NEW YORK - WOMEN'S accessories will be big and bold for fall 2010 with designers at New York Fashion Week showing body armour-like jewellery, gauntlet gloves, militia boots and bags big enough to tote the day's survival gear.

Designers ranging from emerging talents DANNIJO and Prova to runway veterans Ports 1961 and Custo Barcelona and couture favorites Badgley Mischka showed accessories combining megawatt glamour with practical luxury.

'Each season, accessories seem to become more and more important because it's less expensive to buy accessories than to buy new clothes,' said Ruth Finley, publisher of The Fashion Calendar since 1941.

'The urban warrior around the world' is the woman DANNIJO had in mind for fall, said Danielle Snyder, who launched the jewellery line with her sister, Jodie Snyder, in March 2008 during the recession. DANNIJO's stacks of bangle bracelets in bright blue and black stingray leather and dark gold and silver metals, plus 'messy' chain necklaces, appeared on the Luca Luca runway with designer Raul Melgoza's lean fall clothes.

Irini Arakas, a former Vogue fashion writer whose Prova jewellery label won the accessories award this year from the Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation, showed hand-crafted necklaces with plump monkeys clinging to multiple strands of beads, as well as long gold and silver earrings with mobiles of stars.

Designers Mark Badgley and James Mischka, whose glitzy gowns and jewelry are red carpet staples, had something edgier in mind for fall, saying their collection drew inspiration from the 'Mad Max' action movies starring Mel Gibson. 'We wanted it to be beautiful, but also tough and strong,' Badgley told Reuters.