Necklace Ascending a Staircase

THIS month, Justin Giunta plans to introduce two collections under his jewelry label, Subversive.

Skip to next paragraph

THE MAN, THE SQUID Justin Giunta

Joe Fornabaio for The New York Times

On Friday, he will present what he describes as his “couture collection,” made up of one-of-a-kind elaborately constructed compositions, which will be shown on a chorus line of synchronized dancers and sold through his New York studio. On March 23, he will begin selling a less expensive variety of necklaces and bracelets, from .99 to .99, at Target.

It is one of fashion’s more delicious little ironies when a line called Subversive goes mainstream.

This was perhaps a predictable outcome, as Mr. Giunta’s ornate, intellectual, collagelike designs have been a hit since he began making them on a whim after arriving in New York from Pittsburgh. He had first tried to make a living selling chandeliers, T-shirts, “anything I could to survive in New York City,” he said. When he applied himself to jewelry, by piling pearls, charms, cameos, filigrees and whatnot onto necklaces that looked like beautiful train wrecks, he seemed to strike a chord.

“I was a one-man sweatshop for supplying the demand I had created,” he said.

Although the prices were low when he started (out of necessity), they have gone up over the years along with the preciousness of materials involved and the grandness of scale. His designs now range from 0 to ,200.

So the opportunity to design for Target, Mr. Giunta said, could be viewed as a return to his original philosophy: “the undermining of an institution, which is jewelry.” In other words, he was an artist making necklaces while questioning the very idea of what a necklace is — kind of like a Duchamp or Magritte for the Vogue mind-set.

Target customers may be satisfied that his designs are still pretty and do not look watered down. A gold-tone cluster of bangles and beads, for example, looks recognizably Subversive, as does a tangle of pearls (actually shell and glass) attached with a fringe of chains to a pocket-watch frame, floating like a squid underwater.