Dynamite Danglers
Kieeran Manral explores the resurgence of chandelier earrings and the glitterati sporting them!

They’re what you might call the ultimate in the `j` world right now. Chandelier earrings, with their over the top razzmatazz, are suddenly everywhere and on everyone. Internationally, chandelier earrings became hot when Richard Graziano first showed them in 1999. But it took a feature in the November 1999 issue of Vogue magazine to skyrocket it to ultimate trendy accessory status. It also took a Jennifer Lopez wearing a traditional Indian chand -bali variant of chandelier in diamonds to make us sit up and gasp. Yup, these are the very same designs, which have been part of most Indian women’s inherited jewellery collection, but, as usual, it took us some time and the foreign gaze to appreciate their beauty and chic appeal.

What are chandelier earrings? Simple. They’re basically, large dangling earrings, often set with two coloured stones for contrast, with a minimum length of at least two inches and going up to as long as can graze the shoulders. The classic shape is narrow at the earlobe and widening at the base, with dangles to add movement, and layered for added interest.

Check out the eye popping emerald and diamond earrings that Karisma Kapoor wore to the recent Filmfare Awards, or more recently Kareena Kapoor’s danglers at the IIFA awards at Singapore. Preity Zinta too, while normally understated and minimalistic in her chic look, prefers the occasional splash of chandelier earrings to perk up her look(check out the ruby and diamond jewellery she accepted her Filmfare award for `Kal Ho Na Ho` in). And while Aishwarya’s wardrobe at Cannes last year did come in for a lot of flak-her jewellery did include her favourite chandelier earrings. Malaika Arora and sis Amrita are big on chandelier earrings, as are most of Bollywood. Sophia Chowdhry, Celina Jaitley, Kim Sharma and Sameera Reddy are amongst the younger brigade whose look isn’t complete until they have a pair of shoulder brushing chandeliers on. The original Bollywood diva, Rekha, has a huge collection of chandelier earrings in both traditional and contemporary versions.

In the international arena chandelier loyalists include Elizabeth Hurley, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lopez (the original diva of bling-bling) and Beyonce Knowles. The moral of the story therefore is that chandeliers are not for the meek. This is a strong, feminine and intensely sexy style statement that only confident, alluring women can carry off with panache.

What are our traditional jhumkas and balis with latkans but variants of the same? And given the long association international jewellery design greats like Harry Winston, Cartier and Chopard had with Indian jewellery, its only natural that their range would include variants of the traditional Indian dangling earrings (now dubbed chandelier earrings) in precious stones. The cross cultural influence of jewellery design began with the colonial rule in India which saw Indian maharajas and royalty get their precious stones reset by jewellers like Cartier, Harry Winston and Bvlgari. Cartier most famously, was inspired by the Indian design heritage and picked up motifs and elements of Indian jewellery design to be incorporated into their jewellery collections. Indian jewellery design was already a cross cultural fusion between the delicate motifs of the Persian monarchy and the existing Hindu rulers, and when taken to Western shores to adapt to western sensibilities, the designs underwent a further refinement during the Edwardian era to include the use of stones which were not traditional in Indian design which is primarily based on gold, pearls, diamonds, rubies, emeralds. The traditional Indian chand- bali earring in fact is the basis of what is now termed the chandelier earring.

International designers, with the introduction of South Sea pearls, coloured stones and white gold settings have morphed the chand- bali into the chandelier earring. Many of these design houses also had jewellery designers from India on their design teams who brought in Indian influences in elements of design, motifs, etc to their designs. Internationally, jewellery designers and jewellery houses like Harry Winston, Fred Leighton, Chopard and Cellini to name a few have brought chandelier earrings into the limelight with their jewellery placement on Hollywood stars during big ticket ward function nights like the Golden Globes, the Academy Awards, the Emmys and the Grammies. At this year’s Golden Globe Awards and the 76th Academy Awards, Chopard’s jewellery took centrestage and with it chandelier earrings that most of the stars seemed to favour this year. Amongst those spotted wearing them were Eva Mendes and Julianne Moore.

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