A Curated Ear or Two
Piercing bars, in-home services and virtual styling sessions have helped customers create personal constellations of piercings despite the pandemic.
Maria Tash doesn’t consider piercings anything new.
A designer of fine jewelry, Ms. Tash has been creating earrings for pierced ears since 1993, when she opened a studio in the East Village in New York. And in recent years, as she has added shops worldwide, she has devised adornments for lots of other pierced body parts.
“What is surprising to me,” she wrote in an email, “is the pent-up demand we saw during the pandemic, while our stores globally were closed” and the brand was holding virtual styling sessions online.
“We found that people needed the creative outlet and shared their dreams and plans for future piercings,” Ms. Tash said. “I was concerned mask wearing and the elastic loops around the ear cartilage could discourage curations, but thankfully that was not the case.” And now that the stores have reopened, she added, some appointments are booked months in advance.
It seems lots of women — and some men — are craving ornamentation, especially multiple piercings in the curves and whorls of the ear, creating personal constellations of twinkling studs.
Ms. Tash was a pioneer of the curated ear, using the appendage as a blank canvas for an aesthetic arrangement of jewelry that becomes a kind of self-expression. Since half of the face often may be hidden by a mask, it seems the ears have taken a turn in the spotlight.
The trend has been part of society’s refocus on personal space, like the rush to change interior décor, said Frédéric Godart, a sociologist and associate professor at Insead business school in France.
After all, he said, the public no longer thinks of piercing — or tattoos — as limited to gangsters or sailors.
“There has been a process of legitimation,” Mr. Godart said. “And when that happens, the practice spreads across social classes, which leads to an availability of superior services, with higher hygienic standards. If there is demand from the upper classes, a niche is created.”
Like Ms. Tash, Nawal Laoui, founder and owner of Persée, a jewelry brand based in Paris, was ready to fill that niche. “We wanted to renew the image of the piercing, to dust it off and make it more elegant, precious and contemporary,” she said.
In October, between national lockdowns in Paris, Persée opened its “bar à piercing” in the Galeries Lafayette department store on the Champs-Élysées. But what was intended to be a pop-up offering became so popular that it has become a fixture — at least for now. (The brand also offered an in-home service during the city’s lockdowns.)
Using the “ear map” displayed for reference, customers “become the creator of their ear, with this personalization aspect to choose, down to the millimeter, where they want to pierce,” Ms. Laoui said.
The classic — three holes on the lobe — is still the most popular choice, she said. “And after that, little by little people go up the ear. When they are reassured, they will make a fourth hole in the cartilage, for example.”
At Galeries Lafayette, the service is limited to the ears, but Ms. Laoui said more and more navel and nose piercings had been requested.
Ms. Laoui introduced Persée in late 2017, the result of her desire to create jewelry that could be worn every day. “Skin jewelry so light we forget we’re wearing it, but that has a certain singularity,” she said. “And the idea of the piercing came to me.”
Like Ms. Tash, Nawal Laoui, founder and owner of Persée, a jewelry brand based in Paris, was ready to fill that niche. “We wanted to renew the image of the piercing, to dust it off and make it more elegant, precious and contemporary,” she said.
In October, between national lockdowns in Paris, Persée opened its “bar à piercing” in the Galeries Lafayette department store on the Champs-Élysées. But what was intended to be a pop-up offering became so popular that it has become a fixture — at least for now. (The brand also offered an in-home service during the city’s lockdowns.)
Using the “ear map” displayed for reference, customers “become the creator of their ear, with this personalization aspect to choose, down to the millimeter, where they want to pierce,” Ms. Laoui said.
The classic — three holes on the lobe — is still the most popular choice, she said. “And after that, little by little people go up the ear. When they are reassured, they will make a fourth hole in the cartilage, for example.”
At Galeries Lafayette, the service is limited to the ears, but Ms. Laoui said more and more navel and nose piercings had been requested.
Ms. Laoui introduced Persée in late 2017, the result of her desire to create jewelry that could be worn every day. “Skin jewelry so light we forget we’re wearing it, but that has a certain singularity,” she said. “And the idea of the piercing came to me.”