19 Mar Butterflies as a prevailing theme?

2015 might be the Year of the Goat, but in jewelry, fashion, and home décor, it’s the butterfly that has wings. Beginning in early January at the Vicenza fair and continuing through the winter shows, butterfly collections have been the motif of the season.

In fashion, we’ve seen butterflies winging their way in for awhile. Last week Stacy London (host of the TLC network’s Love, Lust or Run), mentioned, “They’re part of the prevailing Seventies look—the accessories go very nicely with all the new flare pants.”

Naturally, edgy isn’t always how we, in jewelry, see butterflies interpreted—well, not when we think of some of those winged wonders in the archives of legends like Buccellati, Van Cleef & Arpels, and Mauboussin, for example.

Nonetheless, when you begin to see some of the newest modern butterfly interpretations in precious metal and gems . . .  well, let’s just say that, in typical butterfly form, you really see that transcendence.

Admittedly, I didn’t realize that butterflies are about to swarm in on home fashions, too. Not until two months ago, when I read a blog by color expert, Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute, who emphatically stated: “The butterfly theme will be very much in evidence in home furnishings for 2015,” after pointing to several tabletop and home goods brands that have already embraced the motif.

And look, for the record, I have no problems with goats—Pandora (and, I assume, other bead companies) has developed a series of handcrafted goat charms to commemorate the horned mammal as the animal of the year in the Chinese zodiac. But when it comes to fine jewelry—and fashion and home, too, for that matter—butterflies have more legs than goats. Er, wings . . . . you know what I mean.