Do These Earrings Make Me Look Fat?

Earring: Rosanne Pugliese, Barney’s New York

As my style and mood evolves, so do my fashion obsessions. Which lately has been earrings. This obsession is directly tied to my hair.  I’ve been letting it grow out. Which, as everyone knows, is a nightmare. My hair started short.  Very short, “shaved on the sides” short.  Like this:

Location: Cat Sanctuary among ruins in Rome, 2010. Wardobe: Sunglasses, vintage Lanvin, ring vintage Courreges, both ebay. Leather blazer Rick Owens, Henri Bendel.

Note the bare ears:  Such a prime piece of fashion real estate begging to be adorned. Yet the ears stayed vacant for years.  I was too lazy and too un-girly to go there.

But as some of you know, I made some life changes, fell deeply in love, and started to grow my hair out.

I discovered non-gigantic underwear, perfume that didn’t come in bottles shaped like cars and the fact that earrings made me feel…feminine.  For someone who’s short spiky haired sneered “Fuck off”, my softer longer hair whispered “fuck me.” And for the first time ever, I was OK with that.

As with every category of fashion, it has taken me a lifetime to figure out (and continue to figure out) what works and what doesn’t. It’s exhausting. But oh so worth it.

Earrings are no exception. There are studs and drops and hoops. They come in silver, gold, pearl, diamonds, plastics and metals.  And they can be big, small, circular, square, tear-drops, spirals, you name it.

And although they are small and seemingly harmless, you really do need to try them on. (I really wish there were mini-dressing rooms in the jewelry department, because I hate to hold up/try on earrings in public. Just saying.)

My learning thus far is this:  long dangly earrings, which look so elegant behind the jewelry case or on a catalog model’s ear, drag my whole face down to cause a most unsettling horsiness to set in. Long face + long earrings = Mr. Ed.

So if anybody out there has any tips, please send them my way.  I’m all ears.

Incidentally, the earring in the opening photo is from my favorite recent pair, which JSlow helped me pick out during our Spring “Ladies Who Lunch.” “Earring” is the operative word, as I lost the other one the other day. Which really blows. But I’m an earring rookie.  I’ll learn.

Thank god shoes aren’t as easy to lose as earrings.  That would really blow.