articles about the “wild new trend” of piercing from the late ‘50s and early ‘60s are fascinating to read. a selection of excerpts:
- one doctor cautioned that girls with pierced ears would be “required to constantly wear earrings to hide the holes in their heads” (or you could just not be weird about a tiny dot on someone else’s earlobe?)
- Genevieve Dariaux, then director of the Nina Ricci couture house, said in 1965 that “Pierced ears are unthinkable for an elegant woman, and even more dreadful for a young girl.” bear in mind that, as I’ve said, earrings that made your ears LOOK pierced were still common. what the difference was, nobody has yet made plain
- lots of evidence that going to a doctor was the preferred “safe” method for piercing at the time. but many doctors refused to do it, or said they would but that they strongly discouraged patients from having the procedure done. this checks out with my mother’s experience in 1965- her schoolmate’s anesthesiologist father did free piercing for all his daughter’s friends
- some teenagers around 1965 called clip and screwback earrings “chicken earrings” (implying that the wearers were too scared of pain to get their ears pierced, I think)
- one advice column, also from 1965, implied that pierced ears were just a passing fad. the previous several centuries of western history would like a word, Mx. Columnist…
- A GIRL WITH RESTRICTIVE PARENTS BRINGING UP THE ARGUMENT THAT HER GRANDMOTHER HAD PIERCED EARS. YES. FINALLY SOMEONE REALIZED THE LOGICAL FALLACIES HERE. the argument against that is, indeed, a sort of “that was the Bad Old Days and we know better now” deal as some other commenters have hypothesized
- one article mentions that the trend could be part of the Victorian revival that was just becoming popular in the mid-60s, which is a fascinating thought I’ve never considered before
- many doctors complaining that they were suddenly being called upon to pierce ears despite not really knowing how. this is interesting, because before the Great Ear-Piercing Taboo, jewelers offering piercing services were more like modern piercers than Claire’s employees (and doctors weren’t involved at all unless an infection set in). descriptions I’ve read of Victorian piercer-jewelers mention a lot of things we’re familiar with today- needles designed with a hollow for inserting the starter jewelry, for example, and even “freezing” solutions to numb the earlobe. so in those early resurgence days, going to a long-established jewelry store for your piercing might actually have been a better option than a doctor’s office
- two young women in a 1964 Canadian article (from Calgary) mention that they think screwback earrings look cheap and gaudy, and the pierced version is more conservative and tasteful, in an interesting reversal of mainstream thought
- a newspaper columnist saying pierced ears give him “the wim-wams,” so they are to be avoided. whatever the hell that means
- a LOT of people seem to think that ear piercing was popular in the Victorian era because wealthy women didn’t want to lose their expensive jewelry. sorry folks- my collection of Victorian costume earrings (all pierced) says otherwise
- much confusion as to why modern girls want to do something so old-fashioned
- one woman marvels at how comfortable it is to wear earrings in pierced ears, as opposed to clips and screwbacks. I feel infinitely blessed, as an earring-lover, to have been born when I could escape the scourge of ear-vises altogether
- apparently an eccentric elderly man on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, literally bribed all the women of the community to pierce their ears because he liked the way it looked. one of them mentioned that she held out for $25- $244 CAD or $188 USD in today’s money. all because some rich Victwardian codger had a very specific fetish
- this absolutely incredible response of an Indian diplomat’s wife when asked, in New York, why she wore a diamond nose stud: “Because I feel [diamonds] become me more than rubies or emeralds.” QUEEN
- “when the fad changes, as it indubitably will-” are you certain of that, ma’am
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