The rise of multiple ear piercings
Laura Trott’s got FIVE and even middle-aged women are joining the trend. But is it a winning look?
WHEN Laura Trott took to the podium in Rio’s velodrome this week, she took her place in history as Britain’s most decorated female Olympian, in more than one way.
For along with her growing collection of gold medals, the cyclist’s earrings twinkled in the glare of photographers’ flashbulbs.
The 24-year-old’s triumphant smile was accessorised with this summer’s status symbol for style-conscious women: multiple ear piercings.
With her long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, she revealed her right ear has double piercings in the lobe and a diamond-encrusted ‘helix ring’ further up, while her left lobe is decorated with two different sized diamond studs.
While few of us will ever hang an Olympic medal around our necks, style-conscious, middle-class women are going for multiple gold in their ears, emulating other high-profile stars who are no longer satisfied with two simple hoops or studs.
Where once a modest tattoo was the status symbol for professional 40-something women hoping to prove they still had ‘it’ (think Samantha Cameron’s ankle dolphin), middle-class dinner parties are now peppered with women sporting backswept hairstyles that show off ears embellished with twinkling stars, gemstone flowers and glittering hoops.
No longer the preserve of rebellious, gothic teenagers, the multiple ear piercing has gone upmarket with several high-end fine jewellers attracting a glittering clientele.
Celebrities including Gwyneth Paltrow, Emma Watson and Scarlett Johannson have all trodden the path to New York’s piercing queen Maria Tash, whose delicate fine jewellery caters for the luxury end of the market.
Last week Tash opened her second studio in London’s Liberty, where specially trained piercers act as ear designers to help customers create the look they want.
Kevin, head piercer at the Maria Tash Liberty London studio (like many who are ‘legendary’ in their fields, he goes by only his first name), says that the majority of his clients are professional, designer-clad women looking for something pretty and feminine, with diamond-set jewellery proving the most popular.
With prices running into thousands of pounds for an individual earring, it’s not a throwaway trend.
‘Over the past two or three years, multiple piercing has definitely become more of a fashion statement among middle-class women wanting an individual look they can also wear to the office,’ he explains.
‘Women often come in with a fixed idea of what they’re after, but we are there to help them create a look that works with the anatomy of their ear and is flattering to their proportions.
‘So we design piercings with that in mind, choosing jewellery that sits properly in their ear.’
Multiple piercing opens up a whole new set of options for those of us only familiar with traditional lobe piercing.
Thanks to a host of celebrities choosing to decorate their ears with ever-more intricate piercing patterns, even normally conservative women are becoming braver in their choices.
ACTRESSES Cate Blanchett and Jennifer Lawrence and M& S model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley are all fans of ear candy, choosing to wrap ‘cuffs’ around the rims of their ears. Others, including Doctor Who actress Jenna Coleman, hang chains and gems from their lobes.
Meanwhile, Brooklyn Beckham’s girlfriend Chloe Grace Moretz and actress Emma Watson are fans of ‘crawlers’, earrings designed to fit from the lobe up around the rim of the ear, to create the illusion of an earful of jewellery.
Then you have Kate Moss, Sienna Miller, Cheryl Fernandez-Versini, Rihanna and Miley Cyrus who like to display hoops and studs on their inner ear as well as their lobes and helixes (the rim of the ear).
There are many places where an ear can be pierced. First there is the helix, the outer rim of cartilage. Then there is the outer conch (the next layer of ‘rim’), which Jennifer Aniston has pierced. Then comes the conch — the third ‘step’ into the ear — and the tragus, the tiny ‘flap’ of cartilage in the middle of the ear, where it joins your face.
Then, believe it or not, is the rook and the daith. The rook is a diagonal ridge of flat cartilage that runs across the ear and the daith is the ear’s innermost cartilage fold.
Therapists say all procedures are safe and relatively painless if carried out by a qualified therapist.
The question is are they really as glamorous as the women queueing up to have them think? Or just a desperate — and, some might say, ugly — symbol of trying to stand out from the crowd?