Lalaounis Snake Earrings

It’s fitting that Ilias Lalaounis (1920–2013) is the only jeweler ever inducted into the prestigious Académie des Beaux-Arts — the Greek jeweler’s creations, such as his decorative gold necklaces and rings, are less fashion adornment and more works of art.

Lalaounis was born in Athens in 1920 to a family of goldsmiths and watchmakers with origins in Delphi. Before turning to the family business, Lalaounis studied law, economics, business and music and trained with the painter Alexandros Alexandrakis. Such a well-rounded education laid the foundation for his unique approach to jewelry.

Lalaounis took the helm of his uncle’s jewelry company in 1940. The impact of the Second World War on Greece inspired the jeweler to celebrate his country’s history by reinterpreting its artifacts into new works of art. In 1957, Lalaounis founded the Greek Jewelers’ Association and exhibited at the Thessaloniki International Fair, showcasing the first of his “collections,” as he would come to define his phases of work. This, the Archaeological Collection, was informed by classical and Hellenistic history.

Lalaounis would go on to find new ways to render historic motifs in gold and gemstones after founding his namesake house in 1969. For his 1970s-era collection, Blow Up, he displayed gold pieces inspired by Minoan art on his models’ entire bodies; after opening a store in Tokyo, he presented a collection informed by Japanese art. Later, Lalaounis introduced a collection inspired by Native Americans at his Madison Avenue store in Manhattan. One of the jeweler’s most important commissions came in 1976, when he designed a collection that drew on Persian art for Empress Farah of Iran.

In 1984, Lalaounis explored his unique creative vision with a book, Metamorphoses. By the 1990s, he had stores across Europe as well as in Tokyo, Hong Kong and New York City, and his work had been exhibited at the National Museum of American History and the Penn Museum in Philadelphia, to name a few. In 1994, he founded his own eponymous museum in Athens, with a permanent collection of pieces from 45 of his collections. Lalaounis died in 2013.

Lalaounis’s research-driven approach to jewelry design gives his pieces a depth on par with any art form.

Find an ornate assortment of Ilias Lalaounis’s yellow-gold necklaces, rings and more 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.