Earrings are my favourite type of jewelry, so it figures that my ears could not stand being pierced. I suffered for years, but even tiny pure gold studs were too much for me and the piercings never healed properly. I do wear clip-on earrings, but to my constant frustration, the selection these days is miserable.

This is where vintage earrings come in. I’m not generally a big vintage shopper – not that I have any fundamental issues with vintage, I do own a couple of truly fantastic pieces. But vintage often requires much work, both before and after buying and I’m all about the best effort/impact ratio. I don’t have time to hunt for vintage treasures and if I acquire something that needs to be altered, I’m likely to never wear it.

Vintage earrings are a different story: you try them on, you buy them or not. They are not entirely without issues, as they can take that clipping-on business too seriously and cut off the circulation in your earlobes (when I wear these to the opera or theatre, I’ll take them off as soon as the room goes dark). It’s also not necessarily easy to find something that would suit modern taste, but as there are so many older earrings around, there’s bound to be SOMETHING.

Yesterday, for example, I found these turquoise mother-of-pearl fan-shaped beauties on the Sablon antiques market for 20 euros. They are relatively simple, but the colour has a lot of impact and the shape is unusual. They also happen to be a perfect fit for the beige and brown seventies inspired clothes of the season. At least for the time I can keep them on.