Pearls Are Back, and Not Just for Ladies Who Lunch

As the legendary Coco Chanel once said, “A woman needs ropes and ropes of pearls.” She herself was almost always seen wearing just that, and pearls quickly became one of the brand’s signature accessories as the Chanel name rose to prominence around the world.

Today, Chanel’s current successor, Karl Lagerfeld is committed to reinventing the use of pearls in his collections each season. Not only does he play with their size and shape, but also their location. Why not in the heel of a shoe? As a handbag? Or in a woman’s hair? With his spring 2017 show, Lagerfeld even made the case that robots will want to wear pearls in the future, and maybe even hang USB cords from them.

Unsurprisingly, other designers have also found inspiration in Chanel’s original “ropes and ropes” of pearls. Miu Miu sent fuzzy pool slides covered in pearls down its Fall 2016 runway, and Rihanna’s Fenty x Puma queens wore pearl chokers around their necks for her Spring 2017 show in Paris.

The designer giving both the late Chanel and Lagerfeld reason to clutch their pearls though is Gucci’s Alessandro Michele, who, per usual, is taking the trend one step further than anyone else. For his Resort 2018 show, which took place on Monday at the Pitti Palace in Florence, Italy, and brought out a star-studded crowd that included everyone from Jared Leto to Dakota Johnson and her sisters, everything was covered in pearls, from clothes to accessories—to even being glued on models’ eyebrows and scattered throughout their hair. Perhaps the most striking look was a pearl-covered head-cap, paired with round glasses a track suit and shimmering gold pants. Together, these pearl-slinging Gucci women looked like they’ed walked right out of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and into a bright future.

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