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But one thing you won’t hear Mr. Bittar called is predictable. Pieces from his newer lines were also scattered around the showroom: weaponlike jagged metallics, clusters of Swarovski crystals and dark woods twisted and gnarled like prehistoric artifacts. That they look nothing like his trademark Lucite suits him just fine.

Mr. Bittar has evolved himself, from a downtown club kid who, he admits, did too many drugs, to a jewelry designer whose company took in $70 million last year. And in another big shift, he signed last month with TSG Consumer Partners, a private equity firm, to expand his brand from celebrity clients like Cameron Diaz and Michelle Obama to the mass market.

“I feel like I put my life back together,” said Mr. Bittar, 43, whose shaven head, facial scruff, rumpled blue dress shirt, jeans and New Balance sneakers made him look more like a Web programmer than a fashion-world dandy. “I relate to people who’ve really been through it.”

To hear Mr. Bittar tell it, he went through it. He was born and raised in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, to a Syrian-Christian father and an Irish-Catholic mother, computer-science professors who traded antiques and designed dresses to supplement their income.

“My dad made me and my older brother work on construction projects all summer long, and I resented it bitterly,” Mr. Bittar said. “But he also taught me you could make pretty much anything out of any material.”

Somewhat inadvertently, his father also gave him his start in jewelry. One day his father bought home $300 worth of antique jewelry, which 13-year-old Alexis peddled on St. Marks Place in the East Village, spending the profits on more jewelry to sell. “That was my seed money,” he said.

But the elder Mr. Bittar was also a religious traditionalist while his son, by then a student at the Bronx High School of Science, was an orange-spike-haired punk rocker who sneaked into downtown clubs like Area and Danceteria to dance and drug the night away. He was also gay, a revelation that went over badly with his parents.

“It just got very, very tense between us,” Mr. Bittar said. “My dad pulled me off the dance floor at Danceteria one night, saying, ‘You are never, ever going there again.’ It was humiliating.”

Mr. Bittar spent a year at the State University of New York at Albany — “I was stoned the whole time,” he said — before returning downtown to sell his wares street-side. Estranged from his parents, he lived with boyfriends and plunged deeper into drugs. He said he had no particular favorite substance. “I’d do whatever you’d put in front of me,” he said. “I nearly died several times.”

Mr. Bittar said he hit rock bottom at only 19, realizing early on that he needed to send himself to support meetings, which he still attends.

In recovery and needing a vocation, Mr. Bittar wondered if could make it as a jewelry designer. He bought some Lucite at Industrial Plastics on Canal Street and began carving little button earrings in his tiny East Village apartment, selling them on the street for $20 a pair. Aiming to go legit, he hired a sales representative who, in a matter of years, was able to get pieces sold at high-end stores like Barneys New York, the Guggenheim Museum and Bergdorf Goodman.

By the late ’90s, Mr. Bittar’s work was prized among a small circle of top fashion stylists, including Rachel Zoe and Lori Goldstein. A major boost came when Ms. Goldstein used his jewelry in an editorial spread, shot by Steven Meisel, in the August 2000 issue of Italian Vogue. Suddenly, Mr. Bittar’s playful work was embraced by the fashion elite.

“There was a whole Helmut-Lang-minimal backlash to jewelry at that moment,” Ms. Goldstein said. “And here is Alexis with armfuls of it, in delicious colors.”

When it came to advertising, his eye for cultural currency was timely, too. For a 2010 ad campaign, he featured the actress Joan Collins from the 1980s television drama “Dynasty.” Ms. Collins, nearly 80, is not the only mature woman Mr. Bittar has featured. Last year, Jack Pierson shot a campaign with Lauren Hutton, nearly 70. Iris Apfel, 90, is a collaborator, a familiar presence in his blog photos and a close friend.

And this month, he has a new campaign with the campy stars of “Absolutely Fabulous”: Joanna Lumley, 65, and Jennifer Saunders, 53.

Mr. Bittar prefers older women for both practical and political reasons. “Every ad features models age 16 to 22 with a blank stare, when the real consumer in luxury fashion stores is more like 35 to 65,” he said. “I hate when a woman says she’s 45 as if it’s a bad thing.”

Aiming for an older, perhaps richer, woman seems to have paid off. Mr. Bittar now owns three stores in Manhattan and others in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. His jewelry also hits different price points. While the Lucite bangles are around $250, other pieces he is planning will sell for upwards of $13,000.

There is another place where he has witnessed an evolution: in the original house of Bittar, his father’s. He now talks to his parents nearly daily, and said that their antigay stance had softened, particularly after they met a boyfriend a few years ago.

“Our relationship was strained for a long time,” he said. “I think my parents were waiting for me to change and not be gay. So I stopped wanting their approval, which gave me the freedom to become truly who I am.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/fashion/alexis-bittars-new-designs-leave-lucite-behind.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

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A collection of bold palladium pieces, designed by five jewelry students from Central Saint Martins, opens the displays at the Rock Vault, a new initiative from the British Fashion Council. Their loft tent, overlooking the Thames, embraces jewels for display, in tandem with the clothing and accessories being shown at the Somerset House venue for London Fashion Week.

