I was 14 when I got my ears pierced. My mom may or may not have been present as I climbed the pleather stool next to the jewelry counter at my local mall, and winced as a store associate fired a set of titanium studs, unevenly, from a piercing gun.
At first, I relished my new adornment. Everyone I knew had their ears pierced. Growing up in London’s suburbs during Beyoncé’s Crazy In Love era, you were nothing without a pair of mandatory $5 hoops from Claire’s. When Sienna Miller heralded the arrival of boho, I wore turquoise pendants until they turned my lobes green.
By the 2010s, when I started at British Vogue, I had grown more discerning about what I put in my ears. I was obsessed with Hedi Slimane’s groupie-chic, arriving at the office at 9:30 am in latex trousers and leopard print platforms. By lunchtime, I would remove my coaster-sized fishhook earrings to give my lobes a break.
Sure enough, those breaks grew longer until, by the time I had risen from haphazard assistant to senior editor, my piercings had all but entirely closed up.
I wasn’t alone. Over the past decade, style has seen our closets focus on ‘clean’ realism—those polished, monochromatic staples that blur our on and off-duty lives. The ballet slippers we take the subway in; the work bag that doubles as an EasyJet carry-on for a last-second trip to Ibiza; the vest that’s meeting and mother-in-law proof. As our tastes become ever more algorithmically streamlined, a rapidly converging definition of “chic” has emerged that’s synonymous with “unobtrusive”. Setting aside extraneously ornate and potentially uncomfortable earrings was par for the course, right? (Scroll through the latest celebrity style sightings on Vogue, and you’re unlikely to come across Jennifer Lawrence, Alex Consani, or Kendall Jenner sporting anything other than a blink and you miss it micro hoop.) Why then, you may ask, did I find myself returning to the department store piercing couch this past summer?
Just like that one time I got a perm (it lasted a week), I arrived at my appointment clutching an 1980s-themed visual reference. In this instance, however, it was a detail shot of Celine FW 2026, look 1. (For the perm, it had been a snap of a Mystic Pizza-era Julia Roberts.) Underneath a Blossom-style hat, the model wears a set of enormous mismatched silver earrings that graze the shoulders of her sharp black blazer. There was something Desperately Seeking Susan about it. “It” being my newly awakened desire to dress kind of “bad” by today’s scrupulously discreet tastes, and I have American designer Michael Rider, now in the swing of his tenure as artistic director of Celine, to thank for that.
Don’t get me wrong: Rider’s designs are exquisite. He is, after all, an alumnus of Phoebe Philo’s Celine and Nicolas Ghesquière’s Balenciaga, which is precisely why his clothes have flavor. In a sea of unsalted fashion, his silhouettes excite the palette. They are seasoned; they leave you full.
I was mid-way through explaining all this to the head piercer at Maria Tash in Harrods, Jasmine Takauchi, when she told me to sit up straight. During the next few minutes, she adjusted my posture and guided my breath, then quietly put a delicate 14-carat white gold huggie in each ear.
Unlike my OG mall piercing, the Maria Tash technique ensures your earrings face “towards the mirror” (rather than outwards), Takauchi explained. This is so that the wearer (and their camera lens) can enjoy their jewelry to the fullest.
