Different takes on heart accessories
Don’t search for heartshaped rings on the internet. It leads you to a series of failed celebrity romances and presumably to a trail of tears: Lady Gaga and Taylor Kinney, Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale, Nicki Minaj and Meek Mill.
As a design element, the heart is more like dots or stripes than it is a visual shorthand for romantic love.
If you want romance, try lace or oysters or deadstock midcentury Valentine’s Day cards or inside jokes engraved on the back of a Swiss-made watch.
Hearts can feel bold and fresh: Think the boxy black Supreme shirt with red heart prints that Timothee Chalamet wore on a latenight talk show several years ago. Another way to wear your heart on your sleeve would be a Nirvana “Heart-Shaped Box” allover print tee, recently going for four digits on Etsy.
To add just a little heart to your life, try a Deborah Pagani heart-shaped hair pin for Gucci Westman or a Blumarine belt with a heart-shaped buckle. Loewe carries sunglasses with heart-shaped lenses, and like everything Jonathan Anderson designs, they’re surreal enough that you can feel safe that no one will mistake you for paying homage to Stanley Kubrick’s “Lolita.” You might try to track down some of Chanel’s chunkier costume jewelry with hearts. On the RealReal, you can find things like a red Chanel blouse with a black bow and a quilted heart from the Karl Lagerfeld years.
Even if you don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, here are some hearts for the romantics and pragmatists alike.
Tiffany & Co.
Hearts can lean a little
bit cutesy, even skewing twee. If you’d rather die alone than give someone a candy heart, or are the kind of person who hates anything sweet (literal or figurative), try the jade pendant with an 18-karat gold mesh chain from the Elsa Peretti Open Heart collection for Tiffany. It’s sexy and just a tad louche. The fresh green of the jade contrasts so well with the slinky 28-inch chain. Wear it with a beat-up vintage denim shirt buttoned so low even BernardHenri Levy would blush. ($4,900)
Alaia
Remember when Rihanna wore that Yves Saint Laurent heartshaped fur in 2016? Or maybe you bought the Erin Fetherston for Target heart-shaped bag in 2007? I was just doing some shopping reconnaissance and came across Alaia’s Le Coeur bag. It’s small enough not to look gimmicky, but large enough to actually carry necessities. The shade of red is the right balance of cool and warm. (from $1,170)
Stephen Dweck
Stellene Volandes, the editor-in-chief of Town & Country who knows a lot about jewelry, said she was “a heart-jewelry skeptic for years” but is now drawn to them, pointing
to lines like Foundrae and Briony Raymond. In that same vein, jeweler Stephen Dweck, who used to design for Geoffrey Beene, makes the most decadent pair of earrings. You know when people ask you what your love language is? Here’s mine: “Pink Tourmaline, Conch Shell and Diamond Earrings in 18K Gold.” ($28,865)
Paco Rabanne
A hood made of linked metal hearts looks like something you’d see in the armor section of the Met, but also like something model Pat Cleveland would have worn to a club in the 1970s. (about $700)
Mondo Mondo
Hearts were big in the late 1980s, with bold, unapologetically big jewelry from Christian Lacroix or Chanel or Yves Saint Laurent. Natasha Ghosn, the designer of the Los Angeles jewelryfragrance-candle line Mondo Mondo, may be the real heir to that aesthetic. So it’s not surprising that she has a lot of heart motifs. One necklace looks like a piece of jewelry a scorned woman in a Jackie Collins novel would have ripped off her neck and thrown out a window after being betrayed by her man. It comes in silver and gold plate, but the silver feels a little less obvious and little more tender. ($250)