Why Ladylike Jewelry is Making a Comeback
Look down—your jewelry is all wrong! That neck-mess flopping on your chest, clanking with horseshoes and horoscope charms? Too noisy. The armload of bracelets you’re brandishing, Nancy Cunard–style? Keep the loveliest one and lock up her sisters. Those towers of rings crushing your fingers? Trade them for a lone blockbuster.
The pendulum—or should we say triple strand of pearls—has swung in the other direction. Legacy pieces from historic brands (talk to me, Harry Winston) are what we want now. One of those Tiffany & Co. crosses, perhaps, or a Verdura black-and-white cuff.
The desire, in other words, is for ladylike jewelry that is clean and sleek and has enduring value, the kind that’s as good as (sometimes better than!) money in the bank. What’s driving this interest? It’s not the latest TikTok aesthetic. Far from it. Fashion may have something to do with it. The slender sheaths on Prada’s 2024 fall runway are crying out for a massive bubble-shaped cocktail ring; those sleek shifts at Michael Kors’s show clearly crave a Schlumberger Bird on a Rock.
As it turns out, a subtly chic ensemble in double-face cashmere provides the perfect backdrop for these singular baubles. Then again, there is really no reason your everyday outfit would not benefit from an extravagant jewel. In fact, at the Cartier presentation in Paris in January, a spectacular piece was pinned to the waistband of a pair of blue jeans, and it looked perfectly happy to be there. Maybe our collective obsession with Ryan Murphy’s Feud: Capote vs. The Swans has something to do with it.
“As a group they had a very simple elegance—no frills, no excess. Very confident, very precise,” says Lou Eyrich, the show’s costume designer, of those midcentury denizens of La Côte Basque. But, she adds, in light of their sartorial restraint, “the power of a single piece of jewelry can elevate a whole outfit. The jewelry had a bold confidence.”
We may never reach the impeccable heights of those legendary women, who spent all day, every day, literally keeping up appearances. Then again, we can have more fun. On a good day you could even take a second look at the brooch (an item that jewelers have been trying to revive for the last half century, with varying results).
The jewelry historian Marion Fasel credits men with the return of the pin, and it is true that a hot dude striding the red carpet with diamonds on his lapel has done much to resuscitate this beleaguered item. This is also the rare jewel that can introduce a bit of whimsy—like a JAR zebra—into an otherwise prim and proper getup. Even uber-Swan Babe Paley punctuated an austere frock with a Jean Schlumberger starfish.
Or you could eschew the faintly wacky brooch in favor of that demure classic, the button earring. Dara Allen, a model, stylist, and fashion editor, confesses that she has a big collection of these and wears them pretty much every day.
“They just work for me. They’re simple and not too fussy,” Allen says. “They lift your face up.” Allen’s muses include not just those infernal Swans but icons like Audrey Hepburn and Jacqueline Onassis, and even someone who isn’t, strictly speaking, real.
This character, usually seen rocking an Alice-blue ballgown, with a headband holding back her impeccable blond hair and always a pair of button earrings lighting up her exquisite face, has long been an inspiration. “Since I was very young,” Allen says, “I have loved Cinderella!”
This story appears in the May 2024 issue of Town & Country, with the headline "The Year of the Swan." SUBSCRIBE NOW
You Might Also Like
