The Mode Accessories Show

A couple of days ago, I attended the Mode Accessories Show, a biennial trade show for fashion and accessories. This is a strict wholesale show in that most of the booths just had samples of items for sale and took orders rather than doing Cash and Carry. The major accessories on display here were from manufacturers of accessories such as hats, handbags, belts, shawls, and most of all, jewellery. We're talking about costume jewellery here, not the big-ticket diamonds and gold stuff.

The buyers at this show are mostly the smaller boutique-type stores - you know the kind: the funky shop in the Beach with the eccentric owners.

Anyhow, I went there mostly to see what kinds of jewellery people were selling and, more importantly, buying. This is homework for when I go down to Tucson AZ to the big Gem and Mineral Shows next week.

What I saw at the Mode Show is that large chunky necklaces are still in, as are the simple "Swarovski snowflake on a chain" type necklace. A lot of multi-strand "illusion"-type necklaces as well. Natural is good, and so are metal finishes such as brass and copper. There were a lot of hammered/distressed metal look items. Bling still seems to be popular, in fact at some of the booths, the bling was downright blinding.

I was rather amused to see some filigree butterfly brooches that were almost identical to the inspiration on our website, except they were larger. In fact there were a lot of brooches of all kinds on display. After all, it's an inexpensive way to jazz up last year's dress.