You’re going to be mad at us for this. We’re giving you off-colour stuff for the weekend. Who in the whole wide world would want us to make plain hoop earrings for them? –– they’re not exactly the last word in fine jewellery design are they. And what could we, purveyors of bespoke jewellery that we are, possibly do that’s different from what a hoop earring is fated to be : a hoop earring.
Let’s embark on that interesting journey then. What did we really do that made these hoops more than what their shape and structure allowed them to be?
To start with, the form –– a hollow tube –– and size was specified by the customer (who lives in Singapore) and she even left an imitation sample for us to replicate in toto. We didn’t. Not in exactitude. We just couldn’t bring ourselves to imitate the imitation. But the deviations are subtle and the effect so much better than the costume jewellery control that you’ll know in a trice how detailing determines the aesthetic worth of a fine jewel. The two primary changes we’ve made are to the texture –– instead of the silky sandblasted surface given us, we’ve kept ours high-polished –– and to the taper which, in our case, is a wee bit finer at the ends, thereby making the earring look and feel lighter without compromising on the aura of its generous circumference. Also, ours has a simple post with a push that clamps it to the ear instead of a spring mechanism that’s used in industrially-cast jewellery.
Still, getting us to make your hoops to a costume sample doesn’t really allow us to play to our strengths. Replication has never been our forte and we advise against bringing us photographs to make perfect copies of and leaving us no freedom to customize the design to your needs. We should at least be able to interpret the details to suit you and translate the sample to fine jewellery in a way that makes the ornament exclusive to you. We took those liberties with this pair of hoops.
As a persistently popular genre of earrings, hoops do, in fact, make a subtle statement if you want to wear gold but not show too much of it. Also, they’re fun, and don’t impinge on your natural countenance because of their lightness of volume, circular shape, and capacity to reflect light in a ring that defines your profile instead of ornamenting it. But you’ll have to be able to carry them off, of course. So unless you’re Instagram delight (and Shahrukh Khan’s daughter) Suhana Khan or THE Jennifer Lopez, both of whose face-neck proportions are . . . well . . . near perfect, you’d be better off wearing smaller hoops closer to your lobes.
That said, have you seen the movie Hustlers? –– a fiercely absorbing multi-starrer that tells (in its own way) the true story of a group of exotic dancers who trick their rapacious Wall Street clients into parting with humongous amounts of their cash when the 2008 crash comes, a sort-of “recession-era revenge story” with a fantastic feminine spin. In addition to the stellar cast of Ms.Lopez, Constance Wu and Cardi B, there’s one more starring role performed by a prominent accessory : Hoops. Yup, they’re right up there with the ladies (witness MsLopez and Ms.Wu wearing their power earrings), cementing their friendships and showing them to be a formidable female force.
No further case need be made out in favour of hoop earrings. We’ll happily make some for you with a twist if you want us to.