Pamela Love Goes Sci-Fi for Fall 2011

With her F/W 2011 collection, jeweler Pamela Love aimed to make a complete departure from the witchy-tribal feel of her previous line (replete with pentagrams and her signature talons). Her mission was surely accomplished with a colorful (by her standards), almost futuristic collection. “I had been watching a lot of science fiction movies and Star Trek and looking through a lot of retro images of science fiction and the future,” Love says. And fortunately, the collection isn’t a complete departure—the pieces still bear the bold, coolly savage hallmark that have made her a favorite of trendsetters like Julia Restoin-Roitfeld.

The focus of the collection is crazy crystal protrusions in too-vibrant-to-be-true hues (which makes sense, as many of the “crystals” are actually cast bronze that has been coated to create the wild effects). The specific gravitation towards giant, almost menacing crystals came as Love was taking a road trip through Texas and detoured to the Caverns of Sonora. “They are basically these caves of crystals a couple of miles long,” she says. “You can’t even imagine that these things exist. There’s almost no oxygen so you start to feel a bit dizzy almost like you’re having a trip. It felt like another world.”

The pieces indeed have an otherworldly feel, but are decidedly this-worldly appropriate. Love sees her oversized necklaces working beautifully over long, flowing gowns, but adds that she loves that it’s all up to interpretation. “My jewelry is for someone who has fun with what they wear,” she says. “They’re adventurous and want to make a statement.” And buying her pieces also makes a statement of another kind: that you support local craftsmanship—all of Love’s pieces are handmade by a small team of jewelers in her NYC studio.

Read W’s 2009 interview with Pamela Love here.