If you'd like to read from the beginning, please start with my blog of July 23.)

The 80s had a you can't contain me vibe, with big hair, big shoulders, frothy skirts, underwear as outerwear, bright prints and colors...and of course strong jewelry. Jewelry showed our love of material things, and our fervor for fashion. If I had to choose one 80s-style bold jewelry item for fall 2009, it would be a necklace, the most convincing of pieces being shown.

Originally posted April 30, 2006:

This is too easy! It is actually a bit hard to find 80s fashion photos without strong jewelry!

Large earrings and brooches, clusters of pins and bracelets, Chanel-like (better yet actual Chanel) multiple ropes of chains and pearls, big ethnic beads, flashy bejeweled crosses...To call it the decade of OUTGOING JEWELRY is a positive understatement! Watches were so important that I'll give them their own time later.

Brooch, Verdura. Cuff, John Iversen

David Millman bracelets and earrings

Earrings and necklace by Alan MacDonald for Ozbek. Jacket, Ozbek

Pins, Sentimento. Bracelet, The Franklin Mint. Outfit, Jean Paul Gaultier

Star pins by Anni & Co., and Richard Lindsay. Shirt, OMO Norma Kamali. Jacket, Malisy. Pants, Plein Sud by Fayal Amor

Earrings, Fabrice. Blazer and sweater by Charvet

Update August 10, 2009:

I'm not sure if real women are there yet, but we're headed there. Designers from Donna Karan to Consuelo Castiglioni (Marni) are making bold, if not huge statements with jewelry, particularly necklaces. The collage-y found-object looks are particularly 80s looking to my eyes. It is almost a paean to the 1980s to show watch faces as did Dolce & Gabbana.