“Jewelry should not be called an accessory,” said Stephen Webster, the designer who curated the display and brought contemporary jewelers together. His choices included Hannah Martin, whose collection was displayed among nine others. She was eager to experiment with palladium because of its exceptional lightness and its lustrous color that resists tarnishing.

Brad Mills, chairman of the International Palladium Board, spoke up for the contemporary metal and congratulated the winner, Yuki Agriardi Koswara, whose “Essentia” neckpiece was inspired by the life of a fictional character: Amber Johnson, a paleontologist. The result was a skeletal shape looking like dinosaur vertebrae.

Mr. Koswara is a winner of a postgraduate scholarship from the Ministry of National Education of Indonesia and, since graduating, he has been working on projects that cross boundaries between design and art.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/21/fashion/21iht-rrocks21.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Bracelets. Bags. Hats. Umbrellas. Men are buying so many accessories that some forecasters predict sales growth for men’s clothing and accessories during the first three months of this year will set a 20-year high.

“That guy had been away for a while during the tougher times,” said David Witman, general merchandise manager of Nordstrom’s men’s division.

To get traditional women’s accessories to appeal to men, some designers are giving them manly names and styles. That’s not really a bracelet; it’s wristwear. And that’s not a purse, nor the dreaded murse, but a holdall.

“It doesn’t look like you borrowed it from your girlfriend,” Nicolas Travis, 24, a business school student who runs the blog Style Flavors, said of the manned-up styles he prefers. “A little bit more bling, and you run the risk of it looking a bit more feminine.”

The return of the male shopper could have broad consequences for the economy. Retail sales plummeted during the recession, with men’s apparel sales dropping almost twice as fast as women’s in 2009, according to an I.B.M. Global Business Services analysis of retail data.

Women started buying again, and that helped push the recovery along. But men held off on buying apparel and accessories until last year, when estimated men’s sales rose more than 8 percent, outpacing the growth in women’s sales.

Spending on accessories is driving the men’s category: those sales grew 14 percent in the last half of 2011, to about $6 billion, according to the market research firm NPD Group.

“Men were the last to start spending coming out of the recession,” said Eric Jennings, fashion director for men’s wear at Saks Fifth Avenue. “If they learned one thing through the recession, it’s that looking schlumpy is not going to help you keep your job, get promoted or get a new job. I think they’re taking their appearance more seriously.”

The rebound in shopping may also reflect an improved jobs picture for men, who were hit disproportionately over the recession. The gap between men’s and women’s employment rates was about as high as it had ever been as the recovery started in June 2009. Only last month did the men’s and women’s unemployment rates reach the same level.

The male models walking the runway at New York Fashion Week shows this month wore, among other adornments, scarves that could double as blankets; belts, pocket squares and fur neckwear; caps and handbags; feather necklaces; and metal cuffs.

Jewelry designers and fashion executives say the trend comes largely from Italy and Japan, where men throw on silky scarves or pile on bracelets and berets with nonchalance. Given the proliferation of street-style blogs, young men, in particular, can quickly adopt trends from overseas. Mr. Jennings, of Saks, also points to TV shows like “Boardwalk Empire,” where the cool characters dress with panache, as a big influence.

“Where before wearing a leather jacket and jeans was a way to rebel,” he said, “now you see guys on the fringe, edgier characters, wearing suits and pocket squares and tie bars.”

He added, “Men are feeling more confident to experiment and realizing that they do have more options, and it’s showing in the numbers — it’s showing in sales.”

At Burberry stores, for instance, men’s accessory sales increased about 50 percent in the six months through September 2011 compared with the same period a year ago. Coach, which makes items like briefcases and tote bags for men, says global sales of men’s goods doubled, to $200 million, for the fiscal year ending in June 2011, and it expects sales to double again, to $400 million, for its current fiscal year.

The bracelet is perhaps the most striking example of the accessory craze.

It is hard to imagine the archetypal businessmen of recent decades — the power-suited broker of the 1980s, the khakis-and-blue-oxford-shirt-wearer of the ’90s, or the hoodie-clad tech titans of the 2000s — selecting a piece of jewelry each morning as they dressed for work. But now, fashion executives say, sales of men’s bracelets, especially thin versions in leather or metal, are increasing at a rapid pace.

“Bracelets are on fire right now,” said Tim Bess, who analyzes men’s fashions for the Doneger Group, a trend forecaster. “I’d say it’s the No. 1 look for the young man.”

Tateossian, a London-based jewelry designer, says sales of its men’s bracelets rose 30 percent in 2011.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/20/business/men-are-buying-fashion-accessories-after-slow-recession-sales.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

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Article source: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990DEFD91F3AF93AA35751C0A9649D8B63&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

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