Stefan Hafner Sapphire Diamond Earrings

Stefan Hafner is a fine jewelry house with deep roots in European design, combining Swiss precision with Italian craftsmanship. Bringing imagination to life in striking jeweled art, this luxury brand collaborates with an eclectic and acclaimed team of goldsmiths, fashion designers, graphic artists and photographers to create a magnificent catalog of baubles and bijoux of the highest quality. Stefan Hafner earrings, necklaces and other accessories merge astonishing design conceptualization with astute creativity.

Stefan Hafner opened in 1967 in Bologna, Italy, and was named after its Italian founder. Hafner displayed an early, keen interest in the beauty of jeweled art. He marveled at what could be achieved through technical experimentation and precious metals and gems. Hafner earned a name for himself by traveling the world with his designers, personally attending to the jewelry needs of royal families. Above all, he paid close attention to his clients’ desires and dreams.

Stefan Hafner’s collections often pay homage to masterful artists. The Venus collection was inspired by the Birth of Venus, the Renaissance painting by Botticelli, while the Monet ring collection pays tribute to the Water Lilies series of paintings by Impressionist artist Claude Monet.

Others are influenced by nature or materials. The Rugiada collection captures the elegance of morning dewdrops, and the Tulle collection references the delicate fabric in a graceful range of white gold and diamond necklaces, chandelier earrings and cocktail rings.

The luxury house’s modernist jewelry has achieved many prestigious awards, including the Best Design in Diamonds which it received three years in a row at the JCK Couture Jewelry Show in Las Vegas, where it also was honored with the Best Design in Show award in 2011.

On 1stDibs, find Stefan Hafner necklaces, earrings, rings and other jewelry.

In the United States, ear piercing didn’t really become popular until the 1950s and ‘60s, but our desire for a dazzling pair of vintage earrings has deeper roots than that. In fact, wearing earrings actually goes back thousands of years, and you can find many tangible connections between now and then in how we continue to talk about these treasured accessories.

Women wore ornamental earrings — studs and hoops at the very least — in Ancient Egypt, which is home to mines that are among the earliest sources of emeralds in the world. Emerald earrings are highly prized today, and their quality lies in their rich, saturated color. The highest-quality emeralds are green or bluish-green. Earrings worn by the affluent in early Roman civilizations were set with precious stones such as diamonds and pearls, and a clean-looking pop of pearl on the front of the lobe is as timeless as ever. Hoop earrings are imbued with symbolism and cultural significance for many, and on view in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Ancient Near Eastern Art Gallery is a pair of simple gold hoops from Mesopotamia dating to between 2600 and 2500 B.C.

Today, ear piercing is very popular all over the world, and, as a result, it is difficult to overstate how much everyone pines for a good pair of earrings — modernist drop earrings, glamorous Victorian hoops, geometrically complex chandelier earrings, you name it. Sure, jewelry trends and the fashion darlings of social media come and go, but earrings have a staying power that seems impenetrable: The still-strong love affair between British royals and Cartier earrings is more than a century old, glossy 1970s hoops from legacy houses such as Bulgari and Van Cleef & Arpels remain the statement makers they’ve always been and although people have been stacking earrings for many moons, the allure of an expertly mismatched stack of charms and studs still feels fresh and new.

While there is no shortage of modern earring designs to choose from, the classics, like coral earrings, Art Deco–style earrings and diamond drop earrings are still heavy hitters. On 1stDibs, find a wide range of antique, new and vintage earrings today.