Elizabeth Locke Earrings Hoops

Venetian-glass intaglios, ancient Greek and Roman coins, antique porcelain buttons and other treasures that Elizabeth Locke collects from around the world all inspire and are incorporated into her earrings, necklaces and other handmade designs.

The Virginia-based jeweler began her journey as a collector after she’d already launched her namesake jewelry line, and her assemblage of micromosaics, which are essentially miniature plaques composed of enameled-glass tesserae, were the subject of the 2020–21 exhibition “A Return to the Grand Tour: Micromosaic Jewels from the Collection of Elizabeth Locke” at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

“They’re very hard to find, and you never know where you’ll see them,” Locke explains of micromosaics, the magnificent, miniature works for which she’s had to navigate lesser-known antique shops and auctions and build relationships with private dealers in Europe.

All of Locke’s imaginative jewelry pieces see an integration of rare and eclectic materials, the kind that might’ve been amassed during a 19th-century Grand Tour of Europe, when these coming-of-age journeys had long been popular (mostly for wealthy European men). Working in a neoclassical style, Locke references history with a modern approach for her moonstone earrings, gold-link bracelets, Venetian-glass pendants and other distinctive accessories. As she told W magazine, “Jewelry is designed for the era in which it is worn.”

In 1988, as an editor for Town & Country, Locke traveled to Bangkok to write about making jewelry. Unexpectedly, she found her niche. Upon her return home, Locke enrolled in the Gemological Institute of America and began sketching ideas. By 1990, her tourmaline ring — crafted with the goldsmiths she had met in Bangkok and who she would continue to collaborate with over the following decades — landed the cover of W.

Locke’s handmade, 19-karat-gold designs give one-of-a-kind antiquities new meaning in the 21st century. Not one to follow trends, Locke prefers designs that express a unique vision. “I know what I can do and I know what I feel comfortable doing, and I stick to it,” she has said.

Find a collection of Elizabeth Locke’s jewelry on 1stDibs.

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.