Vintage rhinestone & black enamel huggie hoop earrings

Vintage Rhinestone & Black Enamel Huggie Hoop Earrings

Stripes of light and black, wrapped around the lobe.

The shape is called a huggie — a short, wide hoop that curves in close and holds the ear rather than hanging from it. It's a lovely thing to wear, because unlike a stud it doesn't disappear when you're seen from the side. It follows the curve of the lobe and stays visible from every angle, while never once swinging or catching.

Across the face of each one, the surface is banded: a row of clear rhinestones, then a stripe of glossy black enamel, then stones again, all the way round the curve. Black and clear together is one of the great pairings in jewellery — it came out of the Art Deco years and has never really left, because there is no colour it argues with.

The stones are pavé-set, and the word is worth knowing. Pavé is French for paved, and it describes exactly what you're looking at: stones placed so close together that the surface looks cobbled with light rather than dotted with it. It's harder to do than prong or bezel setting. Each stone needs its own drilled seat, sunk until the girdle sits level with the metal, and then the setter raises tiny beads of gold with a graver and pushes each one over the stone to hold it. Every bead is cut individually. Keeping a row straight is the hard part, and on this pair the rows aren't even straight — they bend around a curve, and they still line up.

Then the black enamel is laid in between and polished down flush, so that running a fingertip across the face gives you one continuous surface. Stone, black, stone, black, and no step between them.

They're clip fittings, so no piercing is needed, and because a huggie sits tight to the lobe there's nothing to snag on a collar, a scarf or your hair. You can pull a jumper over your head without thinking about them.

Wear them with hair tucked behind the ear, where the whole curve shows. They're small, but they hold light the way a much larger earring does — and clear and black will go with everything already in your wardrobe.

Material: Brass, 18K gold plating, rhinestones, enamel
Style: Huggie hoop
Era: 1950s–80s
Fittings: Clip-on
Condition: In very good vintage condition.
Made in, or sourced from: Australia

International Shipping:
All orders are shipped from Japan with tracking.

Asia: Shipping ¥3,800 / approx. 7–10 business days
Australia: Shipping AUD 30 / approx. 7–10 business days
Europe: Shipping €29 / approx. 7–15 business days

Delivery times exclude weekends and Japanese public holidays.
Customs duties or import taxes, if applicable, are the responsibility of the recipient.

Turning

Leaves turn. The light goes low and amber. Nothing announces itself — you simply notice, one morning, that the air has changed.

Turning is the autumn chapter of Passage. Four days, four quiet scenes from the weeks when summer lets go, and sixteen pieces drawn from the colours and the air of that shift.

Nothing here is dressed for the season. Some pieces are ornate, some almost plain. They were simply waiting when the light changed, held until now by hands we'll never know.

However you move through these days, we hope something here finds its way to you